(Almost) ready to go

As I predicted in the last blog, I left the actual packing to the last minute! This was not only because I like to procrastinate on stuff like this, but also because it is something that I can do Sunday night, by myself. For anything where I rely on a shop or other people, I have to do it first, because most are not open Sunday, or only partially. Therefore other things took priority, like going to the hairdresser, to cut of quite a bit of my hair so that I don't overheat in Florida! I also had to do some shopping, since I miss Christmas, I want to be able to leave something behind which can be opened on Christmas day. Furthermore, most of my days this week were spent working. It felt like an end sprint, because if I was working at night, I was babysitting in the morning and if I was babysitting at night, I was working during the day. This way I'll have some extra money to spend on my trip, and I know exactly what I want, hopefully I'll get in on time and will be able to show you, so stay tuned! Lastly, I had some doctors appointment. The first was to do one final check-up on my ear... it has still not healed, and the hole barely got smaller, so in Florida I will need to take extra care and protect my ears very well. This was quite disappointing to hear, especially because I felt like it might have healed. Now there is a risk of infection if lake water gets in, and also because water will go straight to the inner ear, this can lead to dizziness, which is not great when trying to balance on the skis. My biggest worry is that I will fall on my ear again and make the hole bigger, because the chance of it healing naturally then, I think are close to nought. The other time I went to the doctor I got some antibiotics, to help fight my tonsillitis. I hope this will be completely over by the time I get to skiing, which will most likely be Tuesday.

This all, combined with going to the gym and hanging out with some friends before I leave pretty
much filled my week. Now I've only just finished packing all my bags and checking my equipment. I'm happy I checked my skis, because I had one problem with my slalom ski, which is fixed now, thanks to some help from my dad, and also all my screws match once again, because throughout the season I had gathered 3 different types of screws on my ski... Once this was done, I could put everything on the photo on the right into my ski bag. This only just fits in the weight limit, so I hope the scales at the airport are similar to the one I checked with!

Finally it was time to fit my clothes and other stuff into my other bag. Since my ski bag was allowed 32kg, I was able to put more of my ski equipment in there than usual (when it's allowed 24kg). Due to this I thought that my other bag could be 20kg, instead of 24kg, but I was wrong. I realised that I'll just try to take more stuff knowing that I have more kilos, but my bag ended up being 23kg. Since everything I'm bringing is absolutely necessary (probably not, but I couldn't chose what to leave out), I put some heavy things in my hand luggage to get the weight down. I now have the weirdest selection of items in my hand luggage (sorry airport security). I'm bringing all my ski bindings in my carry on, along with my sport shoes, slippers, a kilo of cheese and my own snacks. However weird my luggage may look now, I do have all my bags within the weight restrictions and am officially ready to go! I was actually ready to leave when I was biking to my friends house this morning in -3 degrees Celsius, but the only problem was of course that I had no bags packed yet...

Only 17 more hours until the plane leaves and I'm so excited to finish this year with some good results!

Countdown

With only 7 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes (but who's counting?) till I leave to Florida its time to start preparing for this adventure! Besides packing, which I'll most likely do last minutes, there are some other things that I really need to start preparing. First of all, which I'm doing now is part of mentally preparing for the trip in order to get the most out of the experience. This mainly involves setting some goals. I have to be careful in setting these goals, because I haven't skied in a couple of months, so part of the training will be getting back to old levels and getting over muscle aches. Thus, the goals must not be unrealistic.

However, I still want to get the most out of my trip and improve of course, so I do want to set challenging goals that will push me to the very limit and make sure I maximise improvements. Since it is off season training, goal setting is different than during the season. There are no competitions, which means the goals will be focussed on improving basics and technique and long term investments rather than getting the best results in the shortest period of time. If I can spend this time improving techniques due to which I may not immediately jump further, but improve during the season, it will be more than worth it. All things considered, I'll list my goals. I'm a little scared to have them black on white, because I want to achieve whatever I say now and am afraid that I'll fall short, but that's part of growing...

In slalom, at the end of the season I was working on some changes in my basic technique already. This was side tracked a bit because there were competitions coming up and thus results were more important. Now I can go back to focussing on this technique and get the hang of it properly. Ideally, the tips that I have now will all start to come together and I will be able to really master it and therefore improve in results too. If this happens, I believe I should be able to clear the 13 meter pass and more importantly, consistently clear the 14 meter before that. Ideally this results in being able to start sets on the 16 meter rope and thus slowly letting go of skiing at 18 meters.

For tricks I'm extremely excited because I can put a lot of time into learning the new tricks for next season, which is harder to do during the season, since I have to keep up a steady competition run. I have listed some tricks that I want to be able to put in next years run. This means that the tricks I will be learning should be good for ideally 100% of the time. These tricks include a wake line 360, which is not entirely new, but should become the first trick and thus must not fail, ever. Furthermore I want to have 2 540s stable enough to incorporate, again I have started working on these, but to have them credit all the time will take some work. In toe hold, I also want to learn 540s, but as water turns instead of wake turns. Furthermore I should get the wrap in wrap out sequence steady, which is I would say 70% steady on a good day and should be brought up to 100%. If these go well I can also start with a TWO, which is a 360 wake turn and TWBB, which is also a 360 wake turn, but from back to back rather than front to front. If none of these words made sense, I hope I'll be able to show videos of them on my Facebook page when I learn them!

Finally, in jump, I will really focus on basics. This is actually for two reasons, first and foremost, it will definitely pay off later and also I might be skiing on new, bigger skis, which I'll have to get used to. Secondly, a more logistic part, there is no ramp in the lake I will be skiing, and the off-season is really good to work on all the cutting before the ramp. In this I hope to especially work on cutting the wakes, since this will set me up to learning a 3/4 cut for next season. This, combined with bigger skis, should set me up for big jumps (literally) next season.

Besides this, there are things I need to prepare travel related, but they have nothing to do with the actual skiing. I want to download some movies, books, and songs in order to have something to do besides sleeping the entire plane ride. Also I want to quickly check all my materials, so I don't get any unpleasant surprises once I've arrived. And lastly, I've done some shopping as an early birthday present to myself, so I'll have some clothes to suit the amazing weather in Florida! This should keep me busy till take off!!

Better together

Today I'm back again with a blog, which should have been there yesterday... However, yesterday I
had an amazing day on the other side of our small country, so was on the road a lot and enjoying myself there. From my house to our destination yesterday is probably the furthest you can drive and stay in the Netherlands, which was a little over 3.5 hours. So, why do it? A while ago we had planned a fun get together with some of my friends from water-skiing. Initially we planned a BBQ, but because the first autumn 'storm' was planned, the meal plans were slightly changed. It was still delicious food, but that was not the main part of yesterday. Most important was getting together again, after the season has ended for already quite some time and the last time we saw each other was... last week! But still we really enjoy spending time together around the waterski season too and do some things that are not related to skiing and talking about something not related to skiing for once, who knew I could do that! It was great to spend some time together and the next time will be in Florida, so no escaping the skiing and ski talk, which is no problem of course!
Since I'm not actually skiing right now, it's more difficult to have topics to blog about. Of course I'm doing things, but not everything is related to skiing or my goals in such a way that I think it would make an interesting blog. However, I do try to take my inspiration from anything that is happening, so that my blogs stay up-to-date and relevant to what is happening. Thus I want to spend a little time writing about how important the people around the sport are in many aspects. Water-skiing is an individual sport, at the end of the day there's 1 person on the water setting a result and that's what counts. There are countless of people necessary in the process of setting that results, which I also explained last week, judges, drivers, sponsors, parents, etc. who cannot be taken for granted, but there are no teammates at the moment supreme. Still it can sometimes feel like I'm in, not 1, but multiple teams. There's everyone at 'my club' at home with whom I form a team, at national level competition, we feel like we're skiing for our club. This is very entertaining and even though since it such a small sport you support everyone, it's fun to feel like part of a club in particular. Then there's the national team, especially at Europeans, but also other competitions, it's great to be around them. It's motivating to be around a bigger group of passionate people all working for the same thing, not only on the water but also around it. We all want similar things and it's great to see everyone working for it in their own way, because if you focus on only yourself, your journey, your goals in an already individual sport, I believe you'll start working against yourself. Besides that I really genuinely love being around some of the people who understand and share what I'm trying to do, or those who understand and support it. It's the people around the sport that make it that much more enjoyable and I cannot wait to be skiing again, especially when we will be in Florida together again.
For now it's only 13 more days till I leave to Florida! Less than 2 weeks and I'm ever so excited. I'm super motivated to put an extra boost on my training to be 100% fit and ready when I get to Florida!

Celebrating our (inter)national champions!

Yesterday it was the NWWB live event, finally! I was looking forward to this event a lot. I had heard about gala's being held for members and champions way back when the sport was still much more alive in the Netherlands. It waas the plan to bring back a day where everyone could meet and be celebrated in a less formal setting than member meetings or a gala. I had no idea what to expect, but I was very excited to be seeing everyone, meeting new people and see what the federation made of it. It was held at a great location with room for many stands, including many boats outside and some gear stands. The first hours I spent catching up with the team, since we hadn't seen each other in quite a while already, after spending the summer seeing each other very often. After checking out all the gear and boats, everyone was called together to celebrate the champions in all disciplines that fall under the federation. First up the ski racers, cable and boat wakeboarders, barefoot skiers, cable skiers and finally, the boat skiers! It was fun to have all champions on national and international level called out one more time and receiving some flowers, a gift card and a certificate! I think this is also great to motivate other skiers and increase the level of competition for next year. This is in the first place why it is so great to have an event like this again. This is what we need to grow our sport, get more skiers and competition and most importantly support. Water-skiing is starting to grow again and this will help to expand further. On the other hand it is also good to see who wants to be involved in the sport, because we do need new judges, drivers, homologates, etc. without them there are no competitions and without competitions there is no way to grow further and get more attention for what we do.


After the celebrations, I switched to lobbying around with the companies that were there, since they are by default related to the sport in some way or another. I had my sponsor plan with me, which I finished last week. I found it very difficult to get started and basically present myself to these people. It was well out of my comfort zone, but at the end of the day, I don't have much choice if I want to reach my goals and get ahead in water-skiing, I need it to be financed. So I started approaching people and handing out my information. If anything, I got tips to help improve my sponsor plan, so that's already worth something. Whether or not it will pay off, I'm not sure, but I definitely hope it will be a beginning and afterwards I can expand that network. I have my sponsor plan available as an online version as well, so if you or anyone you know is interested in reading it, send me an e-mail at lieke.a.r@hotmail.com and we can see what we can arrange!
For now, the countdown to Florida has started! Only 21 more days!!

Ticket to Florida!

Today I'm extremely excited, because I finally have my plane tickets to go to Florida. I will be leaving on December 5th and will arrive at around 18.30 local time in Florida, even though this is still a month away, I'm overjoyed. Just like last year in the winter, I will going to Florida without my family and thus be spending some holidays and my 18th birthday without them. Luckily I will be adopted for a month by the wonderful Hof family! I will be spending the holidays with them and they are kind enough to let me live and ski in their paradise, I cannot wait. The day I will be arriving is a national holiday in the Netherlands. It's originally a party for younger kids, similar to Christmas, with presents and great seasonal food. We will be doing presents paired with a poem on that day. It's great to get straight into celebrating after a long day of travelling. It will also force me to stay awake and adapt to local time straight away. Where last year I was staying 2 weeks, since that's the length of our Christmas holiday, this year I will be going for 4 weeks and I'm super stoked. Little bonus is that I have a direct flight, so a lot less stress than last time, also adding that now, I've done it before. I will go back the 30th of December and arrive in the Netherlands on the 31st, so I can go straight into celebrating the end of the year, this time at home, since last year I spent new years in Florida too.

I also got some less exciting new this week when I went to the hospital for a check up on my ear. I had thought that there was a chance that the hole in my eardrum was closed and I could start skiing again. That would have been great news, even though it is literally freezing. However, not only was the hole not closed, it was also not a millimeter smaller than after the crash. It had shown no sign of healing, though it also wasn't infected, which is a silver lining. Our hope is that it was due to the fact that I had a cold in the time between my check ups and thus we'll give it another 3 weeks to start healing. If it is not closed or at least almost closed by then, we have to see what other measures we have to take. I worry that it won't be closed in the time left before I go to Florida. I would definitely still ski, but I would have to wear extra protection and I will run the risk of an infection due to the lake water. However, after Florida it will have a lot of time to heal, since I won't be able to ski a lot until the new season starts.

I'm very excited for next week when the NWWB is hosting its event, which I spoke about in the last blog. I will be finishing my sponsoring information before then and hopefully meet some interested parties there!

Apologies

Hey everyone, first of all, sorry to keep you waiting by posting a day late. Honestly there's not a good reason for it, other than I sort of forgot which day it was yesterday :D. The fact that I am a day late with posting sort of indicates how it is going with my goals haha. Last week I announced some of my goals and the fact that I want to use my gap year efficiently and reach those goals and approach them with a serious work ethic, like I did school work. One of the things that has changed since I stopped skiing is that I got a job as a cashier in the supermarket. This takes up quite some of my time and thus it is the main factor deciding my daily schedules. Having something to do about 5 hours in a day helps to get some rhythm into my days. The only thing is that there is not really a difference between week days and the weekend, so I always wake up at the same time and do similar things. (which results in forgetting what day it is).

Other than that I have made a list of things I want to achieve in my gap year and ranked them on

Great photo to sponsor ;)

priority and 'due date'. Right now the most important things are taking care of my health, which means sticking to a diet, which calls for me to cook twice a day, another time consuming thing that is part of each day and thus creates some rhythm for me. Also going to the gym 5 times a week, of which twice to a personal trainer. One of my sessions with my personal trainer is tomorrow morning at 9, and it is a 40 minute bike, so I have to wake up old school early... Another high priority item right now is creating a sponsor plan. I am already quite far, because I also started working on this during the season this summer. However for some reason I didn't go through far enough with this and thus I have to still finish it and make some adjustments to get it ready for the season of 2017. I also want to be able to take this plan to the NWWB day, which is the Dutch federation for water-skiing and wakeboarding. (If you live in the Netherlands I would recommend this event, on the 13th of Novermber, just 17.50 euros, which will include a t-shirt and BBQ! Tickets can be found on nwwb.nl) On this day many people will come together to check out some boats and other relevant materials and most importantly congratulate this years champions. I think it is the perfect moment to get my sponsor plan out to the right people, so it must be done in the coming weeks. Finally, a high priority item is getting set for the USA. I want to be able to follow my university studies there and join a water-skiing team. For this I have to improve in skiing, which is of course in itself gap year priority number 1. However it is also time to take care of the administrative side of things. This I want to finish this calendar year, and since I'm planning on taking a vacation in December, I will have to do this the coming month too.

Thus for now, I have plenty things to fill my days and hopefully they will result in a fit new season with some new materials I will be able to afford after working 2 jobs, and hopefully sponsors and, best case scenario, combining university studies and water-skiing. Since I am not skiing anymore, I have ran out of pictures to attach to my blog, so here are some 'throwback photos'.

Goals

In two months from now, I will be turning 18, officially entering adulthood. This made me realise that I have to organize many things by myself, handle more responsibilities and think about the future some more, and fast. This mainly started when I got a letter from the government telling me, well, almost exactly that. So I quickly applied for financial aid and other simple, online, grown-up things to make me feel like I've done something. However, in all seriousness, it is time to really think about what I have to get done in my gap year, aside from improving my skiing, and starting on achieving those things.

Of course as soon as I thought I would start doing all those things, I got ill. It's just the flu, but it doesn't help with my torn eardrum. I was specifically told not to blow the ear out of my ear, since that is essentially the same as picking a scab. I was doing pretty well on that, until I noticed that when I blow my nose, I also blow air out of my ear. I hope this does not slow down the healing process too much... At the moment, I am feeling a bit better and ready again to start sorting out my goals and how to achieve them. I also have my first appointment with a personal trainer tomorrow, which will help to be fitter next season, so that I can improve faster.

Ultimately my goal is to be able to go to the gym twice a day, 5 times in a week. This way I can go before lunch and before dinner for example, which will activate my body twice, rather than going for longer in one go. Of these 5 times, twice will be together with the personal trainer. In between and on the days where I don't go to the gym, I hope to work on some projects I have been meaning to start. Though what I've realised is that I might need to set myself  a deadline for each project, because otherwise I find it difficult to start, and especially finish all of them. As I also have to work from now on, all this together will get me into a 'normal' rhythm again, like when I went to school. This will help in having a productive gap year, and also in going back to school afterwards. Since I stopped skiing, I have very little rhythm or content to my day, aside from working and working out. I would like to change that, and hope that by having it black on white here, I will be extra motivated in doing that.

I feel like there's no going back now, and I will be committing to what I have said above. Since I was ill for most of the week, I didn't do much else. I did work on some core stability exercises from Breanne Dodd, which gave me a good muscle ache (a sign that I should practise those more often) so I would definitely recommend them, check it out here.