Help with tourney nerves?

[Ilivetoski]

Ok, so I need help calming down during tournaments. I get so nervous out there and the few times that I have been able to control them I have done great but when I cant I mess it up sooo bad. Anyone have any tips?

[hacker]

I must admit up front, I am no good at this.... Focus on the task at hand. Try to forget you are at a tournament. You are there to ski as many buoys as possible. One buoy at a time.

[thager]

Ski as many tournaments as you can. Eventually it just becomes practice and whatever happens happens. The nerves go away. PMA.

[MattP]

The more rounds you ski the better. Take it 1 pass at a time, dont get a head of yourself. Trust your training.

[alex38]

Those are all good tips, I heard a pro skier say she won by thinking 1 buoy at a time-that worked for me alot. I never know whats gonna happen out there so for awhile I would focus only on a proper pullout and gate-this also worked. Sometimes I think I have so much fun skiing I forget I'm an athlete, so I will occasionally try to act like one.

[Skoot1123]

@ob - that article has seriously helped me too in training. Thanks for sharing it again!!

[webbdawg99]

The article OB posted is great. I also recommend a book called 10 minute toughness. But that article is much more to the point.

 

For me, the more I skied tournaments, the more I realized that no one else really cared how I skiied. Everyone there was only concerned about their own scores! That alone takes away a lot of pressure.

 

The only people that have a vested interest are your ski partners....and you ski with them every day in practice!

[Texas6]

I really like that article @OB. Here's another one that I enjoyed about how to take stress or in this case nerve and use it in your favor:

 

[liquid d]

Next tourney round: Keep working on whatever you're working on in practice.....if it's making sure your handle doesn't leave your hip on your offside, concentrate on that one thing. IF you're working on the glide of your gate and staying wide to start early, concentrate on that...

One other tip is to have someone watch for that one thing you're working on during you're set. Don't try to have 10 things you're working on---just one.

[Razorskier1]

I just think about it as another practice set. When I get on the dock I'm thinking about how great it is that I get a turn behind a new boat with a great driver on a nice site. It also helps to run some 3 round tournaments just because then you don't feel like you have one shot to ski well.

[JohnN]

a great resource for sports psychology is Dr. Jim Taylor - http://drjimtaylor.com/2.0/blog-2/ - plenty of information and thoughts on preparation and competition. For me, when I was missing openers consistently, it helped to focus on just a single thing ie. knee bend through the gate, or level shoulders at the 1 ball. If I did that, the pass was a success regardless of buoy count. And it led to much fewer missed openers.

[AKShortline]

There is a book called Bounce, by Matthew Syed. It has a great section on "choking" toward the end. Worth a read for any tournament skier.