The mental side of waterskiing

Today I’ve been in Toulouse for 2 weeks, which means I’ve skied 40 sets already. From these 40 sets it is obviously impossible to ski them all perfectly. Some sets don’t work out quite the way you want them to, and even though you have great coaching to get the best out of your set anyways, some sets leave you with an unaccomplished feeling. Out of 40 sets, some are bound to be better than others, but since you ski so often in a short period of time, it also feels as if more sets are not as good as I would hope. If the 40 sets were spread out more, so would the ‘bad’ sets, but since they are all in these 2 weeks, the negative feelings caused by the ‘bad’ sets prevails. This is sometimes hard to deal with, because it is easier to remember what you did wrong and the tips you got to improve than to remember what you have accomplished. I was making things worse for myself by keeping track of all the tips I was given. Of course this is good, because this way I get the most out of my time here and I can look at the tips when I am not here. This does however put emphasis on what I am doing wrong and this was hard to deal with at times. This is why in the second week I also tried writing down what went really well to put everything back in perspective.  

Besides sets not going completely the way I want them to due to fatigue in my muscles or other reasons, sometimes, my coach said I wasn’t working enough. I was doing just enough to pass, with minimum effort. This way I was not improving as fast as I could, and since I have a long way to go still, I need to improve as fast as possible. This is when my coach told me I really have to make the most of every set, and every pass in every set and every trick. Even skiing back towards the dock, I need to pay attention to my body position. It is not that I purposefully decided not to put in enough effort, but since I was completing the exercise, I figured it was good. However if I want to be the best someday, I really need to put maximum effort into everything I do. When my coach pointed this out after the first couple of passes, I really worked on the last passes. This made my last passes the best ones from the set, though they should have been the worst, if I had worked hard in the first passes and made my body tired during the last. The sets after, I really started working with maximum effort, which meant we could continue with other exercises, so this is definitely something to never forget. If I want to get to the level of international skiers my age, I will need to work every set like it’s my last chance to prove what I have! 

Finally I want to share an article that was written after an interview I had. There will be a translation of this article coming soon on Facebook, if you want to be updated on everything there, you can like this page!