Water skating

After many cold weeks back home, it has finally frozen enough to be able to ice skate on the rivers and lakes. Since this usually doesn't last long, I decided to take advantage of the situation immediately. In the beginning of the day, I had to work, from where I can see the lake and on it, there were many people ice skating. I had to work until 17:00, so I hoped that the ice would still be good enough by the time I could skate and also that it wouldn't be too dark. When I was finally done working, I went straight to the lake. This is the same lake on which, in the summer, I usually ski. It's a rather big lake, so it was already quite a trip to skate to the part where I normally ski. From there I could see our club, so of course I had to take a picture. A little bit further down the lake, I could skate to the ramp. Our slalom course was not in the water, since we take it out at the end of each season, just in case the lake does freeze over. I tried to do some slaloming around the area, just to get the feeling back. Sadly its not the same at all, but it was fun to be on the water again, be it in a different state. I also tried to go over the ramp on my ice skates, which reminded me of Florida, where I

almost went over the ramp on my slalom ski twice, by accident. Seems like I have a knack for taking the ramp on the wrong 'skis'. Finally I also did some tricks on my skates, some intentional and some maybe unintentional...

Even though being on the water will always feel special, extra so now that it was the same spot as normally. However, still nothing will compare to the feeling of properly water skiing. Luckily I can already start counting down the days until I can ski again in Florida!

2017 planning

After I had written down my goals for the year in my previous blog, it was time to make a rough plan in order to be able to reach those goals. The first step was to look at which competitions I want to do in the season. Of course I plan to do title competitions, like the national, Benelux, European and world championships. These are the times that I need to peak and thus training is all aimed towards these competitions. One problem I was facing whilst making my planning, was that the date of the European championship is still unknown right now. It's hard to know exactly when I need to train for that, but also I don't want to have a trainings week booked and discover that the Europeans will be then. Therefore, all the things that I planned will change throughout the season, but it's good to know roughly what I can expect and look forward to.

The second step in making the planning was budgeting. I know what I will be able to spend throughout the season, so based on that and an estimate of how much competitions will cost, I was able to see how many trainingsweeks I could plan in. It's hard to make an exact estimate of how much each competition will be and what I will need in materials, but again, it's just a rough estimate to have some sort of planning for the season. I figured out that I could do 3 weeks of training internationally in the summer and then go to train on the competition lakes just before competitions as well. Furthermore I have room to ski in Handel as well, which is a very good lake in the south of the Netherlands and also the location of the Benelux championship.

The first thing on the planning is also very exciting! Just now, I booked the tickets for it as well. I will be going back to Florida in March. I got some information about a trainingsweek with Whitney McClintock and I really wanted to go there. Afterwards I'll be staying with the Hof family again (million thanks to them for making many of my dreams possible!). I want to stay for some competitions as well, that start in April. I hope to improve in the first competition already, which is only slalom. This competition is at the lake where I trained on with Ryan Dodd. Ideally I'll train there some more, with great coaching, just before the competition and then rock the competition!

I'm very excited to see what next season will bring and very thankful to everyone who makes it possible!

Keep learning

As promised to myself, this week I have taken some steps towards planning out the next year and especially the season. Since I have the ambition to go to university in the US, I have to take a standardized test on top of my high school diploma. This week I signed up to take this test in May, so still plenty of time to prepare for that, but at least I wont be late in applying. Furthermore I did some research into what else I need to know regarding applying to a university there and the deadlines. I will also apply to the university in the city where I live now as a back-up plan. I've put off doing this for long, because I didn't want, or better didn't want to need, a plan B. I'm so focussed on reaching my goal of joining a waterski team at an American university that I didn't want to think far into what I would do if I can't make it happen, because I just want to make it happen!

There seems to be a trend in me learning things this week, because another really interesting thing that happened was a sort of lecture by the federation's physiotherapist. The focus was put on preventing some common injuries that happen to waterskiers and wakeboarders. One of the injuries we focussed on was tearing ligaments in the knee. It turns out that often whilst jumping or walking the stairs, or even biking, the knees have a tendency to go inwards. When this happens after for example jumping off the ramp in skiing, it increases the possibility of getting an injury. I was never aware of this and

thus I wasn't sure if my knees were doing this too. I immediately looked up a video of me jumping and saw, I must say to my surprise, that my knees fell inward at the landing, and pretty obviously too... I was shocked by this and thus wanted to test it later this week in the gym. I jumped up on the box to see if I could focus on keeping my knees straight under my hips. This went pretty well, so I hope it will be something I can think about during the season whilst jumping too.

The following part of the evening was presented by a sport psychologist. Going to this evening I was excited about this part, even though I didn't know quite what to expect. Like I said last week, I really want to improve the mental preparation of my tournaments throughout next season in order to perform better. I was hoping to learn something here that would help with nerves before the competition and overall to learn more about the mind-set you should have when performing at a high level. Of course this is something that is very individual, but there was a good explanation of how the psychological side of things work in general and how you can change thoughts in a small way in order to help your performance and training. For example to try to find a positive alternative to all negative thoughts, negative thoughts being anything containing not or can't. So rather than thinking don't fall, think of which tricks you will stand up. Also a large emphasis was put on the benefits, if not necessity, of visualization. This can be a training for when you cant be on the water, for just before a competition, all to help you know exactly what you have to perform, how to do it and when to do it. This was interesting as well, since in the ski and wake magazine we have in the Netherlands, this was emphasised a lot as well. All in all, a great day, even just from the fact that more and more is happening with the water sports community, but also because some genuinely interesting and useful things were discussed.

Since I'm talking about the educational things that happened this week, I want to add one more thing. It isn't waterski related, but it's a new experience and learning moment that I still want to share :) It has been snowing, hailing and overall been pretty cold over the last couple of days. Today, the roads were not cleaned, so when driving home from the gym, my dad decided it was a good time to teach me how to drift. We went to the parking area of the lake where I ski and he told me to drive away full speed, see what happens. That was the first time I saw the skid sign in the car. Afterwards it was time to purposefully make the car lose control in a turn and try to get it back in the right path. At first it was rather counter intuitive to drive in such a way that I would lose control of the car, but after he showed me that nothing would happen, I skid away in the turn. Aside from the fact that this was a fun new experience, I also know now how to regain control if I would be driving and lose control over the car.

Generally it was a good week in terms of learning new skills and gaining knowledge, which I hope to continue doing more off until I go off to university. This is because I also want to utilise my gap year to gain life experience and some new skills rather than just learn new things in skiing. I'll be looking out for ways to challenge myself and experience new things like I did in Florida and over the past week.

New year, same hustle

Like I said last blog, I would review the past year and look at my goals for next year in this blog. This is a perfect day to do that, since it is also the day my waterski club the WSCP has the annual 'polar bear plunge'. Even though this is the first year since I ski there that I have not actually jumped, I'm still taking this opportunity to start this new year by sharing my goals.

Setting goals for an entire year is very difficult, since there will be a lot of things that I can't account for right now, which will change the path I'm on and the things I'm able to do. Still it's good to have something to work towards and be focussed on. It also helps to have a bigger picture in my mind, which will help overcome disappointments which will inevitably occur throughout the year, because I'll know there are multiple ways to achieve the ultimate goals of this year. One more thing I'd like to say before actually discussing my goals, is that I do believe that any time of the year is a great moment to make a change. Thus there is no need to wait for a new year to have resolutions and make a change for the better. Because of this, I've already started to make some changes to work towards future goals, like taking better care of my nutrition and working out more and in a better way. This is something I want to continue throughout this year, because it will help achieve my goals, but it is not a resolution limited to 2017, thus: new year, same hustle.

All right, the goals! The first thing that comes to mind are goals in terms of actual skiing results. Having ended 2016 really close to running a 13 meter pass in slalom, this is something I want to do as quick as possible in 2017. Since this is not far off, this is not a good goal for the entirety of 2017. Looking at how fast other skiers realistically progress played a part in setting a good goal for 2017, I hope to do more, but I think doing 4@12 is a good goal to work towards, especially in training. 2016 hasn't been the best year in slalom regarding competitions for me, so that PB is pretty far behind my trainings PB at the moment. I hope to work towards having these PBs closer together, which means I'm able to perform the best I possibly can at competitions as well as in training. To do this, throughout the year, I want to put more emphasis on the way I handle emotions before a competition. Of course, realistically, a competition is still just a snapshot and it's impossible to have a PB each time, but I hope to ski consistently closer to my abilities by creating a mantra before I ski at competitions. This will also help in another goal in 2017, which is very exciting news. I will be competing at my first world championship this year. I think it's good to be able to meet other skiers who perform on the world podium in my age category. This will be extremely motivating, hopefully bring about new friendships and overall be a great experience to carry with me for later.

In tricks I hope to add another 1000 points to my PB. This is a goal that gets increasingly hard the more I'm able to do it. However, I feel like it is still possible this season, even though it will be challenging. This means I have to really push boundaries, learn tricks I'm a little afraid of, spend lots of time on and off the water doing drills. Last year I have not spent as much time working on tricks off the water as I could. It's hard to motivate myself to do this more, but I know that it's the only way to reach my goals, so I will commit to doing more drills off the water to improve especially my tricking, but really it works for all disciplines.

Finally, in jump I expect to be able to improve quickly in the beginning of the season due to some changes. First of all, I have ordered new jump skis, which are 6 inches bigger than the ones I have now. This will take some time to get used to, but ultimately will help me fly further! Also I have been working on the 3/4 cut, which will fall into place in the next season. This should start adding meters to my PB rather quickly in the beginning, if I have the guts! I want, and expect to break the 30 meter barrier in the next year by doing this.

Most importantly, these improvements in skiing will help me achieve the ultimate goal of 2017. This is something I've been working towards since last year and also the main reason for me taking a gap year. I hope to be attending university in the US, but on a waterski scholarship. This means that I don't have to pay full tuition, which is an essential perk, since tuition in the US would otherwise be too much. Also this means that I will be able to ski so much more than now. There will be the possibility to ski 4 times a day, on school days! Plus the fact that the season in the southern states of the US is much longer than in the Netherlands. I know that this is not easy to achieve, since others at my age are further in skiing, therefore I have to prove my abilities before the next school year!

I am very excited in working towards my goals and taking you on the journey as well, keeping you updated as I go, be it good results or disappointing ones. My main goal for 2017 is to keep learning as much, or more as I did in 2016, because I have grown so much as a person and as a skier due to new experiences, challenges, highs and lows, but I wouldn't change anything for the world!

Happy New Year!

January 1st 2017... I have to let that sink in for a while still. The past month flew by in no time, because each day contained new experiences, lots of skiing and lots of fun, many celebrations, great people... overall a great holiday. But actually 2016 as a whole pretty much flew by with so many things that have happened. However, before I get into everything that happened in 2016 and my goals for 2017, I still want to finish the last blog about my Florida trip. This year feels like it just abruptly ended much sooner than usual, and thus I have 1 more blog to write before the logical looking back at 2016 and forward to 2017 blog!

Throughout the last week in Florida, I hadn't thought much about it being the last week. This was in the first place great, because that meant I could still enjoy everything I did fully without thinking about it being the last time and counting down the days till I had to leave. On the flip side though, that meant that the day I had to leave came around like a slap in my face. I hadn't packed, cleaned or prepared anything for leaving until then. The only thing I really treasured was my last ski set of this holiday, which come to think of it was also the last set of 2016. I skied longer than normally, just because I didn't want to have to stop, pack and leave. On the bright side, the packing was easy, mainly because its the way back, so there's no deciding what to take and what to leave... you take everything. Also I had more space and weight to play with because I took some presents that I didn't have to take back, and some Dutch essentials, like coffee and cheese, that by then had been finished.

Other than that Friday, it had been a week like the others, filled with training and other great trips, this time with many more people though! The Dutch squad in Florida had expanded by 6 people, 2 of which also ski for the national team, which meant more trainings buddies! Together, we spent 3 more days training with Vincent. I was improving a lot and we were hoping to land some tricks once or twice so that I know what it feels like. For my new sequence in hands, it worked well. However, my toe hold tricks were really close, but just not there, sadly. Even more of a bummer in slalom where I had a couple of really good starts at 13, one pass I even skied a great 1, 2, 3, 4 ball, got around 5, but not well enough to reach 6... I could almost touch it, but sadly I didn't actually run 13 for the first time. It would've been great if I did, since exactly a year ago was the first time I ran 14, but it's still promising for next season. All in all after all the training that I did, I'm happy at the level I reached within a month, especially after having not skied for a while. I hope this will help me improve quicker at the beginning of next season, so that I can start improving early on and peak at the competitions!

Like last week, this week we continued playing around with videoing and using the go pro in ski sets. One of the shots we took was from behind the boats, so we skied with 2 people behind the boat. It was weird to see myself ski from up close on the side, but also really cool. Since this was on Thursday, there wasn't much time to perfect these shots, but for a first try I still think they're cool. Also I couldn't ski too much anymore, since my arm is really sore, I'll be seeing a fysio this week to try to figure out what is wrong.

For now the best wishes for the new year!!