The Mind Of A Ski Jumper: Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, I showed how something from my past, totally unrelated to ski jumping has affected my ski jumping from the very beginning. In this part, I will show how watching ski jumping when I first got around the sport helped to form a nickname as well as caused many troubles for me in my early days of ski jumping.
I moved to New Hampshire at the very end of October 2000. Early in November, for some reason, I was looking around on the Eastern Divison website. I saw someone from the local area that had their name, phone number and email address on the website. I sent Bob out an email and within a couple of days we got together and went on over to the Newport jump. I told Bob, a now retired eastern judge, that I was interested in getting into ski jumping. He made mention about the program and summer jumping up in Lebanon. He also mentioned about the high school program in Newport and Sunapee. After I left I didn't contact him anymore until right about the start of January, the beginning of the high school jumping season. New Hampshire is the only state that still has high school ski jumping.
I went up to Lebanon with the Sunapee and Newport high school ski jump teams for the first high school meet of the season in early January. Both coaches knew I was interested in getting into ski jumping. For the first couple of weeks there was no mention of me bringing skis with me or anything. It was almost as if they thought I wanted to be a judge or marker instead of being a jumper. It was during this first two or three weeks that the initial damage was done.
I watched the high school meet that first night. Everything seemed fine. As of yet I can't say I really got a bad impression of the outrun on the 25 meter jump at Lebanon. To make one thing clear, the 25 meter jump in Lebanon has a relatively short outrun, not the shortest by any means, but shorter than most. Most of the time when a jumper on that hill switches from alpine skis to jumping skis they have problems stopping due to the shorter than normal outrun. Quite often they end up going up over the top of the outrun and sliding down the back side of the hill toward the parking lot.
After going to the first Eastern Divison meet of the season on Sunday in Andover, it was back watching the high school kids practice on Monday evening on the 25 at Lebanon. This is where things really started to unravel.
Now to help understand the scenario a little better I might as well point out a couple of things to help clarify some questions that might be raised. Newport and Sunapee are separate school districts in towns that set beside each other. Both teams have pretty much practiced together for the past 25-30 years. Both coaches have been with the teams for just as long. Roland, the now former Newport Tigers coach, is a former ski jumper with many years of jumping under his belt while Ron, the Sunapee Lakers coach, has pretty much learnt all his ski jumping knowledge from Roland. Ron has only taken just a couple jumps himself in his lifetime, many years back. It has pretty much been a real good relationship between the two teams. They travel together, practice together, and even coach each others kids. Typically, Ron would work the newer jumpers while Roland would work with the more advance jumpers until everyone was jumping on the 25 on jumping skis.
At this point in time they weren't jumping very much on the Newport jump since it needed work done to it. All of the high school meets for the divison that Sunapee and Newport were in were held on the 25 in Lebanon. The divison had a 25 meter restriction placed on it so that the kids weren't competing on anything larger than a 25 meter hill. The other divison went on up to 35 meter jumps.
I spent that first practice session with both coaches watching the kids practice and watching the kids as they were making the switch between alpine and jumping skis. I watched as the new kids were having trouble stopping at the end of the outrun and even a few of them going up and over the top of the end of the outrun and sliding down toward the parking lot. Yes, it was getting programmed into my mind, negatively.
After another week of both high school practices and meets I head on up to Lebanon on a Saturday for the annual winter carnival meet. I had taken my skis with me to do some alpine skiing after the meet, and I had thought about pushing my way into jumping.
Up to this point I hadn't been given any offer to bring my skis with me and do any jumping. They always do it right off the bat with the kids, but with me they hadn't made any kind of offer whatsoever. I think both Ron and Roland thought I wanted to be a judge or marker instead of a jumper. I was 27 years old at the time and there was pretty much only one other adult that jumped regularly on the eastern circuit. They just hadn't been used to having adults out here jumping.
The one thing I had forgotten to take with me was a helmet. I managed to get my hands on a helmet and jumped the 10 meter jump during the competition and was also planning on jumping the 25 as well. After jumping the 10, I went up and took an outrun or two on the 25 before the competition started on the 25. I said the heck with it and had my first three jumps of the 25 as well. Everything went great and I shocked about everybody as no one thought I was going to jump the 25 after they watched me jump the 10.
Things over the next couple of weeks seemed to be going pretty decent. I was slowly getting better and before I knew it Jon "Cannonball" Farnham was trying to talk me into getting on jumping skis. This is when things feel apart big time. Up to this point I had been jumping pretty decent and pretty reliable. Not many crashes or anything like that. About the time Cannonball started mentioning jumping skis, I started crashing. The crazy thing, though, was that I was only crashing as long as he was around. If he wasn't around, I didn't have any crashes. This continued on into February and into March. Yes, I stayed on alpine skis all winter long.
Early March saw a weekday evening fun jump meet that Cannonball was putting on to try to keep the high school kids out jumping after the end of the high school season, which typically ends around President's Day. I guess Jon and the announcer had decided it was time for a nickname for me, and decided to call me Craw. I had that nickname, along with several others, when I swam as a kids. I knew instantly that I wasn't going to let that nickname stand. One day a week or so later I was at the computer and I was thinking back over the season to that point and I came to realize that the only person I had trouble jumping around was Jon. My thought went "If I was going to CRASH it was going to be when Jon was around. If Jon isn't around I don't have any problems." The word Crash started with the same three letters and I liked the sound of it. Hence, the nickname and where it came from.
I started spreading the nickname around and everyone except Jon started calling me Crash. Jon refused to accept the nickname. Summer came and I was still crashing, predominately when Jon was around. Finally in early August I about had a heartattack when I was walking up toward the steps on the 25 and he called me Crash. From that point forward for the next seven months I never had a technical crash. Yes, I did lose an alpine ski and crash, but that wasn't do to any flaw in jumping technique. Yes, I also went to jumping skis, where this is headed quickly, and couldn't stand a jump on the 10 meter hill to save my soul. I don't call them crashes anymore after looking at all the facts. The reason I don't call them crashes is simple. The mind was playing a trick on me to keep me off of jumping skis.
I finally had gotten to the point where I was jumping the way I wanted to around the end January 2002. I decided to go ahead and make the switch to jumping skis. I put on the jumping skis and took some jumps off the 10 meter jump in Lebanon. I couldn't jump it to save my soul. I crashed pretty much every jump I took that first night. The next several days were the same way. I pretty much was crashing 75 percent of the jumps I took off the 10. I remember going to one of the high school meets at Lebanon on the 25 right after I had made the switch to jumping skis. I watched in total awe the kids on jumping skis on the 25. I couldn't figure out how they could stay upright on the landing, I sure wasn't able to on the 10. Talk about a belittling moment.
About the fifth or sixth day out on jumping skis I went up to Lebanon and the only thing being jumped was the 25. Jon was coaching the kids on the 25 and no one else was around. I almost left without jumping but I stuck around and went up and rode the landing hill twice. Coming up the steps the third time Jon said, "You headed on up top". I groaned as I walked by him. I know he heard my groan. Truly, I knew I was going to crash and didn't like the feel of it at all.
I went up, took the jump and didn't crash. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. As I passed by Jon on the way back up he said, "And you thought you was going to crash". I went up and took another jump, and again I didn't crash. Same for the third, forth, fifth, sixth jump. By this time I was looking over at the 10 and saying "I hate that 10". I had eight to ten jumps that night and didn't crash on any of them. The next three times I was out was on the 25 and I didn't crash any one of them. I had really thought that it was the 10 when in reality it was my mind trying to keep me off jumping skis. When the mind knew it wasn't going to win it had no choice but to give up the fight and let me jump on jumping skis.
I never figured out the connection between the crashes and jumping skis until mid March 2005. I've known the details and could have told you them for ages, but the connection between watching the kids have all the trouble stopping and my mind fighting to keep me off jumping skis never came together until earlier this year.
The mind is such a powerful force and it doesn't actually take pain to cause a block that will make the mind throw up all kinds of barriers to keep you from progressing. The mind can twist and contort things in any way that it desires/that you let it. While the conscious mind can tell the difference between reality and virtual reality, the subconscious mind doesn't have that capability. By watching what your exposed to can make or break you.
In the next part I will show you how one little crash stopped me dead in the air for practically a year.
Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash
I moved to New Hampshire at the very end of October 2000. Early in November, for some reason, I was looking around on the Eastern Divison website. I saw someone from the local area that had their name, phone number and email address on the website. I sent Bob out an email and within a couple of days we got together and went on over to the Newport jump. I told Bob, a now retired eastern judge, that I was interested in getting into ski jumping. He made mention about the program and summer jumping up in Lebanon. He also mentioned about the high school program in Newport and Sunapee. After I left I didn't contact him anymore until right about the start of January, the beginning of the high school jumping season. New Hampshire is the only state that still has high school ski jumping.
I went up to Lebanon with the Sunapee and Newport high school ski jump teams for the first high school meet of the season in early January. Both coaches knew I was interested in getting into ski jumping. For the first couple of weeks there was no mention of me bringing skis with me or anything. It was almost as if they thought I wanted to be a judge or marker instead of being a jumper. It was during this first two or three weeks that the initial damage was done.
I watched the high school meet that first night. Everything seemed fine. As of yet I can't say I really got a bad impression of the outrun on the 25 meter jump at Lebanon. To make one thing clear, the 25 meter jump in Lebanon has a relatively short outrun, not the shortest by any means, but shorter than most. Most of the time when a jumper on that hill switches from alpine skis to jumping skis they have problems stopping due to the shorter than normal outrun. Quite often they end up going up over the top of the outrun and sliding down the back side of the hill toward the parking lot.
After going to the first Eastern Divison meet of the season on Sunday in Andover, it was back watching the high school kids practice on Monday evening on the 25 at Lebanon. This is where things really started to unravel.
Now to help understand the scenario a little better I might as well point out a couple of things to help clarify some questions that might be raised. Newport and Sunapee are separate school districts in towns that set beside each other. Both teams have pretty much practiced together for the past 25-30 years. Both coaches have been with the teams for just as long. Roland, the now former Newport Tigers coach, is a former ski jumper with many years of jumping under his belt while Ron, the Sunapee Lakers coach, has pretty much learnt all his ski jumping knowledge from Roland. Ron has only taken just a couple jumps himself in his lifetime, many years back. It has pretty much been a real good relationship between the two teams. They travel together, practice together, and even coach each others kids. Typically, Ron would work the newer jumpers while Roland would work with the more advance jumpers until everyone was jumping on the 25 on jumping skis.
At this point in time they weren't jumping very much on the Newport jump since it needed work done to it. All of the high school meets for the divison that Sunapee and Newport were in were held on the 25 in Lebanon. The divison had a 25 meter restriction placed on it so that the kids weren't competing on anything larger than a 25 meter hill. The other divison went on up to 35 meter jumps.
I spent that first practice session with both coaches watching the kids practice and watching the kids as they were making the switch between alpine and jumping skis. I watched as the new kids were having trouble stopping at the end of the outrun and even a few of them going up and over the top of the end of the outrun and sliding down toward the parking lot. Yes, it was getting programmed into my mind, negatively.
After another week of both high school practices and meets I head on up to Lebanon on a Saturday for the annual winter carnival meet. I had taken my skis with me to do some alpine skiing after the meet, and I had thought about pushing my way into jumping.
Up to this point I hadn't been given any offer to bring my skis with me and do any jumping. They always do it right off the bat with the kids, but with me they hadn't made any kind of offer whatsoever. I think both Ron and Roland thought I wanted to be a judge or marker instead of a jumper. I was 27 years old at the time and there was pretty much only one other adult that jumped regularly on the eastern circuit. They just hadn't been used to having adults out here jumping.
The one thing I had forgotten to take with me was a helmet. I managed to get my hands on a helmet and jumped the 10 meter jump during the competition and was also planning on jumping the 25 as well. After jumping the 10, I went up and took an outrun or two on the 25 before the competition started on the 25. I said the heck with it and had my first three jumps of the 25 as well. Everything went great and I shocked about everybody as no one thought I was going to jump the 25 after they watched me jump the 10.
Things over the next couple of weeks seemed to be going pretty decent. I was slowly getting better and before I knew it Jon "Cannonball" Farnham was trying to talk me into getting on jumping skis. This is when things feel apart big time. Up to this point I had been jumping pretty decent and pretty reliable. Not many crashes or anything like that. About the time Cannonball started mentioning jumping skis, I started crashing. The crazy thing, though, was that I was only crashing as long as he was around. If he wasn't around, I didn't have any crashes. This continued on into February and into March. Yes, I stayed on alpine skis all winter long.
Early March saw a weekday evening fun jump meet that Cannonball was putting on to try to keep the high school kids out jumping after the end of the high school season, which typically ends around President's Day. I guess Jon and the announcer had decided it was time for a nickname for me, and decided to call me Craw. I had that nickname, along with several others, when I swam as a kids. I knew instantly that I wasn't going to let that nickname stand. One day a week or so later I was at the computer and I was thinking back over the season to that point and I came to realize that the only person I had trouble jumping around was Jon. My thought went "If I was going to CRASH it was going to be when Jon was around. If Jon isn't around I don't have any problems." The word Crash started with the same three letters and I liked the sound of it. Hence, the nickname and where it came from.
I started spreading the nickname around and everyone except Jon started calling me Crash. Jon refused to accept the nickname. Summer came and I was still crashing, predominately when Jon was around. Finally in early August I about had a heartattack when I was walking up toward the steps on the 25 and he called me Crash. From that point forward for the next seven months I never had a technical crash. Yes, I did lose an alpine ski and crash, but that wasn't do to any flaw in jumping technique. Yes, I also went to jumping skis, where this is headed quickly, and couldn't stand a jump on the 10 meter hill to save my soul. I don't call them crashes anymore after looking at all the facts. The reason I don't call them crashes is simple. The mind was playing a trick on me to keep me off of jumping skis.
I finally had gotten to the point where I was jumping the way I wanted to around the end January 2002. I decided to go ahead and make the switch to jumping skis. I put on the jumping skis and took some jumps off the 10 meter jump in Lebanon. I couldn't jump it to save my soul. I crashed pretty much every jump I took that first night. The next several days were the same way. I pretty much was crashing 75 percent of the jumps I took off the 10. I remember going to one of the high school meets at Lebanon on the 25 right after I had made the switch to jumping skis. I watched in total awe the kids on jumping skis on the 25. I couldn't figure out how they could stay upright on the landing, I sure wasn't able to on the 10. Talk about a belittling moment.
About the fifth or sixth day out on jumping skis I went up to Lebanon and the only thing being jumped was the 25. Jon was coaching the kids on the 25 and no one else was around. I almost left without jumping but I stuck around and went up and rode the landing hill twice. Coming up the steps the third time Jon said, "You headed on up top". I groaned as I walked by him. I know he heard my groan. Truly, I knew I was going to crash and didn't like the feel of it at all.
I went up, took the jump and didn't crash. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. As I passed by Jon on the way back up he said, "And you thought you was going to crash". I went up and took another jump, and again I didn't crash. Same for the third, forth, fifth, sixth jump. By this time I was looking over at the 10 and saying "I hate that 10". I had eight to ten jumps that night and didn't crash on any of them. The next three times I was out was on the 25 and I didn't crash any one of them. I had really thought that it was the 10 when in reality it was my mind trying to keep me off jumping skis. When the mind knew it wasn't going to win it had no choice but to give up the fight and let me jump on jumping skis.
I never figured out the connection between the crashes and jumping skis until mid March 2005. I've known the details and could have told you them for ages, but the connection between watching the kids have all the trouble stopping and my mind fighting to keep me off jumping skis never came together until earlier this year.
The mind is such a powerful force and it doesn't actually take pain to cause a block that will make the mind throw up all kinds of barriers to keep you from progressing. The mind can twist and contort things in any way that it desires/that you let it. While the conscious mind can tell the difference between reality and virtual reality, the subconscious mind doesn't have that capability. By watching what your exposed to can make or break you.
In the next part I will show you how one little crash stopped me dead in the air for practically a year.
Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash
posted by Ryan Crawford at 11:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home