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.