The Mind Of A Ski Jumper: Part 3
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 Part 2, I showed how doing something as simple as watching ski jumping made my mind fight me to keep from jumping on jumping skis. In this part I will show how a simple crash, very innocent crash, ended up putting me in a year long battle with the mind.
I had spent Monday-Wednesday, President's Day week in Ohio visiting family and made my way back up to New Hampshire Thursday morning. Thursday evening I spent watching the prep school jump meet in Andover on their 38 meter jump. Friday found everyone already up in Lake Placid getting ready for the competition on Saturday. So far to this point, my second year, I hadn't went an entire week during the winter months without jumping. Typically President's Day week was the longest spell between days of jumping.
Saturday morning I woke up and decided to drive on up and watch everyone jump at Empire State Games. After the competition I tried to talk one of the other adult jumpers that I had been jumping with all winter long into going back to Lebanon and we would jump the 25 on Sunday. He tried to talk me into sticking around and jump the 48 on Sunday.
I hadn't planned at all on staying and spent the entire trip back to New Hampshire debating whether or not I wanted to drive back up to Lake Placid on Sunday or not. I debated it all evening and even very early Sunday morning before I left to drive back up to Lake Placid and jump the 48.
Day 5 on jumping skis. Admittedly, I had numerous jumps on alpine skis off the 38 meter jump at Andover earlier in the year. The 48 wouldn't be a massive jump in hill size. It was against my "concept" though at that point in time. I think the idea of having only being on jumping skis for 4 days kinda made me think about it as well.
I took rode the landing hill twice and wanted to go for a third but, how do I say this, I knew not to. To make a rather long story short, I went up and took the first jump. An inrun tuck. LOL!!! Yeah right. I pretty much stood the entire inrun. About halfway back to the top Cannonball yelled at me, err, cussed at me. It's was the first of only two times I've heard him cuss at a jumper, both times at me. I think that should say enough for how bad the inrun position was.
I took a second jump was slightly better. The third jumper even better, as well was the fourth jump. The fifth jump was the best so far at least until around the K point when I ended up sitting back too much and the skis split on me and I went between them. I got up and took off my skis. To say I was mad would be an understatement. It was my first legitimate crash in seven months. Little did I know what was about to develop.
I picked up the skis and started walking over to the chairlift. About the time I got to the chairlift I noticed soreness in my shoulder. I had noticed this before and nothing had ever become of it. I didn't think anything about this time. I hopped on the chairlift and started back up top having decided before I had the skis off to not take another jump. Like I said I was mad at myself for not having listened to my own advice to wait before jumping the 48.
About halfway up to the top I found myself WAY TOO CLOSE to passing out. I was byond seeing stars. I put my arm behind the back of the chairlift to hopefully keep myself on the seat if I did passed out. Fortunately, I didn't pass out and made my way on up top and changed clothes. I stuck around up top for around an hour or more before I left and headed home.
The next three weeks I saw big time stiffness in my right shoulder, especially upon waking up in the morning. Granted, it was getting to sleep at night that was the fun part. I've always slept on one shoulder or the other, but during the three weeks after the crash I couldn't do that the pain was too great. I had numerous days of jumping during the three week period. I knew I just had to take it easy and not press my luck.
All through this I knew that the first thing I had to do was to be smart. Namely, I knew I had to get back on and jump the 48 as soon as possible. Don't run from something like the crash, instead just get back on the jump before the mind can take over and keep you from jumping that particular hill again.
Mid March saw the Lions Club jump meet in Lake Placid. I headed up planning to get back on the 48 again. The sooner the better. I got there mid morning and some of the kids that were jumping the morning session on the 48 was pretty much done jumping. I decided to wait until the afternoon session.
The afternoon session started with jumping on the 18. I took jumps on the 18 and crashed both of them. I still debate whether or not I broke my big toe on my right foot. To say the least I could barely walk, as my foot hurt so bad. I didn't jump the 48 on Friday afternoon.
Saturday morning I woke up and my big toe was black and blue, worse than I have ever seen black and blue before. I couldn't hardly walk, let alone jump. Hence, no jumping again.
The following weekend things were doing pretty good. Friday evening practice before Mud Meet on Saturday was going great. I started thinking about heading up to Lake Placid on Sunday for Lead Dog and jump the 48. I figured I would wait and see how things went on Saturday. Saturday I was having a great day of jumping during practice before the start of the ski jumping part of Mud Meet, a ski meister meet that closes out the official winter jumping season in Lebanon. The idea of going to Lake Placid on Sunday was looming in my mind big time. I was very seriously thinking about it.
The first jump of competition went great. No problems. I was filming the entire jumping competition from different perspectives. I moved the camera between jump 1 & 2. As I moved it down to just outside the judges stand, one of the judges I've known from the very beginning commented about how well I was jumping. As I went up for jump number two, that's when things fell apart. I crashed the second jump. I went up for the final jump and crashed it as well. I was already shaken to say the least, but I headed back up for the 'hoop of fire' jump. I crashed it as well. I called it a season with that jump. I was definitely shaken and stirred big time. I went up to Lebanon on Sunday for the end of the year party but couldn't even get myself to put on the skis.
Summer came and well...it was a total nightmare. More on that and the 2003 winter next time.
Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash
I had spent Monday-Wednesday, President's Day week in Ohio visiting family and made my way back up to New Hampshire Thursday morning. Thursday evening I spent watching the prep school jump meet in Andover on their 38 meter jump. Friday found everyone already up in Lake Placid getting ready for the competition on Saturday. So far to this point, my second year, I hadn't went an entire week during the winter months without jumping. Typically President's Day week was the longest spell between days of jumping.
Saturday morning I woke up and decided to drive on up and watch everyone jump at Empire State Games. After the competition I tried to talk one of the other adult jumpers that I had been jumping with all winter long into going back to Lebanon and we would jump the 25 on Sunday. He tried to talk me into sticking around and jump the 48 on Sunday.
I hadn't planned at all on staying and spent the entire trip back to New Hampshire debating whether or not I wanted to drive back up to Lake Placid on Sunday or not. I debated it all evening and even very early Sunday morning before I left to drive back up to Lake Placid and jump the 48.
Day 5 on jumping skis. Admittedly, I had numerous jumps on alpine skis off the 38 meter jump at Andover earlier in the year. The 48 wouldn't be a massive jump in hill size. It was against my "concept" though at that point in time. I think the idea of having only being on jumping skis for 4 days kinda made me think about it as well.
I took rode the landing hill twice and wanted to go for a third but, how do I say this, I knew not to. To make a rather long story short, I went up and took the first jump. An inrun tuck. LOL!!! Yeah right. I pretty much stood the entire inrun. About halfway back to the top Cannonball yelled at me, err, cussed at me. It's was the first of only two times I've heard him cuss at a jumper, both times at me. I think that should say enough for how bad the inrun position was.
I took a second jump was slightly better. The third jumper even better, as well was the fourth jump. The fifth jump was the best so far at least until around the K point when I ended up sitting back too much and the skis split on me and I went between them. I got up and took off my skis. To say I was mad would be an understatement. It was my first legitimate crash in seven months. Little did I know what was about to develop.
I picked up the skis and started walking over to the chairlift. About the time I got to the chairlift I noticed soreness in my shoulder. I had noticed this before and nothing had ever become of it. I didn't think anything about this time. I hopped on the chairlift and started back up top having decided before I had the skis off to not take another jump. Like I said I was mad at myself for not having listened to my own advice to wait before jumping the 48.
About halfway up to the top I found myself WAY TOO CLOSE to passing out. I was byond seeing stars. I put my arm behind the back of the chairlift to hopefully keep myself on the seat if I did passed out. Fortunately, I didn't pass out and made my way on up top and changed clothes. I stuck around up top for around an hour or more before I left and headed home.
The next three weeks I saw big time stiffness in my right shoulder, especially upon waking up in the morning. Granted, it was getting to sleep at night that was the fun part. I've always slept on one shoulder or the other, but during the three weeks after the crash I couldn't do that the pain was too great. I had numerous days of jumping during the three week period. I knew I just had to take it easy and not press my luck.
All through this I knew that the first thing I had to do was to be smart. Namely, I knew I had to get back on and jump the 48 as soon as possible. Don't run from something like the crash, instead just get back on the jump before the mind can take over and keep you from jumping that particular hill again.
Mid March saw the Lions Club jump meet in Lake Placid. I headed up planning to get back on the 48 again. The sooner the better. I got there mid morning and some of the kids that were jumping the morning session on the 48 was pretty much done jumping. I decided to wait until the afternoon session.
The afternoon session started with jumping on the 18. I took jumps on the 18 and crashed both of them. I still debate whether or not I broke my big toe on my right foot. To say the least I could barely walk, as my foot hurt so bad. I didn't jump the 48 on Friday afternoon.
Saturday morning I woke up and my big toe was black and blue, worse than I have ever seen black and blue before. I couldn't hardly walk, let alone jump. Hence, no jumping again.
The following weekend things were doing pretty good. Friday evening practice before Mud Meet on Saturday was going great. I started thinking about heading up to Lake Placid on Sunday for Lead Dog and jump the 48. I figured I would wait and see how things went on Saturday. Saturday I was having a great day of jumping during practice before the start of the ski jumping part of Mud Meet, a ski meister meet that closes out the official winter jumping season in Lebanon. The idea of going to Lake Placid on Sunday was looming in my mind big time. I was very seriously thinking about it.
The first jump of competition went great. No problems. I was filming the entire jumping competition from different perspectives. I moved the camera between jump 1 & 2. As I moved it down to just outside the judges stand, one of the judges I've known from the very beginning commented about how well I was jumping. As I went up for jump number two, that's when things fell apart. I crashed the second jump. I went up for the final jump and crashed it as well. I was already shaken to say the least, but I headed back up for the 'hoop of fire' jump. I crashed it as well. I called it a season with that jump. I was definitely shaken and stirred big time. I went up to Lebanon on Sunday for the end of the year party but couldn't even get myself to put on the skis.
Summer came and well...it was a total nightmare. More on that and the 2003 winter next time.
Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash
posted by Ryan Crawford at 11:24 PM
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