A friend of mine was asking how I do my stabs, so I did a little write up that I thought I might as well share here too.
-There's a lot to it. First, you really want to start working on your set up wakes. Timing is everything when it comes to aerial tricks.
-Cruise around just barely on plane, if not a little under plane. You want to create the biggest wave possible. Make a large u and cruise about 25-50 feet , then head towards the wake. This will take time to figure out what distance to travel and what size of a turn you should make for the wave. Keep on just doing that. Then, when you like your wake, it's time to figure out if you want to hit the 1st or second wave. I like the second wave for nose stabs since you kind of fall in it and can get good height. Everybody has their own preference really.
-Okay, enough about the wave. Once you get your wake the way you want it and you're comfortable just jumping straight off of it, it's time to start turning in the air. You're going to approach the wave just slightly at an angle(like 15-20 degrees under head on), and right as you approach the wave, you want to do what's called a pre hop. You give it a little gas to hop out of the water just a little bit(it gets the pump un hooked), and then once you touch the water, you turn the handle bars the direction you want to go and give it some gas(don't need to pin it, but keep trying to give it more gas every time to get more comfortable with the power). This will cause you to rotate. You're going to probably land on your ass a lot here but you'll start getting used to rotations. Keep on doing this until you're able to endup rotating over 90 degrees and riding it out. You can be standing in your normal riding stance for this.
Now you're ready to start working on the stab. You are going to fail, land on your side, and mess up ALOT. It is tiring as HELL learning!!! This time, you want to approach the wave almost 30 degrees or more under going head on. Here is where your prehop is extremely necessary!!!!. As you prehop into the trough of the waves, crank your bars ALL THE WAY OVER and PIN that throttle! This time you want to get your stance very very forward! Youre probably going to have your pole a decent amount lower than your normal cruising stance. As you hit the wave and turn your handlebars, lean your body forward, and almost try to whip the ski over. If you're stabbing towards the left, your right arm and shoulder is going to come up and you want to curve your torso to the left and lean forward, all at the same time. Make sure you have a limiting rope on! Those are just the basics. Getting enough tray time will be what makes you master this trick!
That's flatwater.
For boat wakes, I hit it at an angle probably 10-15 degrees under head on, still do a pre hop, but if I get too much height I end up kind of extending my arms so I don't endup overrotating too much.
I left off last season with some of my stabs turning into 2/3rds of a roll since I was over rotating them many times. Once you start to get inverted with them they are so so so so much fun. Just make sure you stay locked in and wear a freeken helmet.
First pic is a flatwater one without much height, and the other two are off of small boat wakes.
-There's a lot to it. First, you really want to start working on your set up wakes. Timing is everything when it comes to aerial tricks.
-Cruise around just barely on plane, if not a little under plane. You want to create the biggest wave possible. Make a large u and cruise about 25-50 feet , then head towards the wake. This will take time to figure out what distance to travel and what size of a turn you should make for the wave. Keep on just doing that. Then, when you like your wake, it's time to figure out if you want to hit the 1st or second wave. I like the second wave for nose stabs since you kind of fall in it and can get good height. Everybody has their own preference really.
-Okay, enough about the wave. Once you get your wake the way you want it and you're comfortable just jumping straight off of it, it's time to start turning in the air. You're going to approach the wave just slightly at an angle(like 15-20 degrees under head on), and right as you approach the wave, you want to do what's called a pre hop. You give it a little gas to hop out of the water just a little bit(it gets the pump un hooked), and then once you touch the water, you turn the handle bars the direction you want to go and give it some gas(don't need to pin it, but keep trying to give it more gas every time to get more comfortable with the power). This will cause you to rotate. You're going to probably land on your ass a lot here but you'll start getting used to rotations. Keep on doing this until you're able to endup rotating over 90 degrees and riding it out. You can be standing in your normal riding stance for this.
Now you're ready to start working on the stab. You are going to fail, land on your side, and mess up ALOT. It is tiring as HELL learning!!! This time, you want to approach the wave almost 30 degrees or more under going head on. Here is where your prehop is extremely necessary!!!!. As you prehop into the trough of the waves, crank your bars ALL THE WAY OVER and PIN that throttle! This time you want to get your stance very very forward! Youre probably going to have your pole a decent amount lower than your normal cruising stance. As you hit the wave and turn your handlebars, lean your body forward, and almost try to whip the ski over. If you're stabbing towards the left, your right arm and shoulder is going to come up and you want to curve your torso to the left and lean forward, all at the same time. Make sure you have a limiting rope on! Those are just the basics. Getting enough tray time will be what makes you master this trick!
That's flatwater.
For boat wakes, I hit it at an angle probably 10-15 degrees under head on, still do a pre hop, but if I get too much height I end up kind of extending my arms so I don't endup overrotating too much.
I left off last season with some of my stabs turning into 2/3rds of a roll since I was over rotating them many times. Once you start to get inverted with them they are so so so so much fun. Just make sure you stay locked in and wear a freeken helmet.
First pic is a flatwater one without much height, and the other two are off of small boat wakes.
