Barefoot Skiing

Barefoot skiing or Barefooting is a form of water skiing which is done while the skier, who is without any footwear, is pulled by a motorboat on the water surface. The sport is a bit risky as the skier has to travel at speed even higher than the one in conventional water skiing. This speed sometimes causes them several injuries from falling which may leave the surfers out of the sport for some time. Some of these injuries have athletic terms to describe them like ‘ wind knocked out ' or the ‘ scorpion fall '. Some of the gears needed by the barefoot skier are barefoot wetsuit, padded shorts , handles and ropes, boats and barefoot booms. Barefooting is played by both men and women alike.

Though a controversy remains on whether it was Dick Pope Jr. or A. G. Hancock to barefoot for the first time in history, but the date of the first barefoot skiing is taken as the 6 th of March 1947. It originated in Cypress Gardens, Florida , the place which hosted the first barefoot competition in 1950. The competition also saw a few new rules being implemented in the game. But it took more than twenty years for the first World Championship of the sport to happen. It was November 1978 and 54 skiers from ten different countries came to participate in the competition in Canberra, Australia . Brett Wing and Colleen Wilkinson are among the top players associated with barefoot skiing.

There are several ways of starting barefoot skiing like Deep-water start, Beach Barefoot, Jump-outs and many more. Back step-offs, Back-deeps and Back flying dock starts are the backwards Barefooting methods. The thrill associated with Barefoot skiing has made the sport popular among a large mass of people in spite of the high chance of injury attached to it.