Birthday week

This week on the 22nd of December I turned 18! It was also Christmas eve and Christmas day, so not a great week for my diet... Still it was a really good week of training. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I went to train with Vincent Soubiron at ski fluid. On the other days we trained at home, including on my birthday!

I didn't do much with jumping this week, so there is nothing worth mentioning there. However in slalom it was going really well. I had some stable passes at 14, which I ran with some pretty heavy wind as well in the beginning of the week. I also went back on 13 for the first time again, but I took the gate very wrong and only got around 2 boys. Despite that, it still promises good results for next week, so maybe I can improve my trainings PB just a bit before I leave. Even if I don't improve in bouys, I do know that I've learnt a lot in technique and that will eventually pay off in the next season.

Tricking also went very well, I'm learning the new tricks for next years run. This takes a lot of time and falling, more so than jump, therefore I'm investing the off season time on the new tricks right now. Especially in toe holds I'm learning them quickly, which is good, because those points will add up fast. Learning new hand tricks is a little more challenging, because the tricks that I want to learn have a high risk of falling on my ear, which right now is not healed yet. I'm still working on the beginning of my new run with one new trick and a new order, but I would have really loved to also have learnt wake 540s before I leave, sacrifices, sacrifices... Still I'm really happy with what I'm doing in toe holds and will upload a video to my Facebook page soon.

Now over to the best parts of the week that were not necessarily waterski related.... my birthday and Christmas! On both days of course I skied, which is incredible because it is after all December. I also drove for the first time in a country other than the Netherlands, because my drivers license is now valid everywhere, since I'm 18. My first road trip was to get a beautiful and delicious cake, the second one was to a waterski store.... priorities :D. I also went paddle boarding on my birthday and skied some more. In this time the Hof family planned a great dinner with everyone I'm skiing with and the neighbours, which I didn't know about until they were suddenly in the house when I got home from the gym. This was an incredible surprise and I can't thank them enough! Christmas was also filled with skiing, but this time more for show, because Talisa was shooting pictures from a paddle board. The result is absolutely amazing and more pictures can be found here. It was great to be surrounded with so many loving people, because this made it easier to be away from my own.

For now theres only one week left before I have to go home, so I'm going to make the most of it!

Surf week

I just finished a 1 hour massage, so I am completely relaxed and clearheaded, thus its the perfect time to recap on another amazing week in Florida! 
I spent this week living with the pro's. We had 5 days of training with Ryan and Breanne Dodd, naturally the focus was a little more on jump and slalom than on tricks, since it's not everyday that you get to ski with the champion of the world. This week was truly a great investment for my jumps to come, because I've spent 1 or 2 sets each day doing drills. One of the drills was the same as I had learned from him when he coached the Dutch team back home. I did notice a huge difference whilst doing this drill though, because at the end of the set, my feet were hurting from the tight bindings, but my legs were not that sore. This is definitely not because I was giving less effort than before, if anything the cuts I was making were more controlled and stable than the first time round. I believe its due to the training I've been receiving from my personal trainer, because the first sessions I did with her she already noticed that my legs needed more development. We have worked hard on strengthening my legs throughout the sessions, which many times made it hard to bike back after training. However, noticing the difference whilst doing those drills this week, I am more than happy with taking twice as long to bike back from training as I did biking there! This is not to say that the drills didn't tire my leg. Even though I didn't really feel it whilst skiing or after, I definitely felt it during the massage and so did the masseuse. He said my right leg was very tight and that my left leg before he massaged it felt the same as my right one after working on it for a few minutes.

Aside from jump drills, I also did some free skiing in slalom. Free skiing was new to me this summer when I did it with Anthony in France. Now I did a different type of free skiing, which makes it easier to make adjustments to my technique, since there's no distraction from the bouys. This really helped later in the course, but I could also feel it get better and better with every cut I made, which was a great feeling.

Even though skiing is great and I probably could do it non-stop for more than a month, it's still fun to do some other stuff when you spend a month only focussed on skiing. Therefore it was so much fun when we went to the beach to do some surfing. This was the first time I had ever gone surfing in the ocean, mainly because it is almost never possible in the Netherlands, especially where I live. It is something I had been wanting to try, but never got round to, until now! It was much harder than I thought and requires more timing, strength and endurance than I thought. Luckily with some coaching, I managed to catch a couple of waves, that was sooo awesome. Sadly, since all of us were surfing, there are no pictures or videos, so I have a good excuse to try surfing again. Back home it was definitely time for a break. Still we wanted to go out and do something, preferably on the water of course, so we decided to go wake surfing behind the boat. Another type of surfing that I had never done before. Again it was hard to learn at first, but when I got the hang of it, it was really fun and we were on the water till the sun set, like we did surfing the ocean.
Aside from all the things I learned in skiing and surfing, I also pulled my first slalom skier through the course. Admittidly, this requires some more practise still, but I'm happy to say that I added 3 new skills to my life! Coming week is promising to be exciting too, as my birthday is coming up, but for now I am going to enjoy the effects of my massage!

Florida week 1

To be completely hontest, this blog is later

than usual because I simply didn't feel like writing it. This is absolutely not due to the fact that I don't have anything exciting to write about, but purely because too many exciting this are happening and I didn't want to take time out to write :)

Since I do want to share some of my great

experiences with you guys I'll quickly tell something about each day and of course add some pictures to make you jealous.

On Monday I arrived pretty late in the

Thank you 'Sinterklaas' ;)

evenig local time, so from the airport, we went straight to a restaurant to catch up and have dinner. Afterwards it was time to get a house tour, and of course celebrate 'Sinterklaas'! We played a fun quizz game to decide who gets to pick out a present and spent the evening unpacking presents and and reading the poems that went with them and it was so much fun. In the end I was up for almost 24 hours, so I figured that I'd sleep up untill a normal time in the morning and not have a bad jetlag, but I did wake up pretty early and felt jetlagged for a couple of days.

On Tuesday I wanted nothing more than to ski, even though the weather wasn't too great,  but it had been too long ago since I had skied, so we went! On this day, we wanted to go to the mall too, so it would be good to ski in the morning. However, it was raining pretty bad, so we waited for as long as possible. When we went out to ski, there was some showers, so my first set in Florida was in the rain... Because of a thunder storm, I only skied once, which was tricking. We had some lunch in the food court of the mall, which I enjoyed because everything is so different than what I'm used to. This is also the main reason I'm so tired everyday and I didn't put up a blog yet. Almost everything I see and do is new and different and I want to appreciate and remember everything!

On Wednesday it was time for the serious training, we went to Vincent Soubiron at ski fluid. This was the first day skiing 4 sets in a very long time, so this resulted in some nice blisters and serious muscle aches. This was very much worth it though, because we both noticed that all the training and the changes in diet and other preperation I had done beforehand really payed off.

Thursday and Friday were similar, but more sore. 4 sets of training on both days, and even though I'm not completely where I left off 3 months ago, I'm happy with the level I got back to after just 3 days. It was also great to see some team members again, who I saw last when we were training in France. The only down side is that it was a pretty cold week with some showers, which is not what I expected after travelling all the way here. Still it's wayyy better to ski here than in the Netherlands, so I won't complain about that anymore!

Lastly, on Saturday, I skied my first slalom set back on the lake where I'm staying. I also got a membership to the fitness, which is a 15 minute bike ride away, so I went there twice during the time that we were actually 'home'.

So far there is so much to enjoy and so many things to talk about that I can't possibly mention everything. Bottom line though, is that I'm thouroughly enjoying every single minute here and look forward to everything that's still happening in the coming weeks!

(Almost) ready to go

As I predicted in the last blog, I left the actual packing to the last minute! This was not only because I like to procrastinate on stuff like this, but also because it is something that I can do Sunday night, by myself. For anything where I rely on a shop or other people, I have to do it first, because most are not open Sunday, or only partially. Therefore other things took priority, like going to the hairdresser, to cut of quite a bit of my hair so that I don't overheat in Florida! I also had to do some shopping, since I miss Christmas, I want to be able to leave something behind which can be opened on Christmas day. Furthermore, most of my days this week were spent working. It felt like an end sprint, because if I was working at night, I was babysitting in the morning and if I was babysitting at night, I was working during the day. This way I'll have some extra money to spend on my trip, and I know exactly what I want, hopefully I'll get in on time and will be able to show you, so stay tuned! Lastly, I had some doctors appointment. The first was to do one final check-up on my ear... it has still not healed, and the hole barely got smaller, so in Florida I will need to take extra care and protect my ears very well. This was quite disappointing to hear, especially because I felt like it might have healed. Now there is a risk of infection if lake water gets in, and also because water will go straight to the inner ear, this can lead to dizziness, which is not great when trying to balance on the skis. My biggest worry is that I will fall on my ear again and make the hole bigger, because the chance of it healing naturally then, I think are close to nought. The other time I went to the doctor I got some antibiotics, to help fight my tonsillitis. I hope this will be completely over by the time I get to skiing, which will most likely be Tuesday.

This all, combined with going to the gym and hanging out with some friends before I leave pretty
much filled my week. Now I've only just finished packing all my bags and checking my equipment. I'm happy I checked my skis, because I had one problem with my slalom ski, which is fixed now, thanks to some help from my dad, and also all my screws match once again, because throughout the season I had gathered 3 different types of screws on my ski... Once this was done, I could put everything on the photo on the right into my ski bag. This only just fits in the weight limit, so I hope the scales at the airport are similar to the one I checked with!

Finally it was time to fit my clothes and other stuff into my other bag. Since my ski bag was allowed 32kg, I was able to put more of my ski equipment in there than usual (when it's allowed 24kg). Due to this I thought that my other bag could be 20kg, instead of 24kg, but I was wrong. I realised that I'll just try to take more stuff knowing that I have more kilos, but my bag ended up being 23kg. Since everything I'm bringing is absolutely necessary (probably not, but I couldn't chose what to leave out), I put some heavy things in my hand luggage to get the weight down. I now have the weirdest selection of items in my hand luggage (sorry airport security). I'm bringing all my ski bindings in my carry on, along with my sport shoes, slippers, a kilo of cheese and my own snacks. However weird my luggage may look now, I do have all my bags within the weight restrictions and am officially ready to go! I was actually ready to leave when I was biking to my friends house this morning in -3 degrees Celsius, but the only problem was of course that I had no bags packed yet...

Only 17 more hours until the plane leaves and I'm so excited to finish this year with some good results!

Countdown

With only 7 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes (but who's counting?) till I leave to Florida its time to start preparing for this adventure! Besides packing, which I'll most likely do last minutes, there are some other things that I really need to start preparing. First of all, which I'm doing now is part of mentally preparing for the trip in order to get the most out of the experience. This mainly involves setting some goals. I have to be careful in setting these goals, because I haven't skied in a couple of months, so part of the training will be getting back to old levels and getting over muscle aches. Thus, the goals must not be unrealistic.

However, I still want to get the most out of my trip and improve of course, so I do want to set challenging goals that will push me to the very limit and make sure I maximise improvements. Since it is off season training, goal setting is different than during the season. There are no competitions, which means the goals will be focussed on improving basics and technique and long term investments rather than getting the best results in the shortest period of time. If I can spend this time improving techniques due to which I may not immediately jump further, but improve during the season, it will be more than worth it. All things considered, I'll list my goals. I'm a little scared to have them black on white, because I want to achieve whatever I say now and am afraid that I'll fall short, but that's part of growing...

In slalom, at the end of the season I was working on some changes in my basic technique already. This was side tracked a bit because there were competitions coming up and thus results were more important. Now I can go back to focussing on this technique and get the hang of it properly. Ideally, the tips that I have now will all start to come together and I will be able to really master it and therefore improve in results too. If this happens, I believe I should be able to clear the 13 meter pass and more importantly, consistently clear the 14 meter before that. Ideally this results in being able to start sets on the 16 meter rope and thus slowly letting go of skiing at 18 meters.

For tricks I'm extremely excited because I can put a lot of time into learning the new tricks for next season, which is harder to do during the season, since I have to keep up a steady competition run. I have listed some tricks that I want to be able to put in next years run. This means that the tricks I will be learning should be good for ideally 100% of the time. These tricks include a wake line 360, which is not entirely new, but should become the first trick and thus must not fail, ever. Furthermore I want to have 2 540s stable enough to incorporate, again I have started working on these, but to have them credit all the time will take some work. In toe hold, I also want to learn 540s, but as water turns instead of wake turns. Furthermore I should get the wrap in wrap out sequence steady, which is I would say 70% steady on a good day and should be brought up to 100%. If these go well I can also start with a TWO, which is a 360 wake turn and TWBB, which is also a 360 wake turn, but from back to back rather than front to front. If none of these words made sense, I hope I'll be able to show videos of them on my Facebook page when I learn them!

Finally, in jump, I will really focus on basics. This is actually for two reasons, first and foremost, it will definitely pay off later and also I might be skiing on new, bigger skis, which I'll have to get used to. Secondly, a more logistic part, there is no ramp in the lake I will be skiing, and the off-season is really good to work on all the cutting before the ramp. In this I hope to especially work on cutting the wakes, since this will set me up to learning a 3/4 cut for next season. This, combined with bigger skis, should set me up for big jumps (literally) next season.

Besides this, there are things I need to prepare travel related, but they have nothing to do with the actual skiing. I want to download some movies, books, and songs in order to have something to do besides sleeping the entire plane ride. Also I want to quickly check all my materials, so I don't get any unpleasant surprises once I've arrived. And lastly, I've done some shopping as an early birthday present to myself, so I'll have some clothes to suit the amazing weather in Florida! This should keep me busy till take off!!

Better together

Today I'm back again with a blog, which should have been there yesterday... However, yesterday I
had an amazing day on the other side of our small country, so was on the road a lot and enjoying myself there. From my house to our destination yesterday is probably the furthest you can drive and stay in the Netherlands, which was a little over 3.5 hours. So, why do it? A while ago we had planned a fun get together with some of my friends from water-skiing. Initially we planned a BBQ, but because the first autumn 'storm' was planned, the meal plans were slightly changed. It was still delicious food, but that was not the main part of yesterday. Most important was getting together again, after the season has ended for already quite some time and the last time we saw each other was... last week! But still we really enjoy spending time together around the waterski season too and do some things that are not related to skiing and talking about something not related to skiing for once, who knew I could do that! It was great to spend some time together and the next time will be in Florida, so no escaping the skiing and ski talk, which is no problem of course!
Since I'm not actually skiing right now, it's more difficult to have topics to blog about. Of course I'm doing things, but not everything is related to skiing or my goals in such a way that I think it would make an interesting blog. However, I do try to take my inspiration from anything that is happening, so that my blogs stay up-to-date and relevant to what is happening. Thus I want to spend a little time writing about how important the people around the sport are in many aspects. Water-skiing is an individual sport, at the end of the day there's 1 person on the water setting a result and that's what counts. There are countless of people necessary in the process of setting that results, which I also explained last week, judges, drivers, sponsors, parents, etc. who cannot be taken for granted, but there are no teammates at the moment supreme. Still it can sometimes feel like I'm in, not 1, but multiple teams. There's everyone at 'my club' at home with whom I form a team, at national level competition, we feel like we're skiing for our club. This is very entertaining and even though since it such a small sport you support everyone, it's fun to feel like part of a club in particular. Then there's the national team, especially at Europeans, but also other competitions, it's great to be around them. It's motivating to be around a bigger group of passionate people all working for the same thing, not only on the water but also around it. We all want similar things and it's great to see everyone working for it in their own way, because if you focus on only yourself, your journey, your goals in an already individual sport, I believe you'll start working against yourself. Besides that I really genuinely love being around some of the people who understand and share what I'm trying to do, or those who understand and support it. It's the people around the sport that make it that much more enjoyable and I cannot wait to be skiing again, especially when we will be in Florida together again.
For now it's only 13 more days till I leave to Florida! Less than 2 weeks and I'm ever so excited. I'm super motivated to put an extra boost on my training to be 100% fit and ready when I get to Florida!

Celebrating our (inter)national champions!

Yesterday it was the NWWB live event, finally! I was looking forward to this event a lot. I had heard about gala's being held for members and champions way back when the sport was still much more alive in the Netherlands. It waas the plan to bring back a day where everyone could meet and be celebrated in a less formal setting than member meetings or a gala. I had no idea what to expect, but I was very excited to be seeing everyone, meeting new people and see what the federation made of it. It was held at a great location with room for many stands, including many boats outside and some gear stands. The first hours I spent catching up with the team, since we hadn't seen each other in quite a while already, after spending the summer seeing each other very often. After checking out all the gear and boats, everyone was called together to celebrate the champions in all disciplines that fall under the federation. First up the ski racers, cable and boat wakeboarders, barefoot skiers, cable skiers and finally, the boat skiers! It was fun to have all champions on national and international level called out one more time and receiving some flowers, a gift card and a certificate! I think this is also great to motivate other skiers and increase the level of competition for next year. This is in the first place why it is so great to have an event like this again. This is what we need to grow our sport, get more skiers and competition and most importantly support. Water-skiing is starting to grow again and this will help to expand further. On the other hand it is also good to see who wants to be involved in the sport, because we do need new judges, drivers, homologates, etc. without them there are no competitions and without competitions there is no way to grow further and get more attention for what we do.


After the celebrations, I switched to lobbying around with the companies that were there, since they are by default related to the sport in some way or another. I had my sponsor plan with me, which I finished last week. I found it very difficult to get started and basically present myself to these people. It was well out of my comfort zone, but at the end of the day, I don't have much choice if I want to reach my goals and get ahead in water-skiing, I need it to be financed. So I started approaching people and handing out my information. If anything, I got tips to help improve my sponsor plan, so that's already worth something. Whether or not it will pay off, I'm not sure, but I definitely hope it will be a beginning and afterwards I can expand that network. I have my sponsor plan available as an online version as well, so if you or anyone you know is interested in reading it, send me an e-mail at lieke.a.r@hotmail.com and we can see what we can arrange!
For now, the countdown to Florida has started! Only 21 more days!!

Ticket to Florida!

Today I'm extremely excited, because I finally have my plane tickets to go to Florida. I will be leaving on December 5th and will arrive at around 18.30 local time in Florida, even though this is still a month away, I'm overjoyed. Just like last year in the winter, I will going to Florida without my family and thus be spending some holidays and my 18th birthday without them. Luckily I will be adopted for a month by the wonderful Hof family! I will be spending the holidays with them and they are kind enough to let me live and ski in their paradise, I cannot wait. The day I will be arriving is a national holiday in the Netherlands. It's originally a party for younger kids, similar to Christmas, with presents and great seasonal food. We will be doing presents paired with a poem on that day. It's great to get straight into celebrating after a long day of travelling. It will also force me to stay awake and adapt to local time straight away. Where last year I was staying 2 weeks, since that's the length of our Christmas holiday, this year I will be going for 4 weeks and I'm super stoked. Little bonus is that I have a direct flight, so a lot less stress than last time, also adding that now, I've done it before. I will go back the 30th of December and arrive in the Netherlands on the 31st, so I can go straight into celebrating the end of the year, this time at home, since last year I spent new years in Florida too.

I also got some less exciting new this week when I went to the hospital for a check up on my ear. I had thought that there was a chance that the hole in my eardrum was closed and I could start skiing again. That would have been great news, even though it is literally freezing. However, not only was the hole not closed, it was also not a millimeter smaller than after the crash. It had shown no sign of healing, though it also wasn't infected, which is a silver lining. Our hope is that it was due to the fact that I had a cold in the time between my check ups and thus we'll give it another 3 weeks to start healing. If it is not closed or at least almost closed by then, we have to see what other measures we have to take. I worry that it won't be closed in the time left before I go to Florida. I would definitely still ski, but I would have to wear extra protection and I will run the risk of an infection due to the lake water. However, after Florida it will have a lot of time to heal, since I won't be able to ski a lot until the new season starts.

I'm very excited for next week when the NWWB is hosting its event, which I spoke about in the last blog. I will be finishing my sponsoring information before then and hopefully meet some interested parties there!

Apologies

Hey everyone, first of all, sorry to keep you waiting by posting a day late. Honestly there's not a good reason for it, other than I sort of forgot which day it was yesterday :D. The fact that I am a day late with posting sort of indicates how it is going with my goals haha. Last week I announced some of my goals and the fact that I want to use my gap year efficiently and reach those goals and approach them with a serious work ethic, like I did school work. One of the things that has changed since I stopped skiing is that I got a job as a cashier in the supermarket. This takes up quite some of my time and thus it is the main factor deciding my daily schedules. Having something to do about 5 hours in a day helps to get some rhythm into my days. The only thing is that there is not really a difference between week days and the weekend, so I always wake up at the same time and do similar things. (which results in forgetting what day it is).

Other than that I have made a list of things I want to achieve in my gap year and ranked them on

Great photo to sponsor ;)

priority and 'due date'. Right now the most important things are taking care of my health, which means sticking to a diet, which calls for me to cook twice a day, another time consuming thing that is part of each day and thus creates some rhythm for me. Also going to the gym 5 times a week, of which twice to a personal trainer. One of my sessions with my personal trainer is tomorrow morning at 9, and it is a 40 minute bike, so I have to wake up old school early... Another high priority item right now is creating a sponsor plan. I am already quite far, because I also started working on this during the season this summer. However for some reason I didn't go through far enough with this and thus I have to still finish it and make some adjustments to get it ready for the season of 2017. I also want to be able to take this plan to the NWWB day, which is the Dutch federation for water-skiing and wakeboarding. (If you live in the Netherlands I would recommend this event, on the 13th of Novermber, just 17.50 euros, which will include a t-shirt and BBQ! Tickets can be found on nwwb.nl) On this day many people will come together to check out some boats and other relevant materials and most importantly congratulate this years champions. I think it is the perfect moment to get my sponsor plan out to the right people, so it must be done in the coming weeks. Finally, a high priority item is getting set for the USA. I want to be able to follow my university studies there and join a water-skiing team. For this I have to improve in skiing, which is of course in itself gap year priority number 1. However it is also time to take care of the administrative side of things. This I want to finish this calendar year, and since I'm planning on taking a vacation in December, I will have to do this the coming month too.

Thus for now, I have plenty things to fill my days and hopefully they will result in a fit new season with some new materials I will be able to afford after working 2 jobs, and hopefully sponsors and, best case scenario, combining university studies and water-skiing. Since I am not skiing anymore, I have ran out of pictures to attach to my blog, so here are some 'throwback photos'.

Goals

In two months from now, I will be turning 18, officially entering adulthood. This made me realise that I have to organize many things by myself, handle more responsibilities and think about the future some more, and fast. This mainly started when I got a letter from the government telling me, well, almost exactly that. So I quickly applied for financial aid and other simple, online, grown-up things to make me feel like I've done something. However, in all seriousness, it is time to really think about what I have to get done in my gap year, aside from improving my skiing, and starting on achieving those things.

Of course as soon as I thought I would start doing all those things, I got ill. It's just the flu, but it doesn't help with my torn eardrum. I was specifically told not to blow the ear out of my ear, since that is essentially the same as picking a scab. I was doing pretty well on that, until I noticed that when I blow my nose, I also blow air out of my ear. I hope this does not slow down the healing process too much... At the moment, I am feeling a bit better and ready again to start sorting out my goals and how to achieve them. I also have my first appointment with a personal trainer tomorrow, which will help to be fitter next season, so that I can improve faster.

Ultimately my goal is to be able to go to the gym twice a day, 5 times in a week. This way I can go before lunch and before dinner for example, which will activate my body twice, rather than going for longer in one go. Of these 5 times, twice will be together with the personal trainer. In between and on the days where I don't go to the gym, I hope to work on some projects I have been meaning to start. Though what I've realised is that I might need to set myself  a deadline for each project, because otherwise I find it difficult to start, and especially finish all of them. As I also have to work from now on, all this together will get me into a 'normal' rhythm again, like when I went to school. This will help in having a productive gap year, and also in going back to school afterwards. Since I stopped skiing, I have very little rhythm or content to my day, aside from working and working out. I would like to change that, and hope that by having it black on white here, I will be extra motivated in doing that.

I feel like there's no going back now, and I will be committing to what I have said above. Since I was ill for most of the week, I didn't do much else. I did work on some core stability exercises from Breanne Dodd, which gave me a good muscle ache (a sign that I should practise those more often) so I would definitely recommend them, check it out here.

detox

Exactly a week ago, I crashed in my last competition of the season, rupturing my eardrum. In the first check by the ear specialist on Monday, it was looking good and not infected. In order to keep it this way, I should avoid getting water and especially shampoo in it. Therefore I have not skied the past week, also I have been covering my ear with a drinking glass whilst shampooing my hair, which is quite interesting…

Some sightseeing in stead (Kijkduin, Zuid-Holland)

I wasn’t planning on stopping the season quite this early, but I’m more or less forced to. I want to be careful with my ear, since it is looking good at the moment and can heal in 3 weeks. If it does get infected, it will take longer to heal and it will interfere with my plans for skiing in Florida this winter. At some point, after a lot of intensive training and a long season with many ups and downs, it is good to have a break from skiing. This is important to regain strength both mentally and physically. However it is still frustrating to start ‘detoxing’ from water-ski when it is still beautiful weather outside for the time of year. Therefore I am trying to focus on some other things that will still help my next season and the winter training, but will still give me somewhat of a break from water-skiing. First of all, I have to earn some money to be able to prepare fully for a skiing season. I already had multiple addresses where I regularly babysit, but throughout the summer I wasn’t around much. When I got back, I was finally able to say yes to some appointments, so on many nights I have been babysitting. Because those appointments are fairly irregular, I decided it would be good to also have a more formal part-time job for a more steady income. On Tuesday I got a form to apply at the local supermarket and tomorrow is my first day at work already. One of my new colleagues said it took them 3 months to hire her, so I felt bad for getting hired so quickly, but due to my gap year and my age I am really useful to the supermarket. I am happy I was able to find two jobs and hopefully will find some sponsoring on top of that to support the next season.

On a physical level I have also begun preparing for a smashing new season. I have had a talk with a personal trainer, who will hopefully help me get into ideal shape to reach my next goals. Furthermore I have a nutritionist helping me with my food intake. It isn’t exactly a diet, and I am actually eating more than I was before, but there has been a change in my lifestyle, which will help me start the next season very healthy. I hope these 2 things will pay off soon, and especially, show in next season.

Competition 2/2

Yesterday I finally made it home, and this time I'm staying a bit longer! It feels good to be back home again, I've learned so much the past summer, not only in skiing, but also as a person. I had to organize many things by myself and plan many of my trips. I had to step out of my comfort zone quite some times and also made a fair amount of mistakes, but I know this allows me to grow as a person and gain experience for challenges to come. After such an eventful summer, it is nice to be in the comfort of my own home, however with all the things I've learnt, I know it won't be the same as before this summer. Already after being home for 1 day, I've made plans to fill the coming weeks and started moving my but and get multiple things done.

So, on to what probably was the last

competition of the year. Another 4 round slalom competition, at which I would have a chance to show off my new technique, that I had been training on in Paris. On Friday, I arrived at the competition site. It was important to get a trainings set in this day, because I hadn't skied all week and of course I wanted to feel the water. I had seen this lake before, but I had never skied here before. Other skiers that had tested the lake were enthusiastic, but said you had to pull long and had a lot of time to think, due to the way the water feels. This is good information, but the only thing that really matters is how it feels to you when you ski... so I skied. I ran my first pass, noticing that the water feels different than any lake I'm used to, but definitely not bad. Since it was a training for competition, we shortened the rope and tested the water at 16 meters. I fell at the first ball, but this was just a mistake on my part, and the second try I ran the pass. Onto the all important 14 meter pass, which I want to run so badly in competition. On many attempts I just couldn't seem to get past 1 or 2 bouys. Finally it was officially time to go back, but I was given one more pass. On this I got around 4 bouys and since I didn't fall, I had one more shot on the way back to the dock. That time, I ran the pass, but only barely, so it was good to do before the competition, but didn't give a lot of confidence.

Saturday it was time to see if I could

do the passes I did the day before, but in order. Sadly, I fell too early. For the second time this season, I managed to fall in the first pass, which honestly should never happen. Unlike last time, I didn't miss the end gate, I just fell when I was trying to get round 5 ball. The people there didn't expect me to fall in the firs pass, honestly neither did I, so they didn't pay attention. Due to this I didn't know exactly where the mistake was, but I think an educated guess was turning too fast, since this is what I am  trying to improve on. I was extremely disappointed in this result and for a while I didn't know how to move on. I was very upset that it happened, and on top of that I didn't know why it happened. Furthermore, this didn't indicate great results to come, so I knew almost certainly that I wouldn't be able to get my score up the way I wanted to. Only improving by 1.5 bouys in a season really bothered me and I honestly did expect more. In order to gain some confidence to just go for it again the next round, I had a talk with the national coach. This helped a lot and she also reminded me about the improvements in the other events, and that slalom will follow soon, but maybe not this competition, and that is not the end of the world.

The second round I got past the first pass, due to the fact that I had some time to think, I tried to think about some tips I had been getting the weeks before. I also did this in the 16 meter pass and I cleared that one too. The boat team was great and they told me: it's not finished! I was ready to tackle the 14 meter pass, but unfortunately, too ready. I overturned at 1 ball, so I fell and got a score of 0.5 a bouy. This was sad, because I had a good gate and that was the problem many times before during the whole summer. However 0.5 at 14 was still much better and more motivating than not getting my 18 meter pass. This was closer to the goal and I still had 2 rounds to try and reach my goal; or at least that is what I thought. In the end, I couldn't ski the last round, because in the crash that I made in the third round, I tore my eardrum. To top things off, this crash was not at 13 meters, but at 16, so it was not even worth it. I've torn my eardrum multiple times before, so when it happened, I immediately knew what to check and I knew right then and there that it was over. Initially there is the pain, but maybe worse, the fact that you can't ski until it's closed. Since there is already quite some scar tissue in my eardrum and the fact that the hole is of remarkable size, it will take some time to close. In 3 weeks I have a check up, but until then I have to find a way to deal with the disappointment of not reaching my slalom goal and not

being able to ski in the meantime. Overall, the weekend was very unsuccessful and disappointing, good thing there were some fun people, which made it enjoyable nonetheless...

Competition 1/2

This weekend I had a competition after a

week of training only in slalom. The competition was at a beautiful location and the water skied really well. The only problem: there was no wifi or cell phone service, so the blog is a bit late. This will be the same next weekend when I have one more slalom competition, with 4 rounds of slalom. It’s a different location but again no wifi to post the blog, this will come Monday or Tuesday. 

I’ve already written a bit about my training with Anthony in France last week. Including the fact that all the sets are filmed and analysed. After that, I still had 6 sets of training there. Since I was changing quite a bit in style and trying to get rid of some  bad habits, skiing was quite hard and the results in bouys was actually getting worse. Eventually after skiing, practising with my handle before skiing, visualising the set and watching the videos after, things started to fall into place. I was running very nice 18 meter passes, because here I have a lot of time to think. Also the 16 meter passes were getting cleaner and technically much better. This looks nicer, but it also saves quite a bit of pain, for one because I do more on technique rather than strength, and also because the chance of a serious crash decreases significantly. I was getting more an more confident in the new technique and I was running almost all my 14 meter passes; A very good sign for the upcoming competition. On Thursday I left Paris to head south to the competition site. I did one set on the lake there on which I ran 18, 16 and 14 in a row. After, I ran another 14 meter pass, just to be sure, and again I ot round all 6 bouys. This gave me confidence for the competition and I was thinking I might be able to prove Anthony wrong, because he said the new technique still needed a bit of time to sink in and it might be hard to run 14 at this competition.

After a rest day on Friday, since I had been

skiing twice a day for a week straight, the competition started at 10 on Saturday. In the first round, I was good in my 18 meter pass. I thought to myself, quickly get the 16 meter pass out of the way so I can start on 14. In my 16 meter pass I tried to think about everything I learned and to do it as similar to training as possible, despite some competition nerves. Throughout the pass I felt like I was getting really late, so I rushed to the last bouy. When I saw that it was still a bit further, I threw my legs around it, due to which I was out of balance. After the 6 bouy, I still had my handle but I was almost completely in the water. I thought maybe if I just held on, I would still make it through the gate, but the boat was too strong and I fell in a front flip. Afterwards, when I saw the video, it turned out that I wasn’t even that late at the bouys, so I don’t know what happened here, but no chance at 14 meters... 

The second round went a bit better. I had a nice 18 and 16 meter pass, which gave me confidence starting at 14. I would just have to do the same, and focus on having a good start. I got round 1 and 2, but at 3 I started to rush again, leaving a result of 3.5 bouys at 14 meters. This is not my best result at a competition, but it does beat my second best results. The European and African ranking list is based upon your two best results, so this would improve my score a little bit. Despite this, still all I wanted to do was run 14, but I would have to wait another day to try that.

On Sunday, I skied the last 2 sets. Both of them I ran the 18 and 16 meter pass, which I should be happy with. After changing some technical things and trying to ski with a somewhat different style, it is good to get into 14 meters 3 out of 4 times. However, I say should be, because I am not particularly happy with this. My goal was to run 14, and I really wanted to do that. In the final 2 sets, I did 1 and 2 at 14, so sadly I didn’t reach my goal for the weekend. On the birght side though, I met more really nice people which I hope to see more often at competitions and I have 4 more chances next weekend. Hopefully the technique will set into my memory and get comfortable so that next weekend I can ski a nice PB to end the season. Until then I will spend some time with family, since I’ve barely seen them throughout this busy summer!

slalom slalom slalom

The competition of last week, where I

improved a lot on my tricks PB (yes, I just

wanted to say that one more time) was the last competition at which I will trick and jump. For tricks, this means that from now on, my only focus is to learn new tricks. Before, it was crucial to keep practicing my run, so that it would be stable enough for the competitions. During that I was able to learn some new tricks as well, but time was very limited. Now I have the full set to work on the new tricks I want to be able to put in next year’s run. These are very clear goals, since I already know what I want my next run to include. Due to this I can focus each set on a couple of tricks that I want to learn. In the first sets that I was doing this, I came back to the dock really happy each time. I’ve already done new tricks multiple times and also improved on other tricks which makes me excited to see how fast I can learn my new run. On the other hand, having tricked my last competition, doesn’t mean that I am not competing anymore this year. There are 2 slalom competitions on the calendar still, which both consist of multiple slalom rounds.

Having a competition with multiple slalom

rounds helps to focus on that specific discipline. There is not the usual distraction of having to do tricks and jumps straight after. I also brought the focus on just slalom to my training. I am currently training with Anthony Ahnine, who is a great slalom coach. He is located close to Paris, where I drove to with my dad. I didn’t even bring my trick and jump skis so there would be no temptation at all to do one set of something else. I am now doing 2 slalom sets per day, which are both recorded. Then back at the house where we are staying, I watch back my videos and the tips so that I can remember them the next day and I will not make the same mistakes over and over again. Watching

back videos also helps to understand the tips better. I will always assume that if a coach says I did something wrong that I did, but I don’t always remember feeling myself doing that wrong. On the video I can watch myself ski, hear the tips I got, and watch it again to understand why I got those tips after that run. This helps the next day to pay more attention to feeling where things went wrong. I have a lot of confidence in the coaching that I am receiving and that it will help me improve. However at the moment, I haven’t been able to fully master the new technique that Anthony is working on with me. This can be frustrating, because I focus on everything he said during the pass, but it is still not going exactly the way we want it to. This is due to the fact that for one, it takes practice to change such things, and also when you are thinking too much in the course, you are only making things more difficult. Therefore I try to keep the thinking outside of the course and hope that my muscles remember what to do inside the course.

I really hope that the training pays off in the 2 competitions to come and that I can get a slalom PB which improved as much as my tricks and jump PBs did this year.

Belgium vs NL

Last week I was very ambitious in saying that I hoped the Dutch team could win from the Belgians. We lost from them with less points in every event. Luckily there are many of those good skiers that don't mind coaching us, and thus we learn from our neighbours. On a personal level it was a good competition for many of the Dutch team. Usually I evaluate the events in order of skiing, thus slalom, tricks, then jumps, however, I am going to save the best for last, which is tricks. 

On Friday I wanted to go to the competition site early to be able to train on the lake and receive some coaching, from one of the said Belgian skiers. There was a lot of wind, which affected the lake, but nonetheless I managed to run my 18 and 16 meter passes, which I feel I should always be able to run. Afterwards, there was some work to do on my gate at the 14 meter pass. In those conditions I skied 2 at 14, which I thought was promising for the competition, which would be skied in better weather conditions. On Saturday it was time to find out if I could pass more than 2 bouys at 14, the wind had calmed down and the water looked promising. I was happy to clear 18 and 16; I want to expect this for every competition, but it still proves to be challenging some times. Then I was thinking a lot about my gate for 14. I wanted to go a bit earlier, so that I  had time to think and could go very wide. This was not smart, as I was much too early and had such a bad gate, with very little angle to the bouy that I couldn't get more than half a bouy at 14. This was not a terrible score, though I would have liked more. The bad part, however, was that it was 2 places short of the final, which was dissapointing. 

At the end of the day there was jumping. A spot in the final was garuanteed, as 16 skiers would proceed, and there were 8 skiers. The wind was oke and I had heard that the ramp was nice to jump on. In this round I jumped 23.3 meters, I wished to jump more, but it was not bad. In overall points, which are compensated for age categorie and gender, I was only 3 points behind 2 other guys, who both had the same amount of overall points. To pass them was a nice goal for the final! In the final the wind was worse than in the prelimenary round on Saturday. The distance was

therefore less, 21.9 meters, which I am somehow able to jump very often. However, other skiers also couldn't improve on their preliminary score, due to the wind. In overall points I got third place for all ages and all genders combined of the BeNeLux, which was very unexpected.

Finally the event which was most dissapointing and most exciting. In the tricks preliminaries, I put down a great hands run. However, my 2 last tricks were out of the allowed time, which cost me quite some points. Furthermore in my second run, which is toes, I fell on my TO, which sounds like Europeans and last weeks competition. This was extremely dissapointing. Not just the score, but the fact that it keeps happening, even though in training, it is a stable trick. I was really knocked down by this mentally. I was thinking back at all the times this had happened and the fact that I did a PB in tricks in the beginning of the season, but not in any of the following competitions. I got even more upset thinking about the hours of training I put into tricks and that none of it was showing at competition. After all other trickers had skied, I saw that I miraculously got into the finals, even though I only finished one of my runs. This means I really had to let go all the dissapointment if I wanted a shot at getting a new PB. Luckily I've had enough practise in that by now. I changed my hands run slightly, by leaving  out the first 2 tricks in the hope that the last 2 would be in the time. This is because the first tricks are worth much less than those last two. It was quite a gamble, because in order for this to work, I had to do my entire hands run, including those last 2. Thankfully the team was very encouraging. I did my entire hands run and I expected my last 2 tricks to be in the time. Now it was time to overcome the first tricks in toes. The TO, I knew I could do it, but the competition results begged to differ. I took a couple of deep breaths on the boat. Just before the starting bouy I looked at my dad, who would release the rope should I fall, the same way as I did at Europeans. Only now the look on my face did not scream 'I am about to fall' it said 'don't let go, I'll make it this time'. And that I did, and afterwards every other trick in my run, including a reverse back to back, which I had never done in competition! Now it was waiting for the scores to see if everything was in time and credited by the judges... it was!! I now have a new PB of 2920

points, which is 360 points up from my last PB, and furthermore shows the 360 in mindset between the

prelimenary round and the final! I am overjoyed and now the focus is on slalom. If I manage to put a great score in that in one of the last 2 competition, I will have met all the slightly ambitious goals which I had set with my dad for this year!

The roots

Today the so called club championships were organized. At this anual competition, the atmosphere is always amazing. It is a day when many of the skiers and non-skiing members of the club come together for an amazing and chill day, with a little bit of pressure. There is one winner for under 17 and over 17 iin each discipline and of course a club champion, who wins overall, regardless of the age category. I was under 17 last year and this was my first year over 17, so I was unable to defend my titles. It was an exciting and close competition between the people who would follow my steps. It feels great to be able to motivate the younger skiers and know that they look up to me. This year it was a clean sweep for Matthijs Korsten, but I am sure even more pressure will be added next year, seeing the improvements everyone is making. For myself it wasn't a great start in

my new category. I wasn't able to run my first pass, so in slalom I ended very low, and more importantly with very little overall points. Therefore, my shot at overall champion had flown out the door very early. It's a good learning opportunity on how to deal with that dissapointment fast enough to focus on tricks and jump with a

new positive attitude. This is what makes these championships good, apart from the sphere, since there is a little pressure of wanting to perform and being overall champion, but it is not an official competition, due to which the scores don't matter very much. Ideal for learning how to deal with the stress and dissapointments of competition in  an easier way.

Leaving the slalom results behind and losing the pressure of even trying to become the clubchampion, I focussed on tricks. My hands run went well the first time round andfelt stable. Then I fell on my first trick in toes. This is something that reoccurs too much in my opinion. Not too long ago I was doing the toehold 360 (TO) so perfectly and almost never fell, not even in competition. Now it's not stable enough anymore, wich is unacceptable for a first trick. Luckily in the second round of tricks, I did the same in my hands run as the first round, and I had a new shot in the toeholds. The TO went well this time, there was no doubt that I might have fallen. This felt good to do again. Afterwards I was only able to do 2 other tricks bfore falling again, but I am sure this will come back soon.

The last event of the day was jumping. Since there were not many jumpers, we seized the rare opportunity of having the ramp ready and clean and a good boat driver to jump a little more often than the usual 3 times. We decided on 1 test jump and 3 scoring jumps. For me these felt good and safe, but there were no jump bouys, which made the timing really difficult. Also the scoring system was not very professional, we took pictures and measured the distance that it looks from the 15, 20 or 25 meter bouy. It was calculated that my jumps were around 23/24 meters. If this is accurate, I'm happy with the score. Many jumps were too

early, but since there was no reference I couldn't compensate much for the timing. Furthermore there was no switch, this device tells the boat to provide more power when the skier pulls. After the competition I decided to do 5 more jumps to train a bit with my trainer here. These jumps were solid too, so the end of the day was much better than the start.

This was all for this weekend, but I realized I forgot one thing I wanted to say about last weekend. At that competition, there was a head-to-head slalom. This was for the best 16 skiers of the competition, men and women combined, so I was already glad to be selected. You ski immediately against one other person and the score doesn't matter for anything else than beating that one person. In the first round, everyone starts at 18 meters and their own maximum speed. This was an advantage for me, since I always start on that, whereas my competition was used to starting at a shorted line length. We both cleared the 18 meter pass, after which my competition fell at 1.5 at 16. This meant that I only had to do 2 at 16 and then stop. I was doing well and after the second bouy I turned too hard, thinking about going to three. What I should have done was turn slowely and go back to between the boat, because that would give me 2 bouys at 16, getting me through to the next round. I had not really thought this through before hand, since I had never done a head-to-head slalom before. I think its a really fun concept and now I understand how to get further, for the next time! :)

Coming week I will be training for the last competition for the Dutch team. It will be the Dutch against the Belgians, which I hope we will be able to win. However, more importantly, I hope to ski some good scores, especially in slalom.

New PB!!! part 2

On Monday whilst I was enjoying the clinic given by Ryan Dodd, I had to take a quick trip to the fysio as well. I had to get my shoulder thoroughly checked to know for sure that I wasn't doing anything that would lead to permanent damage. His conclusion was an infection of some sort in my shoulder which was caused by the hit and swelling afterwards. In order to let this heal, I would have to rest for 5 days. If the infection got out of hand, it could take up to 12 weeks to heal... enough motivation to get some rest. However I could not let one more day of training with Ryan Dodd just slip away, so I did three sets on my jumpers, in which my shoulder would not be exhausted too much, since that arm is in a sling. On the second day of Ryan's clinic, I learned many exercises to help in strength and position when jumping. One of these was to cut through the wakes with the boat going as slow as 18 km/h, even though I would usually jump at 51 or 54 km/h! With the boat going so slow, it is a really tough exercise on your legs, but I'm certain that this exercise will help me get further.

After Tuesday it was really time to take some rest. I had a competition in Belgium this weekend and a couple more competitions coming up, so I don't want to risk not being able to participate because of my shoulder. On Saturday was the first time I skied again since Tuesday. Usually I like to be able to check out the water of the competition site and train a bit before a competition, but I couldn't do that this weekend. My slalom on Saturday morning was very disappointing as I missed the end gate on my first pass! This means you get a score on the minimum speed of your age group, which was 43 km/h even though I should have passed 55km/h. There was not a lot of time to be upset about this mistake, because there were two rounds of tricks coming up after lunch. I was nervous for this because I hadn't tricked for about 10 days, and in order to feel safe and fast in my runs I like to be able to do them a lot before competition. Despite the lack of training and thus confidence I was able to do well in my hands pass. Afterwards, in my toe pass, I fell on the first trick, which gave me flashbacks to Europeans. Luckily, there were two rounds of tricks, this time I had confidence for my hands run and I knew where my mistake was in my toes run. I set up a good hands run, even though I almost fell on my 3rd trick, which would have been too early. I practised for this moment in training for Europeans a lot, I almost fell on my trick but I held on to the handle, rebalanced and continued my run, missing one trick and probably some time at the end. I passed this run all the way to the end, which was better than in the first round. In toes I got past my first trick all the way to the last, where I fell. I was hoping for a good score, but as predicted, my last hands trick was out of time. Also, unexpectedly, two of my safest toe tricks were 'no credit', costing me a lot of points. My score ended up being 2340, which is 320 under my PB, so not too bad, but not what I wanted. Finally the last event of the Saturday, and also the event I did a PB in. It was time for jumping! After a two-day clinic with the world champion in jump and a whole summer of jumping more than I ever did before, this could only be good. The first jump I planned to feel the water and the ramp, so take it easy. When cutting for the ramp I got distracted by a slalom bouy that was right in my way, since my focus was off, I decided not to take the jump. The second jump was now to get a feel of the ramp, so still not too much risk. I jumped 21.4 meters, which was decent for a new ramp. On the third one it was time to get more speed into the ramp, I cut a bit later and took more angle on the ramp. Something was wrong with the timing and scoring, so I didn't know how far the jump was. Though the scores didn't give me much confidence for the second round of jump, I did feel safe on the water and the ramp, so I discussed with the driver and judges that I would do my last jump at 54km/h rather than 51km/h. My first jump I got a score of 24.7, which was a new PB, 1.7 meters further than my previous one! When the boat judge was signing my score, I had to double check that she really meant a 4 after the 2. I was already really happy with my score, but still tried to get more. The second jump was 24.1, still better than my previous PB, so I had consistently improved on that. Now the final jump of the set and the competition. I raised the boat speed now and re-focussed. I landed the jump on 54km/h, which was the first time in competition. The score was not yet given to me when I cut back to

the dock, but a gut feeling said I might have crossed the 25 meter barrier finally. When I was skiing to the dock my dad signed to me 2 5 point 1! I'm happy with my new PB and hopefully will add some meters when I start doing 3/4 cuts. To top off the weekend, I ended in second place overall, behind the Belgian talent Ibe Beckers!

Next weekend I have a competition at home. Finally one  where I don't have to drive 4 hours, like this weekend (though it was worth it). I will be defending my title as club champion. Though I am happy that my under 17 titles will for sure be taken over by some other talented skiers!

New PB!!

This week on Friday I had a bad crash in slalom, after which I wasn’t able to ski on Friday anymore. Usually the first pass after a crash like that I am really careful and hold back because in the back of my mind I am a bit scared. This time, my first set after that crash was on Saturday, on a competition. The focus for this competition was already to find a way to deal with competition stress. For this it was important to set realistic goals and make sure I wouldn’t put too much pressure on myself. I would also work on a ritual before my set that would make me focussed and calm. Due to the crash, I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to ski at the competition. Before the start I wasn’t even sure I would make it past the second bouy, since that is when my shoulder would get pulled. I was oke with stopping if it was hurting too much, since there was a busy period coming up with clinics and competitions. When I noticed at bouy 2 that I was oke to continue skiing I ran my first two passes. The first round, I skied just under my personal best at competition, which was quite surprising considering the circumstances. In the second round I even skied past my pb and raised it by 1.5 bouy to 4@14. I am convinced I

On my way to a PB!

could have done more, but I didn’t want to push it with my shoulder. I also decided to stop after 2 rounds, even though there were 4 rounds in the competition. Hopefully I will be able to put my pb where I want it this year at another competition because I made a wise decision to stop.

Yesterday was a fun day of travelling. I started in Frespech, where the competition was on Saturday. On Sunday I was brought to Toulouse, since my flight leaves from there. This time was probably the fastest and easiest I had ever gotten from Toulouse to Amsterdam. Then in Amsterdam my dad was waiting for me and we went to visit my mom at the rookie competition in Maurik. 

It was great to see part of the rookie tour in Maurik, since my first rookie was in Maurik too. Also I did a camp there once, which really inspired me to get further in waterskiing. And of course the Europeans were in Maurik once, which was an inspirational experience. It was really awesome to see the coaches, to whom I could look up to during the camp and in my journey thereafter. They were really impressed about what I had achieved since they knew me. It is good to realise at some points where I’ve come from, because at some points I feel like my progress is not going fast enough.

After the rookie competition I drove to

Handel with my mom, which was fun because I wasn’t allowed to drive for 4 weeks, since I’m 17. I will be in Handel for 2 days for a clinic with world champion Ryan Dodd. It is really amazing that a world champion wants to give a clinic in the tiny country of the Netherlands! He is able to make his living from jumping competition, so he is extraordinarily good in jumping. From the three sets I am doing per day, I will therefore be jumping twice. I’ve already done 2 sets which I can write about, since my blog is a day late. The first set I slalomed, even though I didn’t cut the rope past 16, I thought it was a really good set. I enjoyed the way of coaching and afterwards, my last 16 meter pass felt very easy.