Myth #3 Debunked: Part 3

Another easy way to identify a barrier is by looking for the 180 reversals.  This has occured to me on several occasions in both directions, positive and negative.  The 180 reversal is where all of sudden you notice a dramatic change in your performance.  It may take several days before you realize that it has occured but it will be such a big change, 180 degree kind of change, that you will not be able to deny that it has occured.  Let me give two scenarios that will show what I'm talking about.

 

Back when I first started ski jumping I developed a mental barrier to jumping skis.  My mind wanted to keep me off jumping skis.  You can read more about it in Mind Of A Ski Jumper: Part 2(see link at the top).  My mind formed up this barrier and it just kept on holding me back.  I truly had developed both a conscious and subconscious barrier to going to jumping skis.  The mind took everything one step further.  Cannonball was the only person that had really been ever saying anything to me about going to jumping skis.  He was the only person I ever crashed around.  I didn't crash when anyone else was around, just when Cannonball was around.  The mind was simply trying to make me think that I couldn't jump on jumping skis at the same time it was trying to make Cannonball think I shouldn't jump on jumping skis.

 

When I finally made the switch to jumping skis midway through the second winter the mind flared up kicking and screaming because I had put on the jumping skis.  After 6+ months without a crash I could't stand a jump on the 10 meter jump at Lebanon to save my soul.  I didn't realize at the time what the problem was, that took several more years before I finally understood what had actually happened.

 

The 180 reversal came the first evening I jumped the 25 with jumping skis.  I had already tried jumping on the 10 for five, six, seven days, with essentially no luck at all.  The very second I went to the 25, the crashless streak returned.  I couldn't crash while jumping the 25 no matter how much I would have wanted to.  It took me four years to finally understand that it was the mind/jumping skis that had caused my problem on the 10.

 

This was a positive break from the mental barrier.  The negative break came about a week later.

 

I still hadn't had a "real" crash in seven months.  I was jumping on the 48 in Lake Placid.  It was my fifth day on jumping skis, about a week after I finally jumped the 25 on jumping skis for the first time.  The first four jumps went okay, definitely not pretty jumps by any means, but I hadn't crashed any of them.  The fifth jump finally ate my shorts.  I ended up having a crash down at the transition.  I ended up leaning too far back just above the transition and the skis split and I went right between them.   It's been crash city ever since.  This is now almost four years later and I still pretty much crash once every seven jumps whenever I'm jumping in a jump suit on the 50 here in Lebanon.  The mind is still fighting me, now just for different reasons than why it had been fighting me before.

 

Another simple 180 reversal is when you have been having consistent improvement and then all of a sudden you find yourself not improving anymore, or worse, you start doing worse than what you had been doing.  Anytime you see a major reversal in your jumping this can be deemed as a 180 reversal.  180 reversals like this don't occur without a reason.  To overcome them, you need to first identify that a 180 reversal has occured, then you need to figure out why it occured.  Those two things must happen before you can neutralize the memory and overcome the grip that the memory has on your jumping.

 

Tomorrow I will look at Little Gimmees.  This is yet another way of knowing that you are suffering from a mental barrier.

 

Until next time

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 12, 2006

Day 35.  As the comment was heard today, "This was the first meet of the season at Newport."  Normally they have had a couple of high school meets by now, but not this year.  Granted it was only the second day that the hill has been jumped this year.  Yes, Mother Nature has been rather cruel this year, too say the least.  I spent Friday night helping make snow at the jump.  We shut off the compressors around 7AM and after rolling up hoses and getting everything returned I left the hill around 8:45.  I was going to jump yesterday at Andover, but I couldn't get myself out of the car.  Granted, there was only two jumpers jumping on the 38, and that didn't help the motivation factor either after not having any sleep in over 24 hours.

 

Today I headed for the Newport Winter Carnival Jump Meet, one of the few meet that I actually jump in each year.  As I got there final touches were being put on the hill and it was actually snowing, quite a twist from what the rest of the year has brought so far.  Fortunately, the heavy snow had stayed to the southeast of the area and never made it into Newport.  Also the windy conditions also never made it into Newport.  They also stayed down to the southeast.  The Newport jump really takes a hit by any winds coming out of the north.  There were a few gusts of wind during the day but nothing like what it was down along the coast.

 

I put on the jump suit, yes, I decided to be crazy and wear the jump suit, thankfully.  I did an outrun and saw probably the best outrun conditions that I have ever seen at Newport.  I headed up the landing hill and when I got to the takeoff Ron Beaudet was telling another man that he should grab a picture looking up the inrun as a jumper was coming down the inrun, and just duck down before the jumper got to the takeoff.  Ron looked at me and asked me if I minded him doing it when I jumped.  I said, "Sure, definitely do it on the first jump since the conditions would be the slowest on the first jump with the fresh snow falling".  I was going to end up being the first person down the inrun for the day.

 

I walked up the tressel and put on the skis.  I started down the inrun and the guy ducked before I got to the takeoff.  I landed the jump and in good old fashion I went down shortly after the old fall line.  As I got up I just laughed saying "I have the jump suit on."  As I made my way back up to the takeoff I find out that the photographer chickened out and didn't press the button hard enough on the camera.  I told him to try it again on the next jump.

 

I walked up the tressel and put the skis on once again.  I had to coax the photographer, from the top of the inrun, to get him to try to take the picture again.  I started down and this time as I looked up around the transition on the inrun I noticed he wasn't moving as quickly this time.  This time he did get the photo.  It looked pretty good from what I could tell by looking at the digital screen on the camera after I got back up to the takeoff.  Admittedly my inrun position wasn't the greatest from what I could see.  I'll have to wait until it gets put on the web to really be able to tell what the position looked like.  I'll also post the link to the photo once it gets up on the net and see if I can't possibly grab it for myself and put it on the blog.

 

Each of the remaining three practice jumps went pretty decent as well.  Definitely not much speed on the inrun thanks to the fresh snow that fell for the next couple of hours.

 

The meet started up and I thought I had a pretty decent first jump, turns out it wasn't as good as what I thought it was.  The second and third jumps weren't much better.  I was only managing 21.5-22 meters on the 30 meter jump each of the three jumps.  I was outdistanced by all the jumpers in the out of high school class, which included four masters, one female and one college jumper.  I ended up being beat by both Dan Brown and Bill Ryan, who attended the US Masters Championships last month.  Amazingly, Bill still only has around 30 jumps this winter, most of them at US Masters.

 

A few of the kids and I took two more jumps after the meet was over and then I called it a day with 10 jumps.  Finally, I managed to jump Newport for the first time this year.  I'll probably spend the next three evenings jumping in Newport.  As much as I don't like the Newport jump, I can't avoid jumping there.  It's just one of those crazy things.

 

Crash