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

Jumping Journal: December 11, 2005

Out of all the days of jumping in Lebanon that I have had over the past five years, this one had to be the more interesting of them. After 6 inches of fresh snow fell on Friday I got up to Lebanon this afternoon expecting to see pretty decent conditions. I figured we would probably just take a few rides down the landing hill to pack it down and then go up and start jumping. I also kinda figured that we might find some snowboard tracks going through the outrun. What I didn't expect is what I ended up with. Can you say SURPRISE!

Turned out the inrun and landing hill was just like I expected. The outrun was a totally different story. Jay, the hill manager, had did a little grooming for us, err against us. They have been making snow on the alpine slopes that sit right beside the 25 meter jump for the past week or two now. From what I was told they had made a pile of snow right next to the outrun. Jay came in sometime after the snow on Friday and push the snow onto the alpine slopes. What he forgot to do was groom out the outrun after he had made all the snowcat tracks in the outrun. Dan and I show up and find the outrun with snowcat tracks all over the place and ice chunks piled one on top of other right around the fall line.

After 30-45 minutes of doing work around the fall line to get it in decent enough shape so we thought we could jump it, we got dressed and headed on up and took three outrun a piece and managed to get the landing hill pretty well packed. It was definitely the wildest conditions that I have ever skied on the 25. I've skied conditions like that elsewhere but never in Lebanon. Granted then again, everything is still closed and the actual jumping season isn't even considered to have have started yet. The 50 meter jump is always the first hill that gets prepared/jumped and then they start to make snow on the 25. Mother Nature has just provided us with a nice way to get started early this year on jumping on snow.

The first couple of jumps were just getting used to the inrun. Yes, we just skied the track into the fresh snow on the inrun. Sure the track was 4-5 inches deep, much deeper than it normally would be, but we didn't care any. I also was using the first two runs to try to get used the dip I had noticed right below the K point on the landing hill. Problem was I only noticed while riding the landing hill and never noticed it at all while jumping. Problem solved???

By the third jump I was getting more settled in and I was thinking more about technique. It seemed this afternoon I was able to pull the technique together about the best I have so far. It sure felt like it at least. With the exception of the one or two jumps, from the third jump on I pretty much was having as solid of technique as I have ever had.

I ended the day with nine jumps and now have 30 jumps on snow so far this winter in the three days that I have been out. Amazingly, no crash so far this winter, then again I haven't jumped the 50 yet, that's when the crashes will start.

At the end of the afternoon Cannonball congratulated both Dan and I for being crazy enough to jump under those conditions. I guess maybe that's why the masters class in Lebanon is known by the nickname "Lunatic Fringe".

It sounds like next weekend will see jumping pick up big time as it's currently being planned that the 50 meter jump should see opening day next Saturday. Of course, Mother Nature will totally dictate that, but the forecast right now is for perfect snow making conditions pretty much all week long. Next weekend is looking to be awfully interesting to say the least. Maybe my luck will change this winter. I think I shall find out soon enough.

Jumping Tip: Let me clarify one thing before the jumping tip. I jump with blown out(sides blown out so their is no ankle support) boots. For me to jump and see my ski tips come up any at all on the 25 or quite often even on the 50 I have to cock my ankles big time. I did put on a decent pair of boots one day last winter and found that I didn't have to do anything to get the ski tips to come up, the support, from not having the sides blown out, brought the ski tips up on their own.

I have seen many times so far that just thinking about technique in a different fashion can have a dramatic impact on being able to get the technique down and not being able to get the technique down. For me to be able to get the ski tips to come up with my boots and for me to be able to "move out over the skis" I have to drive through the heel at the takeoff instead of jumping with the whole foot. If I think of trying to jumping with the whole foot, nothing happens...well, I do waste a jump. If I think about driving through the heel, the ski tips come up and the body goes out over the skis like it should. I end up with much better technique as a result. It might just be that thinking this way works for me while trying to think of jumping with the whole foot is complicating the procedure in my mind.

If your having problems trying to jump with the whole foot try driving through the heel instead and see if that makes a difference. By driving through the heel, I think mostly of just trying to push down with the heel at the takeoff, kinda like you are trying to push over a wall.

Each of the jumps this afternoon where I was doing it I noticed the ski tips come right up to meet me without me even having to try to cock my ankles. It almost seemed like I was jumping in a decent pair of boots instead of the boots that I had on.

Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash

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

The Mind Of A Ski Jumper, Part 1

As part of this blog I want to share some stories about my ski jumping to help others learn that there is far more to ski jumping than just technique. I guess you could say I know, from looking back at the past, that my mind has been against me since before I took the first jump. I hope to help other jumpers avoid the same problems that I have had to deal with and that I still deal with all the time. I truly hope none of the kids out there right now have to deal with what I've went through. Yes, the nickname is Crash, for a reason, a very good reason. So far no trips to the hospital, but WAY to many black and blue marks as a result and a few very close calls. I guess you could say I make Eddie the Eagle look like a professional.

For me, my biggest problem with ski jumping started long before I had ever seen a pair of snow skis in person. Yes, it may sound crazy, but it is very true. Things that happen as small kids can influence you the rest of your life. They can influence you in ways that are not directly related to what had happened earlier in life. It's uncovering and eliminating these mental blocks that can go a long way to making your life as a ski jumper much easier, more enjoyable and far more rewarding.

As I was growing up in northwest Ohio my family wasn't much of an outdoor family and we never did much in the way of traveling. Being in the flat country of northwest Ohio if you wanted to do anything adventuresome you had to travel to be able to do it. Heck the nearest ski area was almost 80 miles, one way from home. Instead my brother, sister and myself ended up on the local area swim team. My brother swam pretty much most of his childhood years. I swam until I was 14, and then gave it up, not out of dislike for it, but because I was fed up with being treated like crap from the other kids on the team. I pretty much was everybodies punching bag. The last year that I swam I would only stayed for half the practice and then headed for the locker room and on upstairs to play pool on the pool table until it was time to go home. I did that so I wouldn't have to deal with the kids in the locker room after practice was over. My mind was already in protection mode/trying to keep me from the pain the other kids were dishing out. The worst insult to injury was the fact that I was quite a good swimmer. I had/have many team and pool records in my name and way too many ribbons and medals to go with the records.

In northwest Ohio the outdoor motto pretty much was "If you want to get into something in the outdoors, you get yourself into it, teach yourself how to do, and do it by yourself. If you don't like that, then stay home and sit on your butt." I pretty much knew by not having much in the way of friends through school that I had no other choice but to get myself into anything that I wanted to do, and I would also have to do it by myself as well. After getting into skiing back in 1995, I saw very few people from my neck of the woods ever out on the slopes. After getting into whitewater(WW) kayaking in 1999, I found that there was no one that did any WW kayaking that lived around me. Like I said, I pretty much lived in an indoor environment.

Once I got into skiing, I picked it up quite quickly. The only thing that held me back was lack of terrain, and not anything else. I could ski pretty much anything within the first few weeks. By the end of the first season, I was bored stiff of skiing. On the old "straight" skis, not on the new shape skis, I would turn around, face uphill and ski all the way down to the bottom facing uphill, carving as I went along. That's how boring skiing got for me, I had to do something to spice it up somehow. Granted before I got into skiing I had already wanted to get into ski jumping. The lack of facilities held me back from getting involved while I lived in Ohio.

When I got into WW kayaking, I was very much on my own. I didn't know of anyone within 1.5 hours of me that was involved in the sport. I managed to go on and watch a video and I taught myself how to roll the kayak and went to progress very quickly from there. The nearest whitewater to where I lived was 6 hours of solo driving each way. Another words, I ran whitewater on the weekends only. By the end of the first season, I had a 30 year veteran paddler willing to take me down Upper Gauley in West Virginia. It's one of the classic runs kinda like jumping one of the large jumps at any Olympic venue. Very rarely does someone run Upper Gauley in their first season. The only thing that stopped me was not hooking up with him. It was mostly a personality problem. I'm 'typically' the kind of person that waits until someone offers, I don't go out and ask.

In 2001 I got into ski jumping. Ever since, it has been nothing but one stumbling block upon another. Pretty much in the past three years I have made no improvement whatsoever. I've had to look back and ask myself what the deal is. I've never had any trouble picking up anything new at all until I got into ski jumping. What was it, I kept asking myself, until the reality set in. The reality is the nature of the SPORT. Yes, the competitive environment. The torment/pain that I went through while swimming has caused my mind to try to keep from succeeding, in a competitive environment, at anything I do in the future. Hence, why I've had all the trouble with ski jumping. Even though I pretty much never compete, my mind still knows that the environment exists and that the sport is about one thing and one thing only, competition.

See the real secret, as I pointed out in my first post to the blog, is that the sport of ski jumping is ALL mental. Yes, 100% mental, 0% physical. If your mind is against you, your body won't be able to get into the nice aerodynamic position that it needs to be in. The mind won't allow it to. It will trick you every way it possibly can to keep you from being able to do what you need to do. Once the mind has been taken care of, getting the body out over the skis, jumping on time, or putting in a telemark landing, etc., will become dramatically easier. I hear top level coaches in all sports talk about using visualization. I see them using it in interviews shown during the Olympics all the time. Visualization is great. You need to remember though that all the visualization that you do won't help any if the mind is fighting the body. The mind will still win, and it will keep you from doing what you need to do. You have to take care of the mind first. Again, ski jumping is 100% mental, 0% physical. Later this winter I will detail a method I found out about almost a year ago that shows much promise in taking care of breaking down the mental blocks that you might be experiencing.

In Part II of this series, coming up later on, how watching ski jumping hurt my ski jumping progress in the beginning.

Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash

History Has Been Made

It all started back in the summer of 1997 when the little 25 meter jump in Lebanon, New Hampshire saw plastic for the first time.  They got a nice deal for the used plastic that had been on one of the jumps in Lake Placid.  They spent the summer getting the 25 ready for its first jumps on plastic and in September 1997 a new tradition began.

 

Each month the rest of the summer they jump on the "new" plastic.  Winter came and they continued jumping on snow.  Spring came and everyone kinda figured that they wouldn't be able to jump again until summer arrived.  But, lo and behold, Jon "Cannonball" Farnham took a look at the jump one late April day and saw the snow was all melted and called the boys up and got them out to start jumping on the plastic.  It has been nothing but jumping ever since.

 

Not to be outdone, on Saturday, December 18, 2004 the 50 meter jump in Lebanon was jumped for the first time of the 2005 winter.  Little was it known at the time what was getting started, not even to myself who came up with the crazy idea.  It took until mid-March before the idea hit me and then it took a couple more weeks before I had found someone that was willing to go for with me.

 

I saw four potential hurdles that would have to be overcome in the beginning but I knew that if the four hurdles could be crossed and if I didn't hurt myself or have car problems, the one that kicked me in the butt after 38 straight weeks of jumping, that I could very well end up jumping 52 consectutive weeks.

 

Dateline: December 4, 2005

 

Both traditions have kept themselves intact to this point.  Today, Dan Brown and myself both jumped the 25 for the first time this month, under a mix of snow and plastic.  This marked the 100th consectutive month of ski jumping on the 25 and the 52nd consecutive week of ski jumping at Storrs Hill.  The 25 meter jump will see its 52nd consectuctive week coming up in two more weeks.

 

No one other than Dan and I was around.  Everyone else had all been out working late last night on both the 50 meter inrun and making snow on the landing hill of the 50.  I think they all must have went home and went to bed, LOL!  The celebration will definitely happen at some point later on this season once things calm down a little and everyone gets a chance to catch their breath.

 

Until next time

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

The inrun of the 25 on Saturday. Hence why I figured we was going to have to hose it down and have the water freeze to the plastic, err ice jumping. It's amazing what a difference 24 hours can make.

Myth #1 Debunked

One of several excuses as to why ski jumping has died in the United States that I have heard over the past five years has been quite simple:

 

"Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping".

 

I haven't heard it as much as some of the other lame excuses that I have heard, but I've heard it enough.  While I do realize that the warmer winters have put a damper on the sport over the past 20-30 years, it hasn't even come close to killing it.  I was out to Norge, a few years ago, right at the end of the winter season, the day after Presidents Day to be exact.  I was totally startled when I heard them talking about it being the end of the season.  My thought was, a five week long season.  Boy am I ever glad I waited until I moved to New Hampshire five years ago before I got into ski jumping.  I used to live about five hours from Norge, in northwest Ohio.  I'm not sure I could have handled the thought of only having five weeks to be able to ski jump during the winter months.

 

Well, I see things very differently.  I guess you could say I totally disagree with everyone on this issue.  To be able to go out and jump 100 consectutive months and 52 consectutive weeks like has happened at Storrs Hill Ski Area in Lebanon, New Hampshire, makes you stop and ask the question, "How did Mother Nature kill ski jumping?"

 

Mother Nature didn't do anything to hurt this sport.  At least, Mother Nature didn't do anything that man didn't allow her do.  I have seen the picture and heard the stories about chopping up ice for the 4th of July meet at Lake Placid, New York each year.  Granted now it is all done with plastic and porcelain.  Back in the old days when the jumpers wanted to jump they did so.  They didn't sit back and cry and whine and complain about it.  They would go out at the first sign of snow, even a light dusting and hit the jump.  We have been doing it here over the past two weeks now in Lebanon.  Heck we are old timers.  Dan is around 47 and I'm 32.  We know how to go out and have a good time.  We don't let Mother Nature stop us from jumping.

 

This past spring in Lebanon we jumped the 25 meter jump every week.  I think the longest time period we had between days of jumping was nine days.  We even ended up, as I like to call it, mud season jumping.  Mud season jumping is very appropriately named if you were to see what both of us looked like after we finished jumping.

 

The only snow on the inrun was in the transition, the rest of the inrun was plastic.  I'm not sure if we could have pulled it off if it would have been a porcelain track.  It would have required both running water, the pipes were still frozen at this point, and also would have required the track to have been cleaned out which I'm not sure if we would have been able to do or not.  I don't know how much of the bottom part of the snow was snow and how much of it was ice.  As it was we drug some of the snow from the transition up to the top and down to the takeoff to give us enough moisture to keep up from sticking to the plastic.

 

The landing hill was a complete mix of melting snow and plastic.  Patches of snow dotted the landing hill clear down to the transition.  The moisture from the melting snow kept the plastic nice and moist to keep us from sticking to the plastic anywhere on the landing hill.

 

The transition to the original fall line was completely snow.  The first 20 feet beyond the fall line was sawdust/hay, then another 20 feet of snow before turning back into grass that went on out to the end of the outrun.  Right as the snow turned back into grass the last time there was a real nice 5-6 foot long stretch of mud, right where the fall line wants to take a jumper.  We laid some hay down over top the standing water back at the fall line and gave took a landing hill ride.  IT seemed quite safe to us so we went ahead and jumped it.  We each ended up taking at least eight jumps that day.

 

Everything with the jump was fine.  The only problem came from the abrupt stop at the end.  We still had a lot of speed when we reached the end of the outrun and to avoid going over the bank and out into the parking lot we would lay over on our sides and slide.  I did find out that you could drag your hands forceably once you got onto the sawdust and manage to slow yourself down enough so you could end up stopping without having to lay it over.  We also have managed to learn over this past summer that you can do a hockey stop on very wet grass.  It has to be really wet though.

 

From what I have seen of this sport since I started ski jumping back in January 2001, I tend not to believe the old myth about Mother Nature killing ski jumping.  I have seen differently and I've come to realize that this fallacy is just that an old myth.

 

Until next time

Keep your ski tips up,

Crash

The inrun of the 25 today when we jumped it. Just a light dusting of snow. It was totally covered with snow a week ago.

Jumping Journal: December 4, 2005

After taking 9 jumps on the natural snow last Sunday I took another 12 jumps on very fresh snow today.  Light snow was falling most of the time while jumping.  I figured for sure we was going to end up ice jumping for the first, and probably only, time this fall when I went to bed last night.  The 25 was all plastic yesterday afternoon.  The snow from last weekend had melted off during a big warm up early in the week and with the cold temps I figured for sure we was going to be dragging out the hose for the one and only hose down of the plastic that would be needed.  I woke up this morning to see it snowing at very nice rate and the ground was already starting to get covered over with snow.  I quickly changed my mind and realized that once again I would be jumping on snow.

 

The jumping definitely wasn't very good.  I didn't have any nice jumps like I have been starting to have over the past several weeks.  At first, I found myself rather apprehensive mostly around the fall line area.  For some reason I was expecting the sawdust underneath the snow to come into play, it didn't.  Once my mind stopped trying to interfer with my jumping, my jumping did get better.  The distances were all short, just like last week.  I guess that Jon has always said that a light dusting on the plastic makes the plastic stickier.  I do have to say that after every jump I did have snow sticking to the bottom of the skis.  I have never, in five years of jumping had that happen before.

 

I can't wait until I get used to jumping on snow again.  After jumping all summer on plastic my mind is trying to tell me that I'm still on plastic.  I found myself still wanting to think about stopping on plastic instead of stopping on snow.

 

It is amazing how little snow it takes to be able to a hockey stop.  Just a light dusting is all that is needed.

This is a picture of the top of the inrun on the 50 meter jump that will be used during Junior Olympics in March. I spent a couple of evenings in September ripping off the old stair that led to the top and we just finished rebuilding the stairs and the new bar starts this past week. It definitely seems a little different up there now compared to what it has been like the past few years while I've been jumping on it. The grade boards running part way down the inrun should be finished off by the time tonight is over, I helped with installing some of the them down lower than what this photo shows earlier this afternoon. Still some work to be done but hopefully within the next couple of days it should all be done up on the inrun. Then it will be time to make snow and get jumping.

This is a full view of the inrun taken from the knoll. The final meter of the inrun, as it is currently shown in the photo, will be cutoff to hopefully have pretty much everyone going out of the house versus from the bars. Normally there has only being 2-3 inches of snow on the takeoff but with the new profile the takeoff will be closer to 12 inches of snow. This will help improve the takeoff angle and should also help to keep the end of the inrun from turning to ice like it has in the past. Late February and early March has been tricky at times over the past five years. I can remember back a couple of years ago when the 50 wasn't even jumpable, due to lack of snow, any time during the month of March. Then again, this past winter we jumped the 50 on March 21st, the latest it has ever been jumped. We could have even jumped it on Easter Sunday, if it wouldn't have been for the holiday. Keeping the ice down will help to extend the jumping season and keep late season work on the hill more to minimum as well.

Back in October, luckily finishing off before the ground had a chance to freeze over, we got the grade boards in place on the landing hill. We first got the grade boards and deflection boards in place over by where the markers stand, then we came on over and managed to finish off the grade boards on the other side just before the first snow of the winter. Fortunately, the first snow came a little late this fall. Work still needs to be done on the judges tower, right side of the picture, so that it can accomodate five judges. When it was built many years ago it was built to only accomodate three judges. The new rules have made it so that modifications will have to be made to the tower before Junior Olympics. Fortunately, all this work can be done after winter fully arrives, unlike an landing hill or inrun work.

This picture is of the bottom of the landing hill, again it shows the new grade boards and deflection boards that have been installed. It also shows some white stuff on the ground, I wonder what that is?

Oh yes, the full view looking from the bridge up to the top of the inrun. I guess you could say that someone has been getting a real snow job pulled over on them, haven't they, LOL!

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