Welcome to Ski Jumper

Welcome to this crazy world of blogging.  In this case, welcome to the world of ski jump blogging.

 

I'm Ryan "Crash" Crawford.  I'm 32 years old and have been ski jumping since January 2001.  I live in Sunapee, NH and I do most, around 90%, of my ski jumping at Storrs Hill in Lebanon, New Hampshire, the home of the 2006 Junior Olympics.  I do intend to post a few pictures in the next few days of the prep work that is ongoing getting the 50 meter jump prepared for Junior Olympics in March.

 

I'm a very active ski jumper, normally jumping around 50 days a winter and jumping 12 months a year.  Yes, this month, December 2005, will mark my 60th consectutive month of ski jumping.  This coming week would have also marked my 52nd consectuctive week of ski jumping but I ended up getting hosed back in early September by car problems so I've only had two weeks without any jumping in the past year.  Yes, I jumped every single week in April in Lebanon, the only jump site in the country to jump 12 months a year.

 

In this blog I plan on not only keeping a journal, something I have never did before, but also I plan on showing some of the lessons that I have learnt over the past five years of ski jumping.  Yes, many of these lessons get buried by the coaches and don't get passed along to the kids.  The kids always wonder what is going on, many times the coaches do as well.  The secret to the sport of ski jumping is very easy, it's all mental.  The real key secret is things that happened earlier in life, before ski jumping, can effect your ski jumping.  This is something no one every takes notice of/does anything about.  I will give details over this winter showing exactly what I'm talking about from personal experience and also show how to can correct this problem yourself to make yourself a better ski jumper.

 

I have heard so many things said about the sport of ski jumping in the United States.  I don't believe any of these things, as I have seen otherwise in newsprint, online, on TV, personally, etc.  I do intend to show what these myths are and why they are false.  The first myth should be "debunked", as I like to call it, within the next week.  I hope to make people stop and think differently about this sport.  The current trend is to keeping doing things the same old way and hope for different results.  Well, the real secret is...

 

To get different results, you have to do things differently.  If you keep on doing the same old things all the time, you will continue to get the same results.

 

I have shut more people up in the past year by just mentioning my ideas than I could have ever imagined.  I tend to think the reason for that behavior is simply that the advice has been passed down from one generation to the next and it keeps getting passed down onto the current generation of kids.  As these bad pieces of advice keep getting passed down it keeps on hurting the sport more and more.  This sport doesn't have much of a following any more.  In the past five years I have seen this sport decline quite a bit here in the Eastern Division.  The results from the jump meets held over the past five years in the Eastern Division show the numbers in decline.  This trend must change if this sport ever wants to make a comeback, but it won't change as long as everyone keeps on doing the same old things all the time.  The focus in the sport is totally in the wrong spot.  The focus needs to change.  I will talk about what I mean and offer my suggestions for the ways to go about changing it.

 

Come along for the nice long ride ahead and feel free to post comments on what I have to say.  The nordic list has pretty much ended up being a list for the coaches to keep the athletes updated, let's use this blog to discuss the matters that matters the most about the inner workings of the sport of ski jumping and to come up with better ways of increasing the popularity of the sport.

 

Until next time

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash