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!