Pass the handle

This week’s blog is a little bit later

because my flight to Toulouse didn’t go exactly as planned. For starters the flight was delayed by 1 hour, but that isn’t such a big of a deal, the real problem was with luggage. I travel with two check-in bags, one containing my skis and one containing everything else I need to ski, like my ropes, gloves, life jacket, jump suit and helmet, etc. This particular time I also had my baseplates and bindings in my second bag, because the bags can only weigh 23 kilos, and my jump skis with bindings weighs a lot. Usually I take off the heavy jump bindings, but this time I couldn’t unscrew them and I had to take off everything from my other skis to get to the weight I was allowed. Now my ski bag has arrived, but everything else I need to ski has yet to arrive, since that bag was left in Amsterdam. So instead of spending yesterday to assemble my skis and write a blog, I had to plan how I was going to borrow everything from other skiers, so that I can ski today. I ended up using different parts 4 other skiers, but it worked. I hope my own materials will arrive soon so that I can ski with stuff that fits properly.

However, this is not what I planned on blogging about this week. Last week Sunday was called ‘pass the handle’ day. This is a day in which skiers can pass the handle by teaching others how to ski. This is with the goal to grow the sport, which is very necessary. Waterskiing used to be much more popular and well known than it is now, and it would be great if more people knew the sport and funding for the federation grew.
I didn’t have the opportunity to teach anyone how to ski last week, but I believe I can help grow the sport through my blog. I get some great reactions to my blog and one in particular I like to share. There was a girl who contacted me to say she was inspired by my blog to get back to training and also give training to other people. This was amazing to hear, but what makes it more special is that she inspired me in skiing about 4 years ago. She was at my first training camp and she helped me go over the ramp for the first time. It was fun to read back old messages that I sent to her, for example that I was very proud of landing a jump and doing a side slide. These things are not really special to me anymore, but it is a good reminder that at one point, this was all I could do and I was really proud of that. It reminds me to be proud of how far I’ve come already too and helps me see that it is possible to go even further.

Finally, even though it is kind of a rough start to the training in France, without my suitcase, I am very happy to be skiing back here and see everyone!