Getting Up & Out Of The Water!
The very first stage once your in the water with the tow rope uncoiled and the boat ready to go is to focus on getting the wakeboard up and out of the water to a point where it is planing across the surface. It took me several days before I could stop the wakeboard from ploughing down into the water at which point holding the tow rope was impossible!
1. First you need to hold the tow rope with both hands with your knuckles point upwards, as if you were holding a car steering wheel.
2. Now you need to try and bring your needs towards your chest a little so that your legs are bent and your toes are popping out of the water.
3. The next and most vital step is to hold your arms out straight in front of you with very little bend at the elbow and place your arms either side of the leg that you prefer to lead with. (A simple test to find your lead leg is to have someone push you from behind, whilst on dry land, and see which leg you put forward to stop yourself.)
4. Once you are setup as described in steps 1 - 3 you must focus on allowing the boat to push the board towards your body. Imagine trying to scrunch up into a ball so that your knees are almost touching your chest and your heels are almost touching your bottom!
5. Signal to the boat driver that you are ready and call for a slow acceleration to start off with.
6. As you feel the boat start to pull you let your body become compact with your knees pushing towards your chest, the board will start to plane out of the water.
7. As the board starts to come out of the water stay low and let the force of the boat bring you up. Your lead foot will naturally start to turn towards the boat. This happens really easily if you kept your arms either side of your lead leg.
8. Once you are up and out of the water start to stand up but keep your weight on your back foot, try to keep 60% on your back foot and 40% on your lead foot.
9. Initially it will feel very strange and you will probably need to focus on getting the board pointed nose first at the boat. It is all too easy to leave the board slightly at an angle which will actually take you towards the wake. You should avoid crossing the wake until you are comfortable riding in a straight line!
10. Now that you are out of the water and riding on your board you can practice moving left and right by leaning slightly in the direction you wish to travel and turning the board with your front foot.
Good luck getting started, once you have succeeded I guarantee you will be hooked on wakeboarding for life!
Summary
Arms straight and either side of lead footLegs bent and knees close to chest
Slow accelerations to begin with
Once up point the nose of the board at the boat
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