Let's Talk About What Can Loosely Be Called Tumble Turns

So last August I had tried some tumble turns with very little luck. I decided to give them another attempt yesterday. I hit the water yesterday morning with the Bells, Sandy and Teri. We had all been out late the night before, so morning came early, even if it wasn't that early. I arrived at 830, they arrived about ten minutes later ready to ski.

I took the first set, just doing some long runs around the bay. Most of the way around one way, then turned around and went most of the way back around. It just felt good to have a few nice calm runs again after my random roller run from Thursday night (it would have been good water, but just roller after roller after roller until I finally hit one that felt like a double up... I caught air and landed on my side, hard; then I took another run).

We then setup the boom and Sandy took the first run. She really wants to work on her one foots. She does a little work on them, mainly cleaning up her form because her natural stance has her knees together and she's back on her heels. She knows she has to have a more natural stance with her knees in a bit more natural position, not so close together, and also not so far back on her heals. After her foot runs she took a set on her barefoot trainers and managed to clean her form a little and do some one foots on the trainers.

Sandy about to throw a tumble. You can see how she keeps her knees close together.
She's even catching a little air with left foot.

Next on the water was Teri. She also threw some tumbles and then did a little work on her one foots as well.

Teri on the water. She's not a fan of the weeds that we're going through.

Then I took another set, almost anxious to try some tumble turns again. I'd been thinking about them since the night before when we talked about putting on the boom. Like last August, I never quite got them right, but Sandy and Teri did say I managed to get about 3/4 of the way around once. While the other attempts weren't nearly as good, they did provide some funny photos.

First tumble attempt... something tells me this isn't the right way to finish a tumble.
It looks like I'm leading with my legs to finish the spin, instead of the hips.

Another tumble attempt. Same problem.

My best attempt, but didn't make this one either. Need to keep the rope in by my hips.

Now I'm just getting tired.

After heading home to drop off the boat and grab some lunch and an unexpected nap, I turned around and went back to the lake to meet up with Beau (aka Peaches), Bugs and 7. Beau was taking his old school jet ski to the lake to play with. Still a little sore from the morning, I just played the role of spectator. At one point Beau wondered how long it would take to go across the lake and back on the jet ski and decided to find out. Well, the wind was blowing strong out of the southwest, so he didn't have calm water. I actually wondered if he'd have enough gas to make it there and back. About 30 minutes later, he finally did make it back. Then just about everyone cracked open some of the new Lienie's Summer Shandy that the Bug man had brought along. I had a feeling it was going to be a fruity beer and was right. A lot of lemonade flavor to it, but I didn't care for it. I'm not one for fruity beers.

Then after heading home to catch another nap after eating some supper, I headed back to the lake a 3rd time. This time to Russ's to sit around a fire and drink some beer. We had a few isolated showers (which Jaws felt sorry for since they were lonely) while drinking beer, but they didn't stop us.

Finally roll back into the garage about midnight, exhausted, ready for some sleep. It was long day, most of it at the lake, spent with good friends. Every day should be like this.

You can find all of the pictures from the morning ski run here.