Caren Landis, a wheelchair user who has a spinal cord injury, shares her experience with LOF Adaptive Skiers and about how the sport of water skiing has impacted her life.
“The freedom that water skiing has given me is like no other sport.”
“Well I got in that ski with those outriggers, and that boat started up and I had a side skier on each side and a jet ski following me, and I totally forgot they were there. It was like just me and the water,” says Caren.
Caren states that LOF has blossomed into teaching people with every kind of disability to ski. At 1:25 in the video Caren describes her own personal ski. She has a slalom ski with an adaptive seat with a cage that was made especially for her. The fit of the cage around your seat is very important. “So when you get your cage that fits you, and it has to be tight and snug, you don’t want to come flying out of it,” says Caren.
Caren wears clencher gloves when she skis because they keep her hands in a permanent position. She says if you have trouble with grip these gloves really help.
“You don’t need to have full upper body strength to be a sit skier. You don’t even need your arms to be a sit skier.”
At 2:11 in the video, Caren describes the different modifications that can be made to a water ski. For instance, a seat can have a higher back for someone who has a higher injury level. The modifications can be taken away as the skier improves.
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