Each waterski DVD that comes out generates a good variety of buzz and chatter on the web, and after watching Gifted it's obvious that somebody has been listening. That somebody is Brad Priekulis of Ski-HD. This DVD is jam-packed with audio and visual stimulation that gives your mind one hell of a 66-minute ride. Slalom? Yep. Jump? You betcha. Crashes? A whole chapter of them. Trick? Sure, a little. Interviews? Hell yes. Music? Awesome. What Gifted brings to the table is balance. A little bit of everything. Lots of different scenery. Lots of different skiers. Lots of different music.

The DVD opens with a high-intensity intro, followed by an awesome montage of crashes, wipeouts, and yard sales. Right off the bat you realize that this DVD means business, tuning in your senses for what's about to follow.

Ian Trapp, Damien Sharman, and Ryan Fitts follow in the next scene, killing it in Jump and Slalom with Bennett's Tri-Lakes facility providing the backdrop. The three of them are interviewed on the Lake #2 dock with the lake in the background. I couldn't help but think of how many times I've stood right there waiting for my next set- many times. That whole place is sacred ground and I was really excited to see it featured so much in this film.

The next scene features Trent Finlayson (T$), Billy Susi, and Thomas Moore (T-Mo), with interviews and buoy-slaying a-plenty. Maybe I should think about a nickname with a "$" sign in it? I'm starting to think about it. Tom and Will Asher follow, with Karina Nowlan— again, interviews, music, skiing. Brad uses translucent overlays heavily in this movie, showcasing skiing action with an interview layered on top of it. This keeps the interviews interesting, giving you plenty to watch during each interview piece. Freddy Krueger wraps up the film with an interview and plenty of ski footage. What I've described here is just a fraction of what and who is on this DVD. You'll have to buy it to find out what else it has to offer!

Overall, the camera angles are excellent and shift often, highlighting the action perfectly. Lots of effects are used, including overlays, a grainy sepia film-like filter, and title slides with interesting quotes from accomplished athletes. Extra bonus tracks on the film include a montage of Brad's ski buddies skiing, including just about every staff member at Bennetts including the mechanic. I enjoyed that bit since I recognized just about every one of them. This movie tells our story. It expresses the scene, the culture, and the love of water skiing perfectly.

So when do you need to order this DVD? Right now, that's when. Gifted completely delivers. The next time I have to explain what we do every weekend and early weekday mornings to someone who doesn't ski I'll just throw this DVD in and have them watch it. A picture is worth 1000 words, but in this case it's worth many more.

Gifted is a film by Ski-HD. Click here to order your copy today.

I live in the northern suburbs of Chicago, which is probably among the last places you'd want to live if you were a serious water skier. Land around here is very expensive and tight village and county ordinances would make it tough to build a private lake anywhere close to my neighborhood. We also have a long, cold, dark winter as well. If we're lucky, our ski season goes from April to November. Drysuits get used heavily in the spring and fall. We are lucky enough to have a ski club and lake right in town, and some great public water within a 20 minute drive of our house. This area is certainly not chock full of water skiers— we're probably one of only a small handful of houses within a 15 mile radius with an inboard tucked away in the garage.

Well how did I get here? I was born and raised here. In fact, my parent's house is only 2 miles away. I guess I just never really considered leaving, even in my early 20's when it would have been easy to re-locate.

Every time I travel somewhere else— particularly somewhere warm— I think about whether or not I'd like to move there and what I'd have to do to get there. I'd have to pull up some major roots: jobs, nearby family and friends, and everything else. Then, I start to think about what I like about the greater tri-state area, and here's what I generally come up with:

• 1. Natural Disasters: We don't really have to deal with many natural disasters. Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are about as bad as it gets. No (major) earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, floods.
  
  
• 2. Air Travel: We have O'Hare, Midway, and Mitchell airport all within an hour's drive. Midway might be a little over an hour depending on traffic. With no traffic, I can be at ORD in 25 minutes. Chicago's central location makes most destinations in the US reachable in under 3 hours, up to 4 or 5 hours out to the west coast. This also helps with shipping- most ground shipping gets here within a couple days due to our central location.
  
  
• 3. Deadly creatures: The cold winters here generally keep down the amount of deadly, nasty insects and creatures around here. The biggest bug you'll encounter here would be a Cicada or Junebug, both of which are harmless. It seems like the milder the climate is, the deadlier the wildlife gets. No thanks.
  
  
• 4. Beautiful Cities: I can hop on a train from multiple stations that are all within 10 minutes of my house and be whisked away in about an hour to one of the most amazing cities in the world: Chicago. I can also drive there in under an hour with no traffic, or in 4 hours with traffic! I can also drive north an hour and be in Milwaukee. Walking to dinner across the Michigan Avenue bridge or watching the a game at Wrigley, the Cell, or Miller park are all awesome experiences and are a major bonus of living here.
  
  
• 5. Family and Friends: Having family and friends close by is awesome. We generally have babysitters ready and willing at the drop of a hat if we ever want to go out to dinner or anything else.
  
  
• 6. Jobs: There are lots of places to work around here, both in the suburbs and in the city proper. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
  
  
• 7. Seasons: I love the changing seasons. I love the crisp fall air, mixed in with the smell of burning leaves. I also love the arrival of spring and those first few snows of winter. Yes, winter could stand to be a little shorter around here, but it makes you appreciate the warmer months that much more.
  
  

2. I'll be riding the trick every time out. The ski was 800.00 with the bindings so that's one reason I want to get use out of it. The other reasons are that it's totally fun, challenging, and everything on trick crosses over to slalom in one way or another. Plus, at some point I'd like to flip on the damned thing since that is about the coolest looking behind-the-boat activity of all time. One day, one day. Trick is a challenge that fewer and fewer people are up for these days. It's such a challenge. It takes so much time and patience to learn, as if it's explicitly hard just for the sake of being hard. Why not learn it yourself? If nothing else, you'll have something to do on rough public water when all you can do is pout with your slalom stick.

3. I'm standing tall and sticking that handle out in FRONT of me on every turn. No more arm-out-to-the-side jive on a 60 foot line. It's over for that habit.

4. I'm skiing back to the handle. Yep, I said it. One of the most basic, generic, overused tips of all time finally makes sense to me. Combined with #3 this tip is deadly in the course. I've heard it a million times but finally felt it at ski school. Put your loose hand on your hip and ski it back to the handle. I sure hope I can feel this one again. I'll certainly try.

5. The gear is not my problem. I had night and day sets on the exact same equipment during ski school. For an entire day I'd think the ski was turning like a school bus but then it would be a lights-out setup the next day. I had my "ski makeover" in 2007 and I think my current setup is still just fine for now. I'm not getting Stargazer either. My 6.5ng setup is just fine for our level of skiing. As tempting as it is, I'm holding off for now. After skiing the amount of boats I've skied, all with wildly differing configurations and speed controls from PP 5.0 to hand throttle to the latest ZO version, I can comfortably say that speed control is not my problem either. I may break out the 2002 CDX just for fun this summer.

6. I'm going to free ski more often. Doing this at all would qualify for "more often".

That's about all for now. Hopefully this illness works its way out over the next couple days so that I can run some buoys next weekend. More as it develops.

And here are a couple other things: Equipment is generally not the problem. On Sunday at skoke's place, and then again on Monday, I recall thinking "man, this ski is just not turning for me". I felt really tail-heavy and just couldn't get the ski to talk to me in the course at all. I thought, geeze, do I move the bindings forward, shop for a new ski, or what? Then on Tuesday the ski was absolutely lights-out— killing the course all day. That mindset of going to the ski initially for the blame is dangerous until you get everything else sorted out, in my opinion. If I had my shoulders and balance and patience sorted in the turns and still wasn't getting what I wanted, then I might look to the ski. I recall also thinking on Monday that Zero Off felt very different and could also have been to blame. Not a chance. I never noticed a difference in Zero Off for the whole trip, after dozens and dozens of passes through the course. Neither did Jeff, neither did Alan, neither did my wife. We skied at speeds from 26-32 and never even noticed a difference in the speed control. Alan had a PB, and Jeff was nailing passes the whole time too. I talked to Jay at length about ZO and he is also a firm believer that for 99% of the skiers out there, the PP vs. SG argument is rubbish. No complaints from this group of long-liners.

What else can I say about Bennetts? Jay is an awesome host and he makes his guests is #1 priority all week. As usual we had a hospitality crawfish boil on Thursday night, and we ended up listening to Jay's hard-knocks stories of getting the ski school started for a couple hours. His industry wisdom and his ability to make his dreams a reality never fail to inspire anyone on the other end of a conversation with him. Anne, as usual, was also a wonderful host who still leads us through warmups every day of ski school. Finally, the facility. What is it about Bennetts that makes you feel so at home the whole time? I can't put my finger on it, but you just feel like you're part of the family the whole time. You get to know all the dogs, the employees, the skiers, and the grounds. Everything is easy to walk to and the whole compound is just plain "cozy". It's a real vacation— no cooking, no driving, no fuss, no muss. Pure convenience the whole time, largely because Jay tries to envision how the guests will feel being away from home for a week and anticipate those needs. Did I mention the hot tubs? There were hot tubs at each dock and right outside our cabins. What a nice touch. I feel sorry for Anne and Jay because they will never be able to see their home from the eyes of their guests. For the full-time corporate employees and weekend warriors, Tri-Lakes is nothing short of a waterskiing Eden. By Friday we were ready to head home, but already planning our next trip. We'll be visiting lots of different ski schools in the future, but Bennetts will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Trick was great, again. I feel more comfortable with the ski every day. I learned 180 wraps on my good side, and did them with pretty good consistency. Working on reverse SS and 180s. Great fun.

More later. I don't want to be the moron on the news who got struck by lighting while typing on their laptop on the porch in a thunderstorm!

The kids- our 20mo old and Jeff's 2 and 4 year olds- have had a blast playing on the porch and on the "beach". The Bennetts staff have been more than accommodating and tolerant of our little 3 ring circus of kids this whole time. I doubt the lunchroom is typically as noisy as we have made it during every meal!

All of the adults had massages today. Intense, serious massages given on site by a local massage therapist for a reasonable rate. Definitely recommended.

Interestingly Jeff, Alan, and Jeff's wife Jenny all figured out today that they have been using an opposite-palm-down grip in slalom! This is something I've never noticed. What an observant ski partner I've been all these years, huh? They are all going to try to switch their grips around and see what that brings them.

Tomorrow we're taking a day off from skiing and doing something else, perhaps going to New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Back to skiing on Thursday. More to come as it develops.

For the first time ever, I started ski school off being extremely sore from skiing at skoke's place the day before. This morning was rough- terrible slalom sets by any measure. I don't think I saw 2 ball the whole day. I just had nothing left in the tank. So, all of those hours on the Concept 2 rower, all of the kettlebell exercises and lifting did nothing for me. I'm about as sore as I could possibly be! We worked mainly on the gate today, getting ultra wide on the boat in the pullout and getting a nice turn-in for the gate. This was good- as I've mentioned before, I just don't work on the gate that much. So, that's exciting. Other than that, slalom has been a struggle so far in 2009. It's like I can't make the ski work for me at all. More to follow on this as it develops. Jeff is killing it so far, slaying buoys left and right. Same story for Alan, who is also absolutely rocking the course. We're having a ball so far, if you will.

Trick is another story. The new D3 Custom X is nothing short of amazing relative to what I've previously ridden. It tracks awesomely and is just amazing overall. I took two trick sets today and I'm learning a ton about it. Most, if not all, of the stuff I'm learning relative to trick will cross over 100% to slalom, so it's a win-win. I just love the short board. I will definitely be logging some serious hours behind the boat at below 20mph this year, fo-sho.

I'm typing this from the porch in front of our cabins, enjoying a cold drink with my friend Jeff, staring out at this beautiful facility. I'm definitely in my happy place. Hopefully the weather holds out for us a little longer- if you check the Zachary, LA weather you'll see what we've got to contend with this week. Stay tuned for more!

The Place:
This will be our 4th trip to Bennetts and certainly not our last. The Bennetts "compound" has a cozy, worn in character to it. The lakes are surrounded by levees, and flanked by Anne and Jay's expansive house, the pro shop, the starting docks, and our rental cabins. Once you get there, you feel little need or desire to go anywhere else for the entire week. It's like a big arena of waterskiing mirth in the middle of nowhere. They offer 3 rental cabins with FULL eat-in kitchens and bathrooms, which is absolutely key. We love cabins #2 and #3, which are right on the shore of Lake #1 and, like most of the buildings (and lakes) there, were actually built by Anne and Jay themselves. Nothing beats sitting on that front porch (featured above in the pic) with a cold one after a day of fun on the water and watching the superstar instructors practice. There's also nothing like waking up to the sound of an inboard ski boat pulling jump practice in the morning, right outside your door. I love it. Truly.

The Road Trip:
It's just about 1000 miles from here to there. A potentially dicey trip around Chicago based on traffic and construction, followed by a VERY boring jaunt down through Illinois, with the scenery starting to get more interesting through Mississippi. We'll be taking our trusty SUV, packed to the gills with ski gear and baby stuff. We're also sporting a big Thule cargo carrier full of our Jeff and Jenny's gear, who will be flying there instead. We've flown once and driven twice, and either way is great. The great American "Road Trip" is something of a lost art, and something that I'll always appreciate and remember from my youth. Who could forget staying at Ho-Jo's night after night and watching "Wall Drug" signs fly by for hundreds of miles on end? Mitchell Corn Palace, anyone? We did it all when I was a kid. Niagra Falls, Mt. Rushmore, the whole bit.

The People:
We're bringing friends this time. It's important to note that we've come away from our trips there with new friends year after year, but we've never actually convinced anybody to come down with us. One of my regular ski partners and good friends, Jeff, will be bringing his family down and we'll also be joined by my good friend and fellow Correct Craft nut Alan and his wife. It's a great group of people and it should make for an awesome trip.

The Blog:
I'm going to try to give you guys regular updates. Bennetts has wi-fi so I'll see what I can do about filling everyone in during the trip. I can't promise everything but I'll see what I can do. I'll also try to get some video as well.

The Gear:
As you all know, I got a real trick ski this year. Can't wait to try that baby out. My old trick will go to Beth. I threw a Wiley's wrap on there for her, making it her first "real" trick ski as well. So, we're both equipped with trick skis that were not previously a fiberglass/plastic combo pair, which is a first. We also mysteriously lost her entire slalom ski this year, so we had to order a replacement from H2OProshop.com with bindings and everything. I don't know if her ski was stolen, or lost, or I left it somewhere, or what, but I went out to the garage a couple weeks ago and it was gone. Everything else was still in the garage and boat. I don't get it at all, but what can you do? Amazingly Tadd found somebody in Acapulco during his stay at Ski Paradise who was interested in selling their ski, the identical ski to Beth's. So, Tadd brought the ski back with him and shipped it to me. How about that for above and beyond?

So, we're counting down the days. The lakes are open around here so we'll be skiing soon. More as it develops.

So, the other day I'm really working my driver hard, and for whatever reason I'm consistently spraying balls to the right (AKA slicing the balls with a vengeance). I know what the problem is: it's a swing path that cuts across the ball in such a manner that it puts massive amounts of side spin on the ball. If I think of nothing, clear the mind, and really lay into the ball with the driver, this is what occurs. It is not my grip or club face position at address. It's basically my natural "default" swing. I can stop it if I really focus on keeping the face square to the ball in the back swing, taking the club back on the correct path and such. But, if I just go up there and crank it, it's going to cause property damage to anything on the right side of the course.

So, I tried something new. I thought to myself "what if you just try to hit it way left instead? Give it a big hook?" So I did. I thought, let's crank this one left. And, sure enough, it went left. Big time. I did it over and over again. I thought of nothing but cranking it way left, and sure enough I got a nice big hook out of the ball (a right to left curve in the flight path). So then I thought, "well, this is stupid but, uh, let's try to hit it straight". Sure enough, the ball went straight. I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious here. The point is that I put all of the mechanics aside and just thought of the RESULT, and my brain figured out the rest.

We do this in bowling all the time. I lay down the bowling ball with X amount of side spin and forward momentum and 60 feet later it ends up in a 6" wide pocket between two pins with a perfect combination of side spin and forward momentum and angle (when I actually hit a strike correctly, which is not often). There is no way that I consciously thought about the mechanics of my ball path and rotation during that strike— I just visualized the result and my brain figured out the rest.

This episode on the range the other day was the first time I've ever used results-based thinking in a golf swing. In visualizing the result, my brain calculated the "firing solution" and told my body to do things that I typically consciously have to think about on the range. I felt my takeaway lock into a more correct path as I initiated my backswing, and I felt myself crush through the ball with mechanics that typically take lots of swing thoughts to achieve. So, perhaps we need to set aside the mechanical thoughts and just visualize the result. Visualize our path and movements through the course and let our brains sweat the details in the end.

They say that in golf you should never take mechanics to the course. You leave your mechanics at the range and you focus on playing the game. Whatever swing you arrived with, you play with. If I were to equate this line of thinking to water skiing, wouldn't we only worry about "swing thoughts" during open water practice and drills and leave it behind when running the course? Sometimes visualizing the result frees your mind to come up with the correct solution, in essence achieving the same thing that you were trying to do while juggling all those tips in your head. I can't wait to try to free my mind in the course— after all, the mind is a terrible thing to waste.

2. People that are struggling at trying to increase boat speed to their tournament speed and/or looking to cut the line at all from 15 (me, in other words)

Let's start with skier type #1. Generally at the ski schools I've been to, brand new course skiers are taught to ignore the gate completely, even starting on the right side, at 1 ball, and trying to round that ball in order to begin the course. These schools train skiers every day and have done so for decades so they've got to be on to something here. Makes sense— why get them stuck on timing the gate properly when they haven't even rounded a set of buoys yet? In my experience with brand new course skiers I've had issues with them turning right on 1 ball rather than before 1 ball using this technique, causing gross late-ness and ultimately an inability to get past the next few turn balls and/or establish any rhythm. Then we try to get them initiating the turn earlier, but of course they're initiating a turn on a flat ski that the've been hanging out on on the right side of the boat since the turn island. So, rather than starting way right and beginning the course at 1 ball, we've also tried starting on the left and gone with an "early" gate— just passing a few feet before the gate to at least establish a nice "swing" into 1 ball. I do know that a few of the older skiers I've skied with will get these new skiers working on the gate immediately, harping that speed and angle to 1 ball is the key to the whole shehbang. These guys are gate-crazy- all you hear about from them is the gate. After years of struggling in the course, I'm starting to believe them, quite candidly. A couple skiers I ski with regularly are type #1 skiers and we've tried every type of gate/no gate/ early gate/1 ball start/shadowing/etc. combination out there with mixed results. I don't know if there is a right answer here, but I'm open to any ideas you all have.

Now, for skier type #2. This skier is nailing the course at 30 and 32mph, 15 off. Still struggling with 33-36mph. I've had older, nationally competing skiers watch me from the boat and mention NOTHING but the gate. No butt-out, counter rotation, shoulders level, eyes level, look ahead, reach for your pocket, line tight, elbows in, handle to the hip, soft knees, let-the-ski-finish, straight arms, loose arms, don't-pull-with-arms, ski-in-front-of-you, chest up, chest out, navel-forward, open-to-the-boat, etc. Nothing else. Nada. Not one other tip. These are not professional waterskiers, but they are pretty damn good at slalom skiing and have done it for longer than I've been alive in several cases. We're talking about people who were cutting line in the 70's and 80's behind boats with wakes the size of Mt. Everest, on fiberglass EPs. So, regardless of all the terrific advice we talk about here day in and day out, are we not even giving ourselves a chance in the course because of our gates? I usually never think about gates. Ever ever. I know when I really concentrate on a good turn-in and gate, I usually get a spectacular 1 ball and I hurtle toward the wake en route to 2 ball like a bat out of hell. I typically don't get much further than 3 or 4 ball because I don't even know what to do with the speed. It's a much different feeling then my typical gate, which I really don't think about specifically and end up crossing the wake about 2-4 feet early of the gate. I typically enter the 1 ball turn with pretty minimal angle. Is that causing problems all down the line? Forcing the turn, not finishing, crappy wake cross positions, etc.?

So what do we say to type #1 and type #2 skiers regarding the gate and why? You'll hear newer skiers talking about forgetting the gate completely, and highly respected old salts that have skied the course since time began and can hand-throttle a carb'ed boat through the course with perfect times (at night, blindfolded, in reverse) tell you that the gate is everything regardless of your level. Discuss.