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"You gain strength,
courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really
stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think
you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt
"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
To not dare is to lose oneself."-Soren Kierkegaard
Patience and perseverance
have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles
vanish. -John Quincy Adams
The best Christmas gift I can give you all
is one more article to keep you fired-up and motivated to set some
new goals for next year. I will stick to what I do best in hopes
of helping you be the best you can be.and push for that miracle
this year!
I feel like I am in
a coliseum of barefooters screaming for carnage. I keep hearing,
"give us the flip.give us the flip...we want the flip or nothing
at all!"
Under pressure from
the masses, I am about to let loose the fury of a challenge that
is meant to be met by a few select Gladiators!
Everyone who can stand
thinks the flip might be the next most logical step. Before you
walk in the coliseum, I want to make sure you are prepared for the
fury that you are about to meet! We need our swords drawn and our
backs to each other because although we can win this war if we work
together, someone is going to get sacrificed because they did not
do there homework.
WARNING: This is not
like working on your golf swing! Well, it might be if you are practicing
in Kabul, Afghanistan.
What do you need to
enter the coliseum?
The following armor
is recommended if you like all your body parts right where they
are;
#1 Great front one
foots, toe-holds on the long line
#2 Great tumble turns
on the long line
#3 Wake and surface
hops
#4 Very strong, very
tough, hard to bluff!
#5 My two-hour instructional
video (
http://www.thefootersedge.com/videos/index.html)
is a must for those of you who are serious about this, but I will
not harp more on this here except to say you have about a week left
to get in on the FREE week of skiing (drawing) with me down here
in paradise which will be announced January 1, 2002!
Several tips will
help you before ever attempting this on your feet.
#1 lots of dry-land
practice
#2 do them on the
Dawg Paws until you are the king
#3 NEW APPROACH: If
you have a boat that allows you to ski off the boom on a 10-foot
rope without being pummeled by chine spray, I recommend doing this
first on Dawg Paws there, then on your feet.
#4 It is not a bad
idea to try these techniques I am about to teach you and then letting
go on the landing a couple of times to keep from getting injured.
#5 Video yourself
to get the most out of your practice sessions.
#6 The very best gift
you can give yourself is longevity. Therefore, it is much better
to come down here and let me guide you through this process personally
to give you the best shot at learning this safely without scaring
yourself to the point to where you will not be able to do it!!!!!!!!
Yet.the coliseum keeps
screaming!
Open the gates.
The flip requires;
#1 Good vision
#2 A hard pull with
great handle placement.
#3 Explosive strength
#4 Great RECOMPRESSION!
# 5 You also need
a great grip and a commitment to keeping the handle when you get
smacked in the back. One of the great challenges is to not loose
your composure when you get slapped on the back.
The first challenge
is to move the rope where it is out of the way and in a safe place
so you have room to flip. If you do not move the handle, you could
end up flipping and putting your head or arm through the handle.
This would be a BAD
thing!
Your first decision
is to decide which hip feels better to pull the handle to? I pull
to my left hip while others pull to their right. Practice this on
land to get your best pull.
Your next decision
is to decide how you are going to hold the handle. Try this out
to see which feel the best. I recommend that both hands be touching
each other in either a baseball grip or palms down grip. If you
decide to use a baseball grip, slide your hands to one end with
the excess part of the handle pointing down so it stays out of your
way! (Gig tip!)
Once you have this
squared away, practice pulling the handle to either your left hip
or your right hip.
CRITICAL 911 FLIP
HANDLE POSITIONING WARNING!
When it ends up at
your hip, your forearm should be squished like you are trying to
cover your belt from being seen. This handle position is critical
and difficult to hold. Once you have started your rotation, the
pull comes from a different direction much like a tumble turn, so
you will have to push the handle to keep it in this critical position.
The wise warrior will
reread this last paragraph until it is tattooed on his brain and
the belt buckle has formed a permanent impression on his forearm!
Once you achieve critical
handle pull and put it in its happy place, you will rotate your
body around your forearm in the same way as you would rotate around
a jungle gym bar on the playground. You know the one you would circle
around with your hips, right?
If
this is not enough of a challenge, once the lift off sequence
has been initiated (picture this as the same security needed to
launch a missile-if not for entertainment purposes alone!), you
must learn the art of my
RECOMPRESSION technique!
Lane Dawg Bower's
patented RECOMPRESSION technique revealed!
This new technology
is critical for two skills so far as I can tell; front and back
surface hops and flips!
My RECOMPRESSION
technique always follows an explosive move such as is required
by the set-up for a front flip or hop. When unleashing your explosive
strength for this technique, you will always explode only to the
point of great knee bend and not beyond. Do not be swayed by the
Dark side into full leg extension.
Friends do not let
friends barefoot waterski with full leg extension (with the exceptions
of starts and at the top of the perfect barefoot jump)!
Therefore, after exploding from a super duper
knee bend into a 90 degree knee bend, you will be moving towards
the upside down part of the flip.
NOW is the time to
initiate my patented RECOMPRESSION technique! To do
this you will recoil your hamstrings like you are trying to hit
your buttocks with your heels! This will ensure that upon your landing
that your feet will hit the water in something close to a Three-Point
Position!
Let's put all this together into the correct
order because I am getting tired of writing!
Regardless of where
you are attempting this, edging away from the side to which you
will be pulling the handle will be a big help.
Get even on both feet
so you can initiate the explosion evenly.
Great vision helps
if you WATCH the handle into its happy place (see CRITICAL 911 FLIP
HANDLE POSITIONING WARNING!) and helps initiate your flip as you
tuck your chin.
Initiate the explosion
while pulling the handle in and tucking your head.
As the handle touches
your hip you should be rocking forward in front of your feet with
your eyes open, your handle in its happy place, and your head at
about the same height as your handle (above the water).
As your feet come
off the water, you have achieved the critical upside down position
where you must initiate the RECOMPRESSION technique.
You should end up
landing just past your shoulder blades to ensure a rounded landing
on the curve of you back. You should be keeping your ankle flex
to be sure you are ready to ski out (read Ultra Mega Glide at
http://www.thefootersedge.com/ne14.htm)
Get ready for a hard
pull ensuring you have maintained the CRITICAL 911 FLIP HANDLE POSITION!
You now have more
information on the flip than has ever been published. You have the
leading edge technology that I have spent the last 15 years mastering.
If this article has
been a help or even entertaining to you, PLEASE do me a favor and
refer at least one person to get my FREE Ebook, as this is critical
to my success. I have done the work for you so all you have to do
is cut and paste the following information below into an email and
send it to your friend!
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Hi
(Insert their name here)
Do
you subscribe to Lane "Dawg" Bowers Free Barefoot Tips Newsletter?
I
do, and I think it's great because....(insert your own reasons here)
Subscriptions
are FREE and you get a copy of Lane's 159-page
"Be
the Best Barefooter on Your Lake" Ebook with 48 articles covering
everything from The Easiest Way to Learn to Barefoot Water
Ski to Learning to Backwards Barefoot to Jumping
Inverted...
Just
go to http://www.thefootersedge.com/free_ebook
and you can get all the details.
Talk
to you soon!
(Your
Name Here)
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Thanks for helping out! I appreciate it...
