Ski Racing - January 30, 2012

This season, freestyle skiing is experimenting with a new format, which drops
scores from former rounds and starts with a clean slate for each successive
round. Today the cut would be made at 12th and fourth place. I knew that get-
ting another jump meant that I also got a new start to the day. I counted my
blessings, and began to think about what I needed for success in the next
round. By the time I got to my coach, Todd, he had finished watching video
and looked very excited. “Don’t worry!” he said with a huge smile. “I have it
figured out.” He sent me back to my room to ice my sore knee, to visualize
the correction that would get me back on my game, and to warm up for that
afternoon’s final.
A few hours later, I returned to the hill, and in my mind to a new day. Train-
ing was a mix of crashes, working on technical changes, and getting up to a
competitive degree of difficulty. For each of my five training jumps, I had the
challenge of consciously remembering to focus only on the moment at hand
— forgetting earlier falls, a sore body, mistakes and moving forward in my
progression. Each jump improved, and when I was once again standing in
the gate for the round of 12, I generated a feeling of calm and confidence. My
second competition jump of the day landed me in third for what is now called
the “super-final,” or the round of four.
There is no training before the final round, so the only full double full (a triple-
twisting double flip) I had done this season — earlier in the day — would have
to suffice. Each time my mind wandered to anything other than the next jump,
I brought it back to the present moment. I listened to music, visualized the
perfect full double full, smiled and took deep breaths while awaiting my turn,
knowing that nothing I had done earlier in the day could affect how I felt going
into my last jump of the day.
The full double full I completed was certainly not my best, but it was good
enough to land me in second place in this first World Cup of the season. I was
ecstatic and stood on the podium proudly, knowing I had not let the distrac-
tions of the day carry into competition and also knowing there is much more in
the arsenal for the next competition.