Jumping Journal: February 20-21, 2007

7 years...7 long years.  I truly was giving up hope that it would ever happen.  I've fought the head games so many times in so many different ways.  I had been so frustrated so many times because I knew what the problem was and I knew there wasn't anything I could do to really change the situation.  All I could do was to keep on jumping and refuse to give in to what the subconscious mind wanted.  I knew that was the answer but I kept on seeing the subconscious mind throw knew obstacles in the way.  Once it appeared the obstacles were out of the way then Mother Nature stepped in and stopped me dead in my tracks.  Yeah, I wasn't far from giving up hope of ever jumping the K90.  Things had been so predictable throughout the past several years that I hadn't even thought about jumping it this winter at the beginning of the season.  The thought hadn't even come to mind.  I had given up that much hope.

 

Tuesday, February 20, 2007, Lake Placid, NY

 

The plans were in the works again to try to get off the 90 for the first time.  At the same time I was looking at trying to put in a couple of two session days in Lake Placid, hopefully on the 90.  The weather forecast was looking pretty good, the winds that stopped me dead in my tracks two weeks ago were forecast to be much lighter, the temperature were also suppose to b closer to the freezing point rather than down below zero, a nice added bonus.

 

I took the early morning drive up to Lake Placid and arrived at the Olympic Training Center and warm-up and stretch with the National Sports Academy kids, they jump in the morning while the public school kids jump in the afternoon, hence the plan for two jumping sessions each day.  We head on over the hill and the winds are nice and light, granted a tailwind that had present for almost three weeks is still present but at least it is better than it was a couple of weeks ago.

 

I suit up and head on out to the jump.  I ask Coach Matt Cook which bar I should go from and he says to go on any of them between 12 and 16.  I definitely wasn't going to take a landing hill I knew I felt plenty comfortable without it.  I was actually feeling too calm for my own comfort.  I knew that I should feel a little bit of nervousness but there wasn't any at all.  It was just like I was jumping on the 50 in Lebanon.  I get up to bar 14 and decide I would go from halfway in between what he suggested.

 

As I look down the inrun it really doesn't even look that bad.  It looked a somewhere taller than the 50 in Lebanon, in reality it probably is much higher off the ground than the 50 but it doesn't look that way.  After a couple of the other jumpers take their first jump I put on my skis and slide on out onto the bar.  Again I'm still just freaking calm as can be.  I guess the 7 years of "torcher" has helped to calm me down quite considerably.  I get the signal from Matt and push off the bar.  I get into my inrun position and head down the inrun.  The smooth track does help a little to deceive you of how fast your going but not as much as what I heard other kids say it would.  The thing that surprised me the most was the lack of compression going through the transition.  I had expected that if I was low in the inrun going that fast that I would notice myself getting compressed going through the transition and I would end up dropping the butt as a result.  It didn't happen and by the time I was on the table I found myself still nicely in position ready for the takeoff.  I was a little on the late side at the takeoff, not as much as what I figured I would be for the first jump.  I get into position with the ankles cocked, surprisingly so, and come down for a landing in the 35-40 meter area approximately.  I ride out the rest of the landing hill and come to stop.  My first jump off a K90, a success.  FINALLY, it took long enough!!!

 

Video of the first jump

 

I had finally joined the True Ski Jumper Club, at least that is what I call it.  It's a very elite club.  Requirements are simple:

 

1) You must have started ski jumping as an adult, no jumping under the age of 21 allowed.

2) You have to have jumped a 90 meter hill.

 

Yes, with the lack of adult jumper in the United States and with, even more so, the lack of adult beginners(only two other adult beginners in the east right now) this club is quite elite and pretty much has never had very many members.  I'm the newest member though.

 

I take the chairlift back up and after talking with Matt I head on up for jump two.  Jump two goes pretty much the same way as does jump three.  After a video review I head up for jump four and Matt suggests trying to put a V in.  I decide to give it try, even though I had vowed I wouldn't even consider the idea on the first day on the 90.  Boy, had my mind changed.

 

Whenever I have tried a V I have always been jumping a hill where I'm completely clearing the knoll and getting the full effect of any wind coming up the landing hill.  As of yet I wasn't getting completely clear of the knoll so I wasn't seeing the pressure so that helped to make me more susceptible to being willing to try the V.

 

I give the V a try and it went halfways decent...on jump four.  On jump five it was another story.  Watching the video of the jump on Wednesday afternoon I noticed what happened was that I ended up not cocking the ankles and instead I "panicked" and back out of the jump.  It wasn't the prettiest of back out either.  I ride it out and come to stop and decided to skip the V attempts for a while.  Now I realize what I did wrong but I didn't realize it until 24+ hours after the fact.

 

I take one more jump to finish off the morning session and it goes nice and smooth.  There had been six of us jumping the 90 during the morning session, five kids and one adult.  I'm surprised how little I really noticed it.  In the beginning when I first started jumping I noticed the age difference quite dramatically but now I don't even mind it.  Actually I find I enjoy jumping with the kids more than the adults, did I just say that...?????????

 

I kept waiting to see Don West arrived and take some jumps.  He had been talking about trying to get two days in a row of jumping in before leaving this weekend to head over to Europe for International Masters Championships.  It doesn't appear that he did get his two days in as I didn't see him jumping on Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

After the lunch break and waiting for kids to get out school I'm back at it again around 3PM.  Now it's a smaller field of three of us jumping.  All the afternoon jumps go pretty smooth as well except for the last of the five afternoon session jumps.  The video of it is priceless.  The jump goes nice and smooth...I land the jump and ride the landing hill...I get into and out of the transition..I'm riding the outrun past the fall line when Matt shuts off the camera thinking everything is grand.  Essentially right as he shuts off the camera I go down, for what reason I don't have the slightest clue.  I end up sitting back and sliding out.  Not bad for a first "crash" on the 90.  I definitely felt a little stupid afterwards to say the least.

 

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

 

After warming up at the Olympic Training Center the same group of jumpers from yesterday morning head on over to the jump and get ready for another morning of jumping the 90.  Today definitely wasn't as nice as yesterday.  I seemed to be jumping quite a bit later than yesterday.  I spend the six jumps trying to get the inrun position better squared away.  I have been having keeping the butt to high and I keep on slightly dropping the hands right about the time I get into the transition, at least that is what the video shows.  I now realize what I have been doing wrong with the arms at the takeoff.  My first thoughts were completely wrong.  It took watching video of one of the kids this morning to see what it actually was that they are doing, err not doing, that is causing what I have always noticed the better jumpers doing.  I'm wondering whether that is causing my problem with not keeping the back tight on the takeoff, it seems like correcting it might correct the takeoff/in flight position.  I definitely will have to work on correcting the problem over the next couple of days.  Given the problem I think I might be able to take care of it pretty easily, time shall tell though whether I will fix the problem quickly or not.

 

After five jumps all from bar 14 just like all the jumps yesterday I decide to move on up to bar 18 for the final jump of the morning session.  I do manage to get a little further down the hill but probably only by 2-3 meters at the most.

 

I had decided after jump one yesterday to stick with the same bar so I could check out any technique changes.  I knew that by sticking with the same bar, given the weather conditions, that it would really show what was working and what wasn't working to get me further down the hill.  Admittedly, most of both days was spent working on the inrun position trying to get it further refined.  Amazingly, I didn't have much trouble at all both day cocking the ankles nicely like I do quite often on the 50, unless I'm really focusing on cocking them.

 

After copying the video off of Matt's camera onto my video camera I took it easy for a while waiting for the afternoon session.  Hopefully before I go back up to Lake Placid on Friday morning I'll be able to go through and do some fancy video analysis work with the video and pick up more concepts of higher level ski jumping that I can work on in my own jumping.

 

The kids arrived with a couple of extra kids joining the ranks from yesterday.  The inrun on the 90 had been deteriorating thanks to the snow storm from last week and the warm temperatures this week.  They did some repair work to the inrun and while it was setting up we all headed on over to the 48 meter jump and took several jumps.

 

I knew my first jump would be a bit of a rude awakening after having taken 17 jumps on the 90 in the past two days.  I knew the last time I jumped the 48 I was jumping down around 38-40 meters, the same distance I had been hitting on my best jumps on the 90 the past two days.  I also knew that the bottom of the knoll on the 48 was around 25 meters give or take a little.  I knew that instead of landing on the downhill side of the knoll I would be flying right over it leaving it behind by a long shot.  It could take a little getting used to once again.

 

The first jump was about as I suspected.  I wasn't used to the idea of seeing the steep part of the landing hill from the air.  I still managed to go down to the 40 meter mark.  The second jump found me once again down at the 40 meter mark.  On the third jump I jumped for the tips but I didn't cock the ankles as quickly as I had been before.  The jump still went down to 40 meters.  Coach Sean Burke made mention to me to make sure and cock the ankles but to keep the same move at the takeoff.  I was thinking that I had actually jumped too direct.  He was saying otherwise.

 

I take the fourth jump and keep the same move at the takeoff and cock the ankles and end up down around 42 meters.  On the way back up Sean mentions that I should  make sure to not push through the jump with the shoulders and head but instead to ride the jump out.  I decide to take one more jump before heading over to the 90 and grabbing one last jump on the 90 to finish off the day.

 

On the fifth jump I do it as it should be done, maybe not quite as much forward as the previous couple of jumps and I hold the position in the air of instead of trying to push on through.  I land once again in the 41-42 meter range.

 

I head back up to find that the repair work they had did to the 90 inrun wasn't holding and that the inrun was falling apart even more and they had decided to close the jump for day and let the hill crew fix the track overnight.

 

Overall the two days were quite productive.  I have several things to work on tomorrow on the 50 in Lebanon and also a couple of things I want to try this weekend on the 90 when I head back up to Lake Placid for Empire State Games.

 

Boy am I glad to have that dang old jumping demon off my back.  Now I can breathe a big sigh of relief.

 

Crash