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WATERSKI MagazineBarefoot skiing is strenuous and tiring,” wrote Walter N. Prince in 1956. Author of Waterskiing for All, Prince aptly described the feeling of the day when he said, “Your legs and arms will immediately feel the strain, and your thighs, particularly, will begin to ache only seconds after you have stepped out of your skis.”
How things have changed. What used to be accepted philosophy on footing – you needed brute strength and tons of speed to walk on water – is now a thing of the past. Even though back barefooting didn't come along until three years after Prince's book (Randy Rabe became the first to foot in reverse in '59), the philosophy was the same during the '60s. The concepts of posture and glide have recently created a paradigm shift in barefooting. While it sounds like some university study was done to come up with that statement, let's just say that posture and glide are doing for barefooting what twin-tip boards did for wakeboarding – taking it to the next level.
Good posture in sports is not a new concept. Look at any sport and you will find posture is the foundation upon which all other skills are built. Using your body's alignment to put you in a powerful position is a common-sense approach that all world-class athletes use. Let's look at how the concepts of posture and glide, developed by Lane Bowers over the last few years, can take your back barefooting to the next level.
Good posture in backward barefooting is a good bend at the waist, chest up, shoulders back, lower back arched, butt out to the handle and feet relaxed. This position is what we call the “power band.” In this position, your body is rock solid and will resist getting pulled over the top.
On the flip side (literally, since you'll take a couple of head packers if you do it this way), bad posture is skiing with your back slumped and shoulders rolled down. Bad posture is also defined by total body lock: head, shoulders, back and legs all in the same plane locked straight with the handle away from your butt. With “body lock,” you will need high speeds to stay on top of the water. And, if you feel like you are balancing on the ragged edge of pain, you are. The slightest change in wind will blow you onto your skull.
You can feel the difference between good posture and bad posture by doing a simple test on land. Get a handle and let someone hold the end of the loop while you get into back barefoot position – the power band. Next, have your human tow pylon try to pull you over. You should be very solid and resist being pulled over. Then, try the backward slump position and the body lock. If you're in either of these positions, you'll get dropped on your butt. You can feel why the power band is the most powerful position. Practice the good posture position on dry land, then with footing trainer skis, then on your feet.
Posture is great, but it's nothing without glide. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. Glide is simply skiing across the water instead of plowing through it. Glide position is having your hips over your toes. To get in this position, think about pushing your butt or hips to the handle. The physics of glide are simple: The farther in front your feet are (or back in the case of back barefooting), the more drag you are forcing on your feet and your body. Get the coefficient of drag to a minimum by good glide position and you will find that you can ski at much slower speeds and have incredible control over your feet.
Good glide, along with the power band of good posture, has changed footing and will revolutionize the way you ski backward. Now, Walt Prince needs to rewrite his book.
Richard Gray, part owner of The Barefoot Company (800-665-3188), has a degree in physics and coaches the Canadian barefoot team.
