Jumping Journal: January 02, 2007

32.8 degrees.  That was the average temperature for the month of December 2006.  That was down, through December 26, the average temperature was 34.7 degrees.  It was on pace to be the warmest December in history, it ended up being the third warmest December, third warmest year, and if I remember right, the third wettest year on record.  Time shall tell what 2007 is going to bring but the forecast for the next week isn't sounding very good.

 

My plans for jumping on Saturday and getting to jump 100 before the new year didn't pan out.  A wedding anniversary ended up canning those plans.  Not my anniversary since I'm single.  Instead I decided to go ahead with my Sunday plans on Saturday and I spent all day Sunday at the jumps in Lake Placid, NY.  Their is a big national level competition there each year during the New Years period.  I had planned on going up and watching on Sunday but with Saturday free I went up on Saturyday instead and spent pretty much all of the day on Sunday and Monday at home.

 

I had decided to go up to the meet to see what has been going on.  For some reason this winter I have been jumping much better than normal.  Tonight was significantly better than normal.  It has got me to wondering if the mind is breaking down and giving up the fight it has had against me or just what is going on.  I know the one thing that my mind has been fighting to keep me from doing for several years is to move up to the K90 hills.  It has fought me tooth and nail, quite literally, to keep me from jumping a 90 meter jump.  The last time I even saw anyone jump a 90 would have been back in early February 2003, the same day that the space shuttle Columbia discentigrated(sp?) on reentry.  Since than I have only been around a K90 on just a few instances and the 90 hasn't been jumped on any of them due to weather, end of season, etc.  I knew by going up Saturday I could see how the mind would respond to me watching a competition on the 90, yet along watching it under the lights since the competition was supposed to start at 5PM.

 

To say the least I knew before I went to bed Friday evening that the mind wasn't reacting favorably to my decision.  I could tell it was rebelling big time.  Thanks to having studied Emotional Freedom Technique(EFT) I knew from what I was seeing shortly after making the decision Friday evening that the mind didn't want me anywhere near the K90.  I wasn't about to listen and give in.

 

After getting about one hour of sleep, as a result of the mind game, Friday night I woke up a little earlier than planned Saturday morning and just stayed awake to make sure I wouldn't end up falling asleep and oversleeping.  I left for Lake Placid with light snow starting to fall.  The trip over was one of the snowiest trips I have been on in a long time.  It snowed pretty much the whole way over.

 

The morning training session was cancelled due to the snow so several of the "local" kids end up going over and jumping on the K48.  I wish I would have taken my skis with me but I didn't even think about it since I didn't figure anyone would end up jumping the 48.  I watched everyone else jump and then headed back inside to continue to fight with the mind.

 

I was only going to stay for the training session on the 90 and leave so I could be home before dark.  I knew trying to get home after dark would be a nightmare after only one hour of sleep the evening before.  I decided to stay for the competition and drive home afterwards, talk about making for a VERY long day.  As I waited for the competition I tried to grab some sleep in a rocker recliner in the jump inn.  I did manage about 15-20 minutes, I doubt it was much more than that.  The mind was doing everything it could to try to get me to leave but I flat out refused to give in.

 

The competition began late due to a lighting issue and then it got put on hold while they tried to make the landing hill safer after two of the first four jumpers crashed on the landing hill.  The warm temperatures so far this year haven't allowed for much snow making and the natural fluffy snow that fell earlier in the day just wasn't packing down very well.  They knew if they tried to bring out the grooming machine that they would probably pull the snow right off the plastic and then everyone would be landing on plastic.  They ended up, I believe, raking the new snow off the hill the best that they could and then had everyone take a couple of rides down the landing hill to help pack it out better.  After that was over the rest of the competition went ahead without any more trouble.

 

I left after the competition was over and headed home.  The strange thing was on the way home, slowly but surely the brain stopped putting up the fight, err it stopped the creating the pain that it had been creating ever since the evening before.  I knew the pain wasn't natural and I knew by the way it kept moving around that it wasn't normal for that to happen either unless the pain was for a psychological reason.  By the time I arrived home, sometime after midnight, the pain was pretty much going.  Other than a little bit of it tonight after jumping, I haven't had any other trouble with it since Saturday evening.

 

I decided after Saturday that I would use myself as the ski jump ginny pig for testing out EFT on ski jumping.  I have wanted to try it with someone that I knew could use it for quite a long while but I just have never found the right person.  I decided that it was time I put an end to the crazy mind game and see what was possible without the psychological barriers in the way.  I realize that it won't be a quick battle as I am 33 years old and I have 33 years of psychological barriers that have been thrown my way over those 33 years.  Some of them I listed last year on the blog in the Mind Of A Ski Jumper write up(linked at the top of the blog).  I know using EFT that I can create temporary change in my jumping technique but to create permanent change I have to get to the core issue(psychological reason) of why the technique is incorrect before the change will be permanent.

 

Monday I decided to start writing up some tapping sequences as well I decided to take a look back through the jumping journal to see if I could figure out what was the cause of two strange things that have occured over the past year or so.  The first strange thing was the lack of crashing.  I always used to crash pretty much once every 7 jumps, err once per evening.  All of sudden I'm not crashing any at all, even after almost 100 jumps so far this winter.  The jumping journal came in very handy, surprisingly, to show that I had writting up back at the end of July about how I had stopped crashing once I changed over to the new boots.  Maybe the lack of crashing isn't psychological, rather in this unusual case, technical.  The second problem I have had ever since last winter, jumping late.  I always used to jump on time, but starting late last winter I started jumping late consistently.  I couldn't figure out why.  By looking back through the jumping journal I noticed that it also started the same time I switched boots.  Admittedly, I'm still not sure why it happened but at least now I know when it happened.  I question if I didn't start jumping late as a way to keep my jumping crappy since I had changing into much better boots that would allow me to easily bring the ski tips up.  It seems like it had worked pretty well last winter and into this past summer.  It's not working very well now though.

 

I did some tapping yesterday on a few concepts and spent lunch time today doing some more tapping.  I'm going to give it a try and see how well it works.  I can't lose nothing more than time it takes to tap, but I do have a whole new life to gain by it working.

 

I got to the hill early and helped Cannonball with some work on the hill.  The groomer had accidently cut a path down the landing hill earlier in the day and we went about repairing it.  Amazingly we didn't have to cut a new track on the inrun.  We ended up getting a nice, an understatement, ice storm overnight Sunday into Monday morning.  Cannonball ran the tracolator down the inrun and it bit in and made for a nice track.

 

After suiting up I head up the inrun for the first jump of the evening.  I ended up being the first person down tonight and I ended up with a fun inrun as a result.  I think part of it was inrun position and the other part was clearing out the track.  I never have had such a feeling going down an inrun as the first jump tonight.  I ended up jumping late but I still went down the hill nice toward 32-35 meter range.  After landing I noticed something weird.  It was almost as if I was about to fall over.  I didn't but it seemed like I was about to lose it.

 

I go up for the second jump and it notice the same thing on the inrun again, and again I notice that it seems like I'm about to fall over going through the transition.  I still can't put my finger on what is going on after I land.

 

The third jump gets better.  I had tapped earlier in the day on the late jumping and not driving through the heels.  After the second jump I was told about making sure to keep my hands up on the inrun.  I guess I had been getting a little relaxed about remembering the inrun position.  This time as well I nail the time beautifully.  I actually thought I was early as I did see the right ski tip initially drop before I pulled it back up, from what I was told though I did jump right on time.  The rest of the night was pretty much on time as well other than the next to last jump where I jumped late.

 

All of a sudden on jump three I was getting even further down the hill and Esky made the comment as I came up from jump three that the was best/furthest jump he had ever seen me take.  I told him it was in the top 5 of all time longest jumps. Jump four was pretty much identical to jump three, including the distance.  Not only am I now jumping further but I'm doing it consistently, unlike before when I would only get a nice long jump once in a season.

 

As I pass by the coaches tower the coach nails me on being "tense".  I have always had the tendency to hold my arms right to my sides, almost like they were glued their in place to my sides.  On the next couple of jumps I worked on that to little avail. 

 

On jump five I finally figured out what was happening down around the transition.  For some reason, never did figure out the reason, I was either landing with my legs much further apart than normal or I was letting my legs slide apart after I landed.  I wish I knew scenario it was that was taking place.  The second scenario I've been through before and after having gone up to Lake Placid this weekend I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it wasn't the second scenario that was playing out.

 

Finally around jump seven I started getting the arms out away from my sides.  I was still jumping in the 35-37 meter range, a far cry from the 27-30 meter range that I spent most of the last two winters jumping at.

 

Jump eight I jumped late but I did have the hands/arms nice away from the sides and I noticed the difference in the comfort of the flight position.

 

On the ninth and final jump of the evening I hit everything beautifully.  The timing was as good as it gets.  I had a nice flight position and had the arms where they should be.  I ended up going down to 40 meters, maybe even a little further than that.  It was the best jumped or the second best jump I've ever had in the past six years.

 

Not to forget, this does mark the 113th consecutive month of ski jumping at Storrs Hill, hopefully the 113th consecutive month for the 25 won't be on plastic like last month was.  This also marks my 73rd consecutive month of jumping.

 

Hopefully this weather forecast will be VERY WRONG!  Currently they are calling for upper 40's each of the next two days and then the rain starts on Friday and lasts most of the weekend.  One of the two high school jump meets scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of snow.  As a result of the cancelled meet Cannonball is wanting to get some daylight jumping in tomorrow afternoon.  Since both meets would be held on a K18 and I didn't really want to jump either of those two hills tomorrow night, I guess instead of taking tomorrow off that I may find myself jumping the 50 once again.  Might as well make haste instead of waste.  Hopefully tomorrow should take me over the 100 mark for the year.  That will beat the mark from last year by two days.  Granted last year to get 100 jumps in on just the 50 took me until January 21st.

 

Crash