Wakeboard Posture

Posture is everything when it comes to effectively edging into the wake.

Heelside

Hips: The position of your hips is the key factor for creating leverage when edging toward the wake. Keep your hips up and in front of your shoulders. Bad habit: Hips drift back behind the shoulders, and the board softly edges at the wake by the fins holding the direction, instead of the entire Heelside edge.
Shoulders: Keep your shoulders back and behind your hips for leverage against the pull of the boat.
Knees: Bend your knees as you start edging toward the wake. As you edge up the wake, straighten your knees up and push off the top of the wake.Bad habit: Knees stay bent while edging through the wake and absorb the pop on take off. On landing the knees stay stiff and don’t absorb the shock of landing.
Elbows: Should be bent at 90 degrees with the handle low and close to your hips as you begin edging toward the wake. Bad habit: Elbows straight, which leads to forward falls on landing.
Hands: Keep your hands close together when gripping the handle on Heelside and Toeside. This provides a more responsive pull when doing handle pass tricks. When you grip by the handle ends, the handle will slacken on handle passes which hinders consistency. Also, grip the handle with both palms down.

Toeside

Hips: Hips should be up and in front of shoulders when edging toward the wake. Bad habit: Hips are low and butt is sticking out. While this posture will in fact create good leverage edging toward the wake, it will always lead to forward falls on landing.
Shoulders: Should be up and directly over your knees. Bad Habit:Shoulders and chest drop down into a hunched over position when edging toward the wake.
Knees: Slightly bent and rigid while edging toward the wake. As you edge up the wake straighten your knees to push of the top of the wake.
Elbows: Bring your elbows in close to your body for the approach to the wake. I always teach students to hold on with both hands the entire way through the air on the toeside jump. It feels awkward at first, but this technique will force you to keep the handle close to your hips and make clearing the wake much easier.

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