What could possibly go wrong

I like this title because I don't even believe it myself. In planning for the coming season I have tried to learn from all the mistakes of last season and mitigate the risk of them happening again. Because I won't make the same mistakes, or at least try not to, I know that I will make other mistakes and that sooner or later there will be a blog explaining exactly what could've gone wrong and did.

However, for now I would like to believe that because of all the planning that has been done for coming season, nothing will go wrong. The start of the season is coming really close now, so it is time to dot the i's and cross the t's. At my home club the last cleaning has been done, only one paint job awaits. Also the slalom course has been finished, which is a great relieve for all volunteers involved, because it caused some issues last year. The boat will go into the water on the 17th of April, which is sooner than previous years. We have a lot of very enthusiastic skiers that cannot wait to train and therefore this year it is worth it to start earlier!

The season in the South of the Netherlands (Handel), starts even sooner than ours. In fact it starts tomorrow, so I will ski there for the first time tomorrow! This is my in my opinion the best lake in the Netherlands and therefore definitely worth the 2.5 hour drive every now and again. And with every now and again I mean every weekend. There is a camping really close to the lake. We are able to put our caravan there throughout the week as well and then use it in the weekends. In this way we can drive there Saturday morning, ski a couple of times on Saturday and then go to our second home. Then on Sunday I can ski some more and then we will drive home, without the speed limitation of the caravan. Since the caravan will be there for more than a month, we had to do some cleaning and other preparations to make sure it is a suitable weekend home. Most importantly the gas had to be filled, to fuel the heater. The beds are made and all the pots and pans are packed. This year, I got my drivers-licence and I am allowed to drive with the caravan also. In Handel, there have also been some renovations and the necessary cleaning has been done. I'm excited to see what the club looks like now, hopefully at least the heater is working, because even though the clock went to summer time last night, the temperature has yet to catch up.

Other than the preparation of the caravan, I also sorted out all my skiing materials to see what I still need for an optimum season. Besides buying what I don't have yet, like some equipment for jumping, I will also order some back up equipment. I will be skiing so much it is almost inevitable that something will break. In my mind I try to visualize standing on the dock, the last skier before me is skiing and it will be my last chance to qualify. Then I think what could possibly be broken that will ruin this shot. Anything that came to mind I try to find a solution for. Hence the title, right now I think I'm prepared for everything. I know that I'm prepared for everything I know, but I don't know everything, so I still need a little luck on my side.

HISWA

Today officially marks the first day of spring. For us that means that we go into double digits in the temperature. It also means that the start of the water-skiing season is getting closer and closer! Until the start of the season on Monday the 28th of March, I keep looking for ways to prepare to the best of my abilities. There are also more and more activities that have to do with the preparation of the season, like the activity day last week. Today I went to the HISWA Amsterdam boat show. This is a major event in Amsterdam for boats mainly, but also many water sports. It can really be seen as the kick-off of the water sport season, since you can buy any accessories you need. There are many ways to promote the water sports, like interactive workshops, demonstrations and activities. There was some room for water-skiing, but I felt like it was still under-represented and I am thinking of ways to promote it more next year (any ideas are welcome).

Testing my balance on heels

For me hall 2 was like water sport heaven. Here there was a kite-surf simulator, where you could feel the pull of the kite, but the talent of keeping the kite and the board under control was not necessary. There were also two pools, one in which you could go Supping (stand-up pedalling) and one in which you could go skimboarding. What I realised spending almost the entire day in hall 2, is that in all water-sports, balance and core stability was central. In every demonstration they would test your balance. Therefore I believe that once you can do one, you have a good basis to start trying other sports. This is great for some variation in between trainings-sets. For example I really like to go Supping.

Trying out the ski-machine, on heels, courtesy of the  Dutch federation

I had a lot of fun trying out other water sports, but the best part for me was still water-skiing. There was a skimachine which could be used to introduce people to water-skiing. They had water-skis without the fins, so they could be used on a flat surface. Sadly to be more time efficient they used a skimboard instead. Here it is clear that water-skiing should be promoted more. On the other hand, there were wakeboarders giving awesome demonstrations in the harbour, by using a winch. I believe that we could maybe join them and give a trick-skiing demonstration, because not nearly enough people know about water-skiing in the Netherlands.

The Dutch water-ski and wakeboard federation did have a small stand in this massive event. There were two wakeboard boats, which caught the attention of a lot of people. Also the youngest skier at my home club was used for promotion. This shows that people of all ages can join our sports and there was a lot of enthusiasm for water-skiing. This is why I think that next year it shouldn't be a problem to have more space for water-skiing on this huge event. There was also a selfie competition with which you can win a pair of sunglasses, so I chose to take a picture with my little champion.

Dedication

Since the club where I ski at home is exactly that, a club, there are a lot of things that need to be done by volunteers. There are a lot of things that need to happen where I don't have a clue how to help, like the technical aspects of the slalom course and the ramp. Since I do benefit from these things being done, I try to help and put my efforts anywhere I can. I do this out of respect for the volunteers who do the things I can't, for everyone that helps me and to show my passion for the sport in more ways than just on the water.
Sometimes this means raising money, in order to keep memberships and ski-set prices the way they are. It is possible for our members to ski for €6.90, which is extremely cheap, so to make this possible we need some other source of income. A local chain of supermarkets has a great initiative where sports clubs are able to promote their club so that shoppers donate tokens to their club. Customers get a token for every 10€ that they spend. After a while there is a party at which cheques are given out. The weight in tokens will be translated to an amount of money, which you are free to spend on whatever you want. In order to promote your club, you are allowed to stand in the supermarket and ask people to support you. One year we put the boat outside of the supermarket, which definitely made an impact. We also put skis around the supermarket and stand in our bikinis (in the winter) or wetsuits at the cashiers, where people decide which clubs to support. By bringing our youngest and cutest members we try to guilt people into supporting our club, haha. This all pays off, last time we earned €864.-!

To make sure we can have members ski at least 4 days a week, we need boat drivers and bartenders. I would really like to be a boat driver, but you have to be 18 for that in the Netherlands, so when I turned 16, I applied to be a bartender, since you have to be 16 for that. This usually means starting at 18:30 till after sunset, but it is a really fun way to contribute to the club, because you can chat with everyone the entire night. Best of all you can decide when you want to ski. In order to have a fair system, members can write their name on a board when they arrive, which is when they will ski. As a bartender you can say when you want to go once. So when the sun comes out, I quickly use this privilege to my advantage :) .
In order to keep our club up and running and attractive to new members, we have to keep building and cleaning. Cleaning is definitely my least favourite... however if it's done often enough it is not too bad, and the result afterwards is worth it. Along with cleaning days, we also have a couple of days in which everything is prepared for the new season. This involves anything that needs to be done that is not cleaning related. Sometimes we have to remodel to make storage more efficient and sometimes we have to build new things, for example ways to dry suits and towels, since it is mostly really cold. We had a day like this yesterday, which inspired me to write about all the things I love doing outside of the water to keep my club up and running. This is genuinely great because you keep the club up and running together with all the members. When everyone helps in their way, nobody owns it and it creates a sense of belonging and pride regarding the club and the way it is presented. This also means that the members are generally really close and it is always fun to go skiing because of the people you'll see.

'You either have passion or you don't'

Last week I wrote about my goals for the coming season. Even though I can't be on the water very often now, it is still time to work towards achieving those goals in any way possible. There are a few ways in which I focus on achieving my goals during the winter. First of all some of the very active people at my water-skiing club spent a lot of free time on building what we now call the ski-machine. It's in essence a sort of treadmill, but much bigger. It is only possible to practise for tricks

on this machine, since other skis have fins which will damage the machine. Also they involve different techniques which you can't practise in this way. It's amazing to be able to practise some basic tricks on, because with every error you make in your body position, you will fall. It is also great to practise toeholds on. For this we are able to hold a handle hanging from above as well, so where you would normally fall, you can keep yourself up. It is of course the aim to not use it at all, because the techniques have to come from your legs, because on the water, sadly, we don't have a drone that flies with us and holds us up when we're about to fall. However any wake turns are harder to simulate and flips are impossible. Therefore my goal really is to not be able to practise on this machine anymore. This would mean that for tricks my run consists of flips and ski-lines, which all involve jumping over the wake, therefore they cannot be done on this machine. These tricks are worth the most points, so one day I want to be able to do that of course (though I believe it will always be good to work on the basics). Until then, I'm practising tricks that I want to use in my qualifying run. I made a video of this on my new Facebook page.

One of the trainers of the club training, who put a lot of work in the ski-machine, also prepared a pre-season training programme for everybody to get our muscles ready for the season. This happens every Sunday and I'm on my way there now. We do interval training with 18 different exercises, alternating muscle groups. We end with some very slow squats, 3 seconds down and then 3 seconds up. Last week I still thought they were easy, but it turned out that I was stretching my legs before going down again, which takes the pressure off. After I changed this, I definitely did not think they were easy. The other fun thing about this training is that we already see our team mates before the season actually starts, which is, if you remember the word, very gezellig.

One final thing I want to say is that I also try to ski when the weather is (relatively) good. Today was actually the first time this year, after more than 2 months not skiing. When I woke up, I saw the water in my garden was frozen. This slightly discouraged me to go skiing today, but two things got me back on track. The national coach saying: you either have passion or you don't. Then later is saw this photo of the lake that I skied at, waterski school de Harder Veluwemeer. At that moment I was sold and I started preparing, both mentally and my gear... Looking back, it was definitely beyond cold, with the water temperature around 5 degrees (Celsius), but Alex and Gerrit made it a lot of fun with tips on both techniques and staying warm.