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I know this story is a bit late coming out, but
what can I say, we've been busy. Earlier this year, I
received a call from Stuart Parsons, owner of the Barefoot Ski Ranch in
Waco, Tx. If you haven't see the video tour of Stuart's ranch,
Click Here. Stuart wanted to know if we were planning on
attending the US Nationals this year. The event was to take place
at his site in Waco. I told him we were committed to be at
the Malibu Open Pro Tour stop in Milwaukee the weekend before as well as
the US Waterski Nationals in Chicago, IL for a day after the Malibu Open.
The long road trip to Milwaukee and back wouldn't see us back in Texas
until Wed or Thursday of the week that the Barefoot Nationals was taking place in
Waco. Stuart asked if we would put on a Freestyle
exhibition on Friday of Nationals week before and during the Jump Jam event. He knew
many people had not seen Freestyle in person, and knew it would be an exciting
event to watch.
We had been on the road for nearly 2
weeks straight and knew we would need some help with the Waco
exhibition. Rod Shepherd, from Beaumont, Tx, was kind enough to
offer his boat and agreed to bring Nolan Lough to Waco to meet us.
The plan was to arrive in Waco early Friday morning, watch the US
Nationals, and put on the exhibition that evening.
We left for Waco from Houston around
4:30 am and arrived bright and early that Friday morning. We had
the Eagle Sports tent set up and running by 9:00am. The rest of the day was
spent lounging and visiting with all the footers that were in Waco for
the Nationals. It was great to catch up with so many people we had
not seen in a year or two. It was HOT in Waco and the boys had no
problems finding water activities to help them keep cool.
 During
the day on Friday, we announced that we were premiering the first ever
3D barefoot waterski videos, not one, but two. One by Brendan
Paige and a 2nd by Andre De Villers. If you haven't seen either of
these videos, you'll need a pair of 3D Glasses.
We did two Freestyle exhibitions that
evening. The first was around 5:30pm and the 2nd around 7:30.
Both shows we fun, but as always, there were challenges. Before
the first show, Andre was smart in suggesting that we take a quick
practice run behind Rod's boat. We hadn't used it in an
exhibition, and more importantly, Andre hadn't skied on it. The
concern was the Super Fly-High. Rod didn't have a Barefoot
International extended tower and the joints where the extension clamps
to the tower was different. It had two moving joints instead of
one. We've learned not to leave anything to chance, so Andre took
to the water for the test. On the first cut to do one of his
patented ADVs, the tower extension collapsed on one side. The
joints weren't strong enough to hold the increased lateral force someone
the size of Andre can put on it. It took about 4 practice runs to
figure out how to rig it so the tower extension would hold. Once
that was figured out, the rest of the exhibition went on pretty much
without a hitch.
Nolan Lough, Brendan Paige and Andre
De Villiers put on two exhibitions showcasing Freestyle. The
crowd, being hard core 3-event barefooters, including the likes of KSO,
Smalls, Stokes, Dave Miller, Mike Schanke, Heeney and nearly every other
top footer in the country, had a much keener eye to what the Freestyle
footers were doing and how difficult the it is. It was great to
see so many skiers afterwards coming up to talk with the guys and
express how amazing it was to see it in person. To see Andre land
a huge ADV to Blind no more than ten feet in front of you is something
you won't soon forget. Or to see long-line scissor slides and big
ADV back roll flips, heel grabs and star gazers.
Chuck Gleason
Team BarefootCentral.com
Thanks again to Rod Shepherd, Nolan
Lough, Brendan Paige, and Andre De Villiers for making the trip a fun
one.
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