Tricks is a staple event in traditional tournament Water Skiing, I’ve spent a lot of time coaching tricks while being involved in the industry since the mid 90’s. It takes as much time to train for tricks as it does for Slalom and Jump combined. The better you are at Tricks, the more fun, and impressive to watch it becomes.
Trick Water Skiers use short, wide flat skis with no fins, so the skier is free to rotate on the water. Skiers perform rotations, flips, and wake tricks to score points. In a tournament, skiers have two 20 second passes to use their skill, balance, and creativity to complete as many tricks as possible.
The list of possible tricks is vast, it takes serious skill to learn those tricks of high point value. Tricks takes dance like creativity and ingenuity to combine tricks into a pass, one you can readily repeat with the highest point value. Competition requires, balance and poise for performing on the day, two passes 20 seconds each, the combined total is your score. the first pass made up of hand tricks, the other of toe tricks, because you get more points if you attach your foot to the handle.
I know a few people who will ride their trick ski even when they stopped competing years ago. It is a lot of fun to pop the wakes, do some casual 180s and 360s, or flips if you ever learned them too. It is similar in feel to wakeboarding in that it is easy to play and muck around behind the boat.
Trick Water Skiing Specific Gear
My extensive gear list can be found here
Trick Handle 
Single trick ski
Trick skis are between 39 and 46 inchs (0.99m – 1.2m) long, and 11inshs/28cm wide, with a relatively smooth base without fins. Trick Skiers feet are arranged with the back foot at an angle, toes out, this allows you to spread your knees apart, which is essential to balance. A right foot forward person will be unable to use the ski of a left foot forward skier.
Skiers bring their personal ski ropes to tournaments. The handles are woven in a way to provide a small amount of spring, as you can see from the spiral knotting in the picture above. Skiers have free range with rope length. The idea is that rope length combined with speed will put you at the point in the boat wake that has the shape and width you want. It’s very imprecise and more about the personal feel and preferences of the skier.
You will likely notice that Trickers typically do not wear life vests; this is because all movements with the arms and handle are made tight in close to the body. A life vest will hinder these movements, catch on the rope, and generally reduce your freedom of body movement, something essential to Tricking. You are also at slow speeds with the boat very close by. You will have been skiing and tricking for some time before you stop using a life vest, though. Swimming ability is a must.
Boat Speed for Trick Water Skiing
The boat speed is nice and slow, somewhere in the 20kms – 30kms(13mph to 25mph), so falling isn’t all that uncomfortable. Which is suitable for tricks as you fall all the time, “if you’re not falling, you’re not trying anything new.” Skiers can choose any speed they like; there are no regulated speeds in this event. Skiers can get very particular with their speed, though, as specific as 0.1 of a km an hour. It comes down to the feel of the wake at their rope length.
Even with safety precautions, Toe Trickers tear hamstrings and groins occasionally on those exceptionally fast falls from catching an edge.
Hand passes are the tricks done with your hands on the handle like you see people doing while skiing every day.
Toe Skiing is where the skier takes their back foot and attaches it to a unique loop in the ski handle. Trickers stand on one leg and proceed to do tricks like the surface rotations and wake popped rotations.
Rope release. Observer lightly holds the orange rope between only 2 fingers. When the skier falls, the gray rope is pulled, and the orange rope is slipped from the observers’ fingers before they realize it.
To prevent injury to your vulnerable groin, the observer lightly holds a special release rope. When the skier falls, the line pulls out from their fingers to release the rope from the boat pole. When the boat comes back for the rope, they return to the released end and reattach the ski rope to the boat release system. Even with this safety precaution, skiers tear hamstrings and groins occasionally on those exceptionally fast falls from catching an edge.
The Tricks Skiers Do
Trick categories include Surface Tricks, Wake Tricks, Flips, and Ski Line Tricks. Toe skiing can do all but the Flip tricks, I honestly don’t know if I will see the day that happens, I hope I do, but I’m not holding my breath. That would be a, no questions asked, win.
Surface Tricks are the rotations done on the water surface, often on the whitewash behind the boat. These start as simple tricks like the ‘side slide,’ where you turn 90° to the boat. Followed by doing a ‘back/180°’ and then the first huge hurdle, the ‘reverse back!!’ It takes practice and much swimming to get that one nailed. All surface tricks have a reverse version, this way you can get points for a 360° to the left, and a 360° to the right.
- 180°/Ski Back/Front = 60 points, 60 for the 180 returning to the front as well, and again when rotating in reverse. Total for all 4 180°’s = 240 points
- Toe 180° = 100 points each
- for more detail see this USAWaterski.org Document
Wake tricks begin once you are mastering the surface trick basics. To do wake tricks, ski up to the wake, get some ‘pop/air’ and rotate in the air while your ski is out of the water. If your trick ski is not in the air for enough of the rotation, then the trick will not count in a competition. Skiers will combine wake tricks and surface tricks to get as many points as they can. Watch the videos below for better understanding.
- Wake 180° = 80 points each
- Wake 540° = 310 points
- Wake 720° = 800 points
Ski-Line tricks are tricky, ha ha. The skier begins by heaving on the rope to get enough slack that the rope is dragging in the water, the skier then pops over the line, while performing some level of rotation. The below video will clarify.
- Ski Line 360° = 400 points
- Ski Line 720° = 750 points
- Toe Ski Line 360° = 480 points
Flips on trick skis look like they get a bit twisted, and they do. It is more like throwing your feet over one of your shoulders, instead of being straight backwards. Front flips do go straight over the front though, and they look crazy.
- Backflip = 500
- Front Flip = 800
- Backflip half twist = 750
- Backflip full twist = 800
- Double Backflip = 1000
When saying what kind of flip it is, the names are pretty descriptive. Backflip and reverse backflip(opposite sides of the wake, so you rotate in different directions). A front to back, backflip, this is where the skier starts facing forwards and lands backwards, performing a half twist in the air. There are also back to fronts and their reverses, of course. Then there are the back to backs, and the front to fronts, the 360 rotational flips. Skiers are, however, limited to 6 flips per pass, and some of the more basic flips don’t score that well when you are at a level of doing that many flips.
This video demonstrates some of the higher value Hand Tricks possible
This is a cool video showing some good first-person shots of Tricking
Training for Trick Water Skiing
If you are a 3 Event Skier, then your training time will likely be split with Tricks taking 50% of your time and Jump n Slalom getting 25% each, give or take. While skill certainly plays a huge part of success in Tricking, enjoyment is what will get you to the top. You need to enjoy tricking because it can be gruelling, taking that many falls and being that frustrated at a new trick. If you don’t have some level of passion, then it will always be a chore. At 13, I gave it up, didn’t have the patience to get good at it.
It is nice that training can happen anywhere that you can ski. No course restriction like in the other two events, find the calmest, most beautiful spot on the lake to fall a couple of dozen times learning a new trick.
Trick Water Ski Tournament
Womens World Record is held by Erica Lang, set in 2018 – 10,850 Points
Mens World Record is held by Alexi Zharnasek, set in 2011 – 12,570 Points (video below)
For tournaments, trick skiers don’t just bring their gear and ropes; skiers also provide their own observer. Due to the risky nature of the release rope while Toe Tricking, tournament officials will not take on the risk of potentially harming an athlete. It is also great to have someone you know and trust to be releasing for you.
Skiers set their chosen speed and get towed to the ski zone. Two buoys are set up 100ft from each other; in this window is where skiers start their trick runs. The timer starts the moment the skier makes their first distinct movement. The boat will stop for a moment, then skiers will enter the course for their second pass; often, this is when the skier will do their Toe Pass. Though that also depends on wind direction as some skiers have their preferences.
Cameras will record the skier and send the video to a panel of judges, who will register the tricks performed and decide whether or not the tricks are clean enough to score. If a skier falls, then they still receive all the points they scored before falling. Skiers receive the judging sheets with their score after the tournament is complete.
The round score will be both rounds combined. Tournament placing is two rounds added together, the skier with the highest 2 round combined score wins.