learning to barefoot

John Gillette

DMJ skied regionals a few years ago, kicked ass in slalom I believe? He was posting on the BFC forums for a while.

Fuchs, I have have no clue. Obviously Willie is still skiing with our West Coast barefoot contingent.

Rick Powell and Randy Filter, 2 more ghosts.

nice! rough waters though!

the wake jump out is awesome so is the dock back flip back deep start

Hollywood wrote: Did it work for you kapla? It did not for me. HW bombout

yes it did

Roy you got hooked on BF 4-5 years ago..prior to that were you a slalom skier?

Did you see the size of those stern rollers when Powell did that dock back deep start. 2 foot rollers!!!! yikes...

HW, the W2W bomb out is awesome!

Jllogan wrote: Hollywood wrote: Did it work for you kapla? It did not for me. HW bombout Nice Hollywood!!! I think yours was actually smoother than his, but his camera was better quality. You gotta do that with a better quality vid and make slo motion. That would be most ballin!

Kevin, we'll make that happen after labor day. I'll bring my HD camera and we'll get some better video!

So here is some video from last week. This one would have actually told a better story filmed from shore. So we had been out all night looking for calm water, when we would see some one of us would swing out on the boom and ride through the smaller chop. I had been watching all night for an opportunity to jump out on the long line. So we are on the SW end of the lake and we see the bay on the NE end had just cleared off, so we fired up and go WOT across the lake, slow down and that is where the video starts, me jumping in the lake.

Footin Bangs

So from the shore, you would have seen this boat flying in a guy jumps out as the boat idles along and then BAM, hit it, up I pop and start a footin run, swooping through the bay. Had to have been hilarious.

Anyway, it was a small bay and it was a pretty hard corner, I was pushin to keep from whipping out and hitting no-wake buoys, moored boats and docks,when I got into the chop (you'll hear my buddy say "Oh Sh1t," cause he knows what he is doing to me). You can see I caught my inside foot and boy did it throw me (the chick running the camera had never watched someone long line, which attributed to her reaction). Second time now I have ended a run with a stinger to my right arm - whole thing goes numb. Pretty scary when in the water and your going through the "system checks" and you find your arm "inoperable." I sense that is an occupational hazard to this sport, but if you slow the video down, you can see my left foot catches which spins me to the left and some how my right arm goes up allowing my triceps area of the arm to whack the water. Man that smarts... When I did surface, I was getting applause from some nearby pontoon boats, not sure if that was for the attempt at footin or the spectacular crash!

Swatkinz wrote: hey guys, i've seen a number of videos where footers will hop out of the boat at barefoot speed, shimmy out to the end of the boom and foot.

I do it all the time when I foot shortline. The boat planes faster, it's less stress on the boom/boat/steering cable/skier. You'd really have to screw up to fall and hit the boat.

Hey Seb: Nice job on the long line tumble-up start. But I am going to give you a hard time about your shoe skiing.

FIRST:Shoes allow you to do things you can't do on your barefeet, good and bad. When you were skiing on the video with the one-foots, you were standing straight up, with little or no knee bend. You can get away with it on shoes, but it is not good form. You need to practice proper technique on the shoes, like knee bend, etc. On one of the one foots, you were up soooo straight, the foot you lifted was behind you.

SECOND: you gotta STOP bending your arms on the one foots. There is no need anytime to do that, and it is a bad habit. If you bend your arms on one one-foots on shoes(which are REAL easy on shoes; I saw a FIRST TIME footer knock off one foots on shoes yesterday!) then it HAS become a bad habit.    

I spent the day on the water with David Small yesterday, and for me and the 4 others in the boat, much of the day was spent breaking bad habits, or correcting improper technique. You can pay him $200 per day to find that out, but I am telling you here for free!

Nice work, keep footing. BTW: I am going to post the most BADASS one foot wake crossings I have ever done! Stay tuned!

Headed down to Katy, TX in the morning to ski with ADV. Bringing plenty of Advil.

looking on replacing my 2 YO POS intensity BF suit...I´ve narrowed my searh on a EAGLE, BI IRON or Votex?
My brother will go to FLA on november, I guess by then I will be able to get some sale items! let me know if you see something interesting!


budget aroung 200-300
are this in good price?
vortex vapor

I also would like to buy suit for the kids what do you think of these?
In the right colours of course!


kids suits

I guess they only changed the colour, from fluo to more pastels lol.
And the usage of fancier materials, rubber inserts etc! probably they are more comfortable, etc.
I´m looking for something that will last a few seasons more than my actual, before the inner padding start to fall apart inside and make bulk in odd places!
I want something tough...

on the shorts I have the BI and they have some padding. I´ve seen some 15 yo and they had the same padding and are identicals to the ones i have.

My first suit was a casad I bought in the early 90´s...it was never used to BF..and it was stored most of its life in the attic. the neoprene rotted, only lasted a few month when i started to use it frequently.
There are some nice pictures in the first stages of the thread! LOL