Myth #1(Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked

Myth #2(NCAA killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Myth #3(The US doesn't have the talent) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Mind Of A Ski Jumper Part 1, 2, 3, 4

The Ultimate Coach - Ski Jump Training Device

Jumping Season Digest: (see bottom of this page)

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Jumping Journal: March 08, 2006

Day 54, err day 10 in a row.  Gee, this is finally shaping up to what I would expect out of such a big season.  Finally I'm seeing some nice days in a row of jumping.  It's been a couple of years since I last put together this many days in a row.  Hopefully now Mother Nature won't kill the stretch anytime soon.
 
Spent the late afternoon jumping the 50.  The inrun and landing hill both look great.  The outrun is another story.  It's showing dirt even after having had some snow pushed onto it last night.  Last year it held its snow much better than it is this year.
 
Dan and I decided to go for some daylight jumping so we met around 4:30PM to jump instead of meeting at the usual 6:30 practice time.  Granted, Wednesday isn't a normal practice day anyways, we decided to go for it since the weather forecast for tomorrow is for a mixed bag of rain and snow during the afternoon.
 
So far I have had no trouble doing hockey stops on the 25, at Hanover, Andover or Newport.  I've had no luck at all doing them on the 50.  My mind keeps telling me that their isn't enough room to do a hockey stop.  I know by watching all the kids and other adults that it is purely a mind game.  This afternoon that all changed outta force, err bad outrun conditions.
 
I took the first jump, it wasn't pretty.  I mostly just slid off the end of the inrun.  The mind was playing tricks with me.  I knew from having looked that the outrun had bare spots that I could maneuver around.  I tried and I didn't get stopped in time.  I ended up going on beyond the end of the outrun.  Normally that would be okay, plenty of snow in the big open side yard.  Now, though, the snow is melting quickly and the rock garden is showing its true colors.  I wasn't happy to say the least.  I knew that no matter what I had to do a hockey stop from now on.  No choice about it.
 
Walking back up the stairs I tapped on doing a hockey stop.  It worked quite well.  On the second jump, much better than the first, I ended up doing an almost hockey stop.  I start the hockey stop move only to end up laying it over on my side before I got stopped.  The third jump was a little bit better, both the jump and the stop.
 
I decided to tap some more on the stop going up for the fourth jump.  From that point forward I was pretty much getting the hockey stop each and every time.  Toward the evening of the afternoon I was I getting them real well.
 
About midway through the session I ended up putting in a couple of V's.  The technique wasn't stupendous by any means but it was doing okay.  On the eight, next to last, jump of the afternoon I decided to work on timing.  I had been jumping late on each jump.  It seems like in the past couple of weeks that I have been jumping late most of the time.  This time though was another story.  I managed to jump on time and have my best jump of the evening.  I also finally managed to get the feel of having extra speed at the takeoff when you make th move.  I was told about it last week by Sam Burke, I have never noticed it before tonight.
 
I went up for the ninth and final jump of the afternoon.  It started fine, and ended with a crash.  I managed to somehow pull off a two footed landing, one ski lands and then the other ski lands a second later.  It has been ages since I last managed to do this.  The landing caught me off guard and I went down.  Amazingly it was on the landing hill where I crashed.  Not very many crashes on the landing hill this year.
 
Crash
Winter 2010
DateLeb 25Plymouth 25Leb 50And 38
Dec 121
Jan 056
Jan 063
Feb 024
Feb 032
Feb 046
Feb 073
Mar 063
Totals133102