late and fast into your on-side on your PB pass in tourney

[swbca]

Do you recall how you managed coming in late and too fast into an on-side turn in your Personal Best pass ? While skiing in a tournament.

When you see this happening in a tournament you probably use a technique that is different than your routine safe turn on the pass before your PB pass.

Whatever you do in this pressure situation, you probably figure its a risk but its a risk worth taking to complete the pass.  You relieved when your still standing and on your way to the wake after this high risk turn.

Some skis will support a hockey stop turn followed by a smooth exit when you are going way to fast by keeping your weight neutral or forward.  Others won't

Other skis will force you to transition back to finish this turn.

Does this bring back a memory that you can describe ?

[Horton]

reckless abandoned

[Horton]

to be more exact....

if you put in the work and invested in a lot of repetition, then when you get to your hardest pass, approaching the last ball you can possibly get around there's no way that you can do anything but just go pure lizard brain and hope that muscle memory gets you there.

nobody gets to they're absolute peak and then thinks, oh I got to do that thing...

[swbca]

23 hours ago, Horton said:

reckless abandoned.   To be more exact....if you put in the work and invested in a lot of repetition, then when you get to your hardest pass, approaching the last ball you can possibly get around there's no way that you can do anything but just go pure lizard brain and hope that muscle memory gets you there.

nobody gets to they're absolute peak and then thinks, oh I got to do that thing...

You make the case for amateurs to put in the hours on recovery skills.  I think that means don't give up on your practice passes when you get behind because its opportunity to build those skills.

From the Mid 80's until today there are some men age divisions where making 6@35off is the starting point for placing in a regionals or nationals.   

If you are a solid 35 off skier but haven't practiced to build your muscle memory for recovering from a mistake you are reducing your chances of doing as well as you hoped or expected.  

In that case if you blow the first ball at 35 off, you better have the skill to make it up on ball 2.  When the skier blows ball one he might be saying to himself . . "Sh**  I have do that thing" or its over, but he also knows how to do it.

This lesson means something to me because I usually avoid falling in practice because I don't want to waste the time to get back into the next pass.   I should change that.

[MDB1056]

20 hours ago, Horton said:

get around there's no way that you can do anything but just go pure lizard brain and hope that muscle memory gets you there.

@Horton disagree. Varies by age. Under 30 absolutely, 30-45 probably, 45-60 less likely, 60+ very unlikely. At 60+ we’re thinking if I got this far I should be able to figure out what I did wrong to miss the last  vs going “ pure lizard”. Don’t risk injury, ski another day. 

[BrennanKMN]

I believe it is a fine line in practice. You don't want to reenforce bad habits (or hurt yourself) by trying to constantly squeak out one more ball. 

Personally, I start my practice sets as if they were a tournament. Ski up the line to my limit. Generally I will 'go for it' for that one last pass. After that I calm back down and focus on consistency and repetition. If I skied all my hardest practice runs scrappy, I'd form scrappy habits. 

I'd rather miss passes and build up proper technique than try and make 'one more ball' and screw my long term development. In my anecdotal evidence, the more I drill in a pass, the more I am able to get away with when things go sideways. I don't think one can practice true recovery, I believe it is something that just happens. Furthermore, it is something that is more likely to happen successfully on a pass you're seeing frequently. 

[lpskier]

The way I see it, if you make a big mistake and try to make it all up at the next buoy, that’s probably your second big mistake. If I screw up, my job becomes to get to the next buoy. My next job is to get to the buoy after that, and so forth. Don’t try to make it all up at once, just try to keep making the next buoy. 
 

At Regionals a couple years ago I way overturned at one ball at -35. I crossed the wake going to 2 with my butt practically bouncing on the water behind me. As soon as I came off the second wake, I knew I needed to stand up, regain my position, and just keep skiing. I ended up with 6 no continuation and won by four buoys. If I’d tried to fix it all at 2, I probably would have been swimming with a score of 1.5. 
 

As Kipling said: “If you can keep your head when those about you are losing theirs…”

[swbca]

@lpskier I'll buy your point on making it up ball by ball.  When I had a terrible 1 at 35' off at a nationals, I managed a balls-out turn at 2 that kept me going for the entire pass.  Got into 38off with a 4th place.  It would have safer if my #2 recovery was more certain, but instead I was forced to do something that I rarely practice . . . just lucky that day.

@BrennanKMN  I agree its not worth fighting it out on a pass you can't do.  I want to improve my  recovery from a mistake in a pass where I am already consistent. 

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by swbca

[Horton]

pretty much every comment in this thread

[swbca]

-

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by swbca

[ral]

I am sad I did not post before, lost a good triple panda opportunity…

I believe, though, that @lpskier has a point. 

I do not believe in recovering from a mistake by throwing a hail mary that works 1 out of 10 times, craps your body 1 out of 10 and gets you into the drink 8 out of 10. Many of my fellow skiers do believe on that, though…
 

You should try to recover position and get to the next buoy, without doing crazy s@#t. If you get there, you will be fast and narrow => late.  And skiing late, buoy to buoy, not getting crazy, is something that can be practiced. 
 

This might be different for world-class skiers, but I believe it yield more buoys and less injuries to normal skiers.

[Horton]

Seriously - Most practice ski rides are an attempt to ski up the line to a high score and work on your hardest pass or back-to-back passes working on specific skills. Skiers may have a slightly different mix but those are generally the choices. 

The point is most skiers who ski tournaments regularly ski up to their hardest pass on a regular basis. The last ball run is generally when we run out of skill. If there was something they could do to get more balls they would be doing it. 

[Horton]

@ral

If your work on your hardest pass in practice then you have spent time managing after an error. I have run 38 hundreds of times and all but a few of them were messy, That is what skiing at your limit is. 

The reason for the pandas is the idea that you would do anything but ski as technical as possible when the difficulty is at 10 our of 10.  

[MDB1056]

That’s when I want to ski as technical as possible - to have the best chance possible . Or at least try…..When I go full lizard….. I fail 

Edited May 1, 2023 by MDB1056

[swbca]

@Horton None of your comments related to my initial post or any other comments I made.  I said nothing in this thread about skiing up to may last possible ball.  I was only talking about a pass that I consistently make in good form.  But if I make a mistake and am very late and very fast because of an error I should learn how to deal with it consistently when it happens.   

It OK though.  Your irrelevant feedback was free

[lpskier]

I betcha Andy practiced screwing up and recovering. He practiced everything. 

[Horton]

@lpskier Yes he did but after an error, he would simply go back to the same keys as any other pass. My objection to this thread is that there is not some key that should be applied after a mistake except maybe " be calm and go back to your fundamentals"

[Horton]

@swbca if you are late and narrow at on side at your hardest pass then you need to rewind and work in your exit of off side. 

[MDB1056]

3 hours ago, Horton said:

. I have run 38 hundreds of times and all but a few of them were messy,

Those that were not messy were likely more technically correct 

[lpskier]

@Horton That was exactly my point. Just make the next buoy. Don’t try to cream it and fix everything all at once. 

[swbca]

On 4/30/2023 at 10:00 PM, Horton said:

Yes he did but after an error, he would simply go back to the same keys as any other pass. My objection to this thread is that there is not some key that should be applied after a mistake except maybe " be calm and go back to your  fundamentals"

Many pros are doing tail-stands on some (Nate) or all (Whitney) of their turns when they are on their last pass.  Doing tail-stands is not part of my fundamentals because I'm not at 41off.  So the only way I can save that pass is to do something that I have no occasion to practice on a regular basis.  My fundamentals for a solid 35 off are not going save the day.  I need to practice going beyond my fundamentals by not throwing the rope in practice after I make a mistake.  Being calm in that situation in a tournament would be forfeiting the event.

[Horton]

no. fundamentals are fundamentals. as the rope gets shorter the difficulty increases and nobody skis as pretty. obviously if you don't practice at your shortest pass you won't be prepared in a tournament. again, the fundamentals never change. whenever you burn up the rope is practice for your tournaments. 

I still don't know what this conversation is about. is there some assumption that everybody throws the handle when things get hard in practice? more often than not you should go all the way to failure and never throw the rope unless you really think you're going to get hurt