How To Get Better

I’ve been thinking a lot about identity.  This happens to me every time I work on technique, which is really every workout.  Supposedly, there was an article published on Fasterskier that argued that reduction of range time was useless.  In all honesty, I didn’t read it, I just heard the summary of it from some people who didn’t agree (I’m sure it was totally unbiased).  Well, seems to me if range time is useless, then so is technique, because they’re both effortless ways of shaving time off of your race time.  And in the words of Susan Dunklee “why wouldn’t you save every second you could in every single way you can?” Thus, technique.  

But technique brings my identity into question.  To have better technique, I was once told to find someone with my similar body type who has the desired style (say a great V2) at the most elite level, and then watch them.  And the words of the excellent aforementioned Susan during a training camp, “I want to ski like Fourcade ALL the time.” I salute her for this, because no matter how hard I try, I’m pretty sure I’ll never be a six foot tall Frenchman, but when Susan puts her mind to something, she generally achieves it- so if you see a duplicate of his perfect technique skiing around in an American suit- she probably did it.  

Technique is often very fluid for me, I think about my different teammates and I slip into how I perceive their technique to be, and I then get lost because I don’t know which one is right and which one is wrong.  Who has the better arm position- Tim or Sean? But to take only their arms is impossible, you need to adopt the entire structure of the skiing style- from head to toe. Then I start to think about how easy it is to slide into these different ski styles- a different ski persona.  I feel this way about my own personality sometimes.  Which parts of my personality should I nurture and grow, and which parts am I supposed to train back out of me?  

They say your 20’s are one of the times of major personal growth.  That you more clearly define who you are and gain a deeper understanding of yourself.  Fluid personalities seem to be frowned upon in this society- we should know who we are, always, and where we’re going.  We should stand for what we believe in, and that should never change.  I wonder, then, how we shift to see other people’s perspectives if we are supposed to always stand firm inside our own.  I can’t figure out the pieces of Lowell’s technique just by watching him do it and never trying.  

It turns out the most “interesting” part of my athlete personality (according to people with no authority whatsoever) is my goalessness.  It’s like lawlessness, only apparently vastly more shocking.  I see goalessness as part of the fluidity of life that I embrace.  I don’t always know where I’m going, I’ve actually started workouts where I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet, and over half the time I get in the car and start driving without making up my mind where I’m going.  

I admire targeted, direct people.  But I do not aspire to be one of them.  My path will not flow seamlessly from point A to point B, hitting the correct steps in-between.  There will be no regression analysis, especially not a linear one, that will be able to figure out where I’m going, or even how the hell I got here.  I will never wake up in the morning and leap gracefully to my feet, my eyes bright and full of the goals that are driving me forward.  In fact, I don’t see why I should have to be this way at all- who made the required list of traits that an athlete has to be-that a successful person has to be- because I have a bone to pick with them.  I have choice (D) None of The Above. I will not fit into your mold, and I will not apologize for not being so.  My fluidity will teach me better technique, and it has lead me here, and wherever it is I’m going.

So here’s where I am.  A silence that has echoed across the sweeping expanse of the ten people that read these words.  I’m in Canmore, Alberta for the national team training camp.  The silence has continued, I believe, since the World Cup in Antholz where I botched the relay singlehandedly, but in the silence there was a story.  Even in the botching itself, this story rests.

I will tell you this story, the saga of “the mountain that landed on my chest,” but not now, since it stretches across years and culminated in a health issue with a recovery that almost knocked me entirely out of trials…. both times.  That story isn’t quite finished, or ready to be told.  

Instead, I will tell you the words that a 25 year old is certainly too young to be lecturing to the world, and has little to nothing to do with the blog of an athlete in an obscure (in America) sport.  Life is the messy bits, it’s letting your personality grow and change until it finally fits you, and then accepting there is still growing and changing to do.  It’s the mistakes you make and the obstacles you overcome.  My mother once told me never to whine in a post-race interview.  Never make excuses, never complain.  If you don’t like your result, you walk away and better yourself until you create a result you’re proud of.  Whether or not your skis and poles broke into pieces because someone stepped onto the course with a baseball bat and smashed them, you do not whine.  You pick up the pieces and you make yourself stronger.  

And how? By finding the parts of you that can be made better- and that comes from perspective, by seeing what it’s like to be different, and then deciding whether or not to keep it.  And that’s exactly how you learn technique.  

And in case you think I'm not good at breaking things down, here's a small sample (less than 30%) of the iPhones I've broken.