Jumping Journal: January 10, 2006

Day 19.  Boy this night was nothing like what I was expecting.  It didn't start like I figured it would, and by WAY FAR it didn't finish like I thought it would.  Amazing, what a difference the right crowd can make.

 

I got to the jump around 4:45PM and spent around 30 minutes by myself in the jump inn.  I rubbed wax on my skis, figuring that would help to avoid a repeat of last night.  Little did I know that it was total overkill.  The warm temps from earlier in the day dropped below freezing pretty much right at sunset.  This allowed the conditions to be close to the fastest seen so far this season.

 

As I waiting for the normal 6:30 practice time, other jumpers started coming in.  I saw someone come in the door.  It looked like it must of been an alpine racer carrying a bag of alpine gates.  I hadn't ever seen a ski bag that long before.  He set the bag down, I didn't realize who it was at first.  He started to take the boots off the bag and then spoke.  I didn't realize who it was until he spoke.  I knew instantly on hearing his voice that it was Sam Burke.  I've always enjoyed jumping around Sam.  He has always been one of the most down to earth jumpers in the east.  Chris Jones had already made his presence known.  He's another god jumper that has graduated from high school and now is jumping some while attending college.

 

I knew this was going to be one sweet evening.  Definitely not the normal evening of jumping by any means.  As 6:30 starts to roll around, I changed clothes and find myself debating whether I dare to be stupid enough to put on the jump suit.  I know not to but I finally say screw it and put it on anyways.  As I waiting to head up the hill I started getting this good but bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

 

I head up for the first jump.  The electricity is definitely there for the first time in almost two years, and only the second time since I started jumping.  I head down the inrun and jump.  I pass by the judges tower and realize that I'm way higher off the ground than what I normally am.  I land the jump and find myself shocked by how far I went.

 

The second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth jumps all go the same way.  Each jump was getting and longer all evening long.  I definitely was having my best day of jumping ever.

 

I find myself in the air for the seventh jump.  I notice what seems like I had stalled the movement in the air only to continue the movement.  I've never noticed it before.  It was quite strange.  I'm not really sure what I did though.  Talk about a really irritating experience.  I land real close to the 40 meter point.  It was definitely the longest jump I've ever had.  I held it beautifully.  I'm still a little surprised by how well I held the position.  Normally I would end up pulling out of the position or doing something to sabotage the jump, but not this time.

 

I find myself walking up the steps trying to figure out how I did what I just did.  I knew that I continued the movement, but I still, now at 11PM, don't know what I did to restart the movement that I had stopped.  Yes, that sounds totally stupid.

 

I get up top and go for the eighth jump.  I groan in the air as I knew I screwed up the takeoff.  It still goes down the hill quite nicely.

 

I go for the ninth and final jump of the evening.  I find it being the smoothest and most comfortable jump of the evening.  Once again it ended up down right around the 40 meter point.

 

I haven't ever seen myself have this kind of consistency while jumping on the 50.  Very few times have I ever found myself with this kind of consistency, positively speaking, on any hill.  I can always jump consistently bad, but never consistently good.  It had to simply be the electricity by having Sam and Chris present, guys that can make it down to the bottom of the hill.  Both Sam and Chris are jumpers that I have always enjoyed watching or jumping with as well.

 

It seems strange to actually have managed to pull off nine jumps, while wearing the jump suit, without crashing once.  Something was definitely going on tonight.  I hope it sticks around for quite some time.

 

Crash

Myth #2 Debunked, Part 10

You're losing your touch and your not jumping as well as you use to. You start to realize that you are not going to stand a chance at making the World Cup or Olympic team. Etc, etc, etc. Now what.

Well, now you follow in rich ski jumping tradition...you quit jumping. If your like most, you sell your equipment and walk away from the sport. If you was good enough at one time, you may find that you land yourself a job coaching the sport, otherwise you get swept under the rug as another 'has been'. It happens to jumpers each and every year.

As this concept continues to build bigger and bigger each year you lose more and more adult jumpers. You find that you can't attract new adults into the program because there are no other adults to attract them to start jumping.

If there were no kids involved in ski jumping, you would have a hard time attracting kids to get into the sport. Anyone out there wants to be around people their own age. Kids hang around kids and adults hang around adults. You have no adults out here ski jumping, and you can't attract any new adults because their is no magnet to draw them in.

This creates several problems.
1. Lack of funding.
Where does the funding come from that allows new facilities to built or makes way for improvement to current facilities? Corporate America.
How many of the working age adults ski jump? Very few.
How much of a day in/day out basis does the sport of ski jumping have a presence in corporate America? Almost zero.
How do you get your voice heard so you can get funding? By having people working for corporate America talking about the sport all the time while at work.

So what is so hard about this. Get adults to get more funding. The kids aren't working for corporate America, the adults are.

2. Lack of acceptance.
How much trouble do you have getting through to adults to allow their kids to jump? Probably far more than you think. When I was growing up in NW Ohio my mothers favorite saying was, "It's too dangerous." That's what she said about anything I wanted to do. I ended up giving up on trying several things I wanted to do as a kid, simply because I knew my mother would never allow me to. How many potential jumpers out there find themselves in the same situation.

When you don't have the parents out here jumping you run into all kinds of road blocks because the parents do not know/understand the sport. The reality is that many of the kids that are out here jumping right now are multi-generation jumpers. I can name many right here in the east. If one of these families move out of the area then you can count on the next generation disappearing from that family line as well. You need to get new family lines started to replace those lines that are disappearing.

You need to remember that the kids don't get themselves to the hill, they don't pay their own training fees, they don't pay their own entry fees, they don't sign their own liability waivers. Kids, just like money, don't grow on trees. Yet at the same time, all you see out here jumping at most of the jump hills are kids. What gives? It all comes back to "When you quit competing, you quit jumping."

The easiest way to get the parents to understand the sport is to get parents out here ski jumping. Put the focus on growing the adult base and the junior and senior base will take care of itself.

How do the kids get involved in cross-country and alpine skiing? Their parents take them out and 'force' them to learn the sport. Why does this not happen in ski jumping? Parents are out here jumping, that's why.

3. Lack of help.
Most of the juniors that are out here jumping, don't have a drivers license. They have to rely on their parents to get them to and from the hill. When you want to do hill work, whether it be to make improvements or make snow, trying to get kids to come out and help is almost impossible. On the other hand, getting adults to come and help is quite easy. If the adults are active jumpers, they will help. They want to get the work done so they can jump. I'm speaking this both from what I saw this past fall while helping to make the necessary improvements on the 50 at Storrs Hill and what I saw this past weekend while making snow in Newport.

It was the adults that did most of the work on the 50. On a rare occasion one of the kids would come out and help, but not very often. I found that all of us were talking about how we couldn't wait to start jumping the 50.

This past weekend I helped make snow on the 30 meter jump in Newport, New Hampshire. This was a slightly different story. Pretty much the old crew that always did the hill work has split up. Two out of the three 50+ year olds have retired and you don't see them much around the jump anymore. Both of the 'retirees' are actually in their 70's. The one stopped judging at the end of the 2004 winter and the other has run into family requirements. The one remaining worker, the Sunapee coach, told the kids quite simply, that if they wanted to jump on their home hill this winter that they was going to have to help make snow. The coach made a signup sheet with 4 hour slots that the kids could choose as to when they wanted to help. The only thing that really helped was the fact that most of kids have their drivers license. They could get to the hill on their own, even if it was at 2AM. You still do have to deal with legal curfews though.

Their was several adults that came out and help to make snow over the weekend. I even saw one at a meet on Sunday morning that asked why we didn't contact him to help make snow. These adults are former jumpers that have kids that jump currently for Sunapee High School.

Why does all this matter and how does all this work into the equation for growing the sport of ski jumping? I'll talk about this tomorrow.

Until next time
Keep the ski tips up,
Crash

Jumping Journal: January 09, 2006

Day 18. Gee, the season is 1/3rd finished. At least compared to normal it is now over 1/3rd finished. Typically I get 50 or 51 days on snow each winter and now I have 18. It doesn't seem like I should have so many days already. Granted the early snow on the 25 has helped quite nicely.

Tonight provide for some rather interesting conditions. I think this was the first time I've ever seen anything quite this radical. I ended up the evening with five jumps and two crashes. These two crashes I actually deem as being legitimate crashes. All the crashes I have had so far have simply been caused by the subconscious mind fighting the conscious body. Simply the subconscious trying to make me and everyone else believe that I can't jump.

Tonight was different. I headed down the inrun for the first jump and everything seemed like it was going to be a nice night for jumping. The temps were warm, around the freezing point, and the light snow that had fallen on Sunday and even earlier in the morning was long gone. Their was one thing that was still around...the slow conditions.

The only problem was that these slow conditions were only on the landing hill and outrun. The inrun was still fast. I took the first jump and when I landed the slow conditions caught me rather quickly and I didn't recover. I ended up on my butt.

On the second jump I knew a little better what to expect. I was hesistant on the landing but managed to pull it off without any problems. Admittedly, all I have did so far this season is just to rub on some wax, and the last time I did this was more than a week ago. I think I shall do a little rubbing tomorrow evening before I do any jumping. It sounds like the weather is going to do nothing but make things slower all week long.

The third and fourth jumps progressively were better. I knew better what to expect. The fifth jump was the probably about the best of the evening and it also caught me off guard and I ended up crashing on it thanks to sticking once again.

Crash