Mid - Season Reflection

The hardest part about the snowboard season is the middle. After two months of go, go, go, you just want to stop. Athletes get beat up, worn out, and over it. When this happens it is more important than ever to believe in yourself and look at the bigger picture. It is really hard to keep the constant beat down of competition scores out of your head. When there is no external gratification, you have to search inside of yourself. We need to understand what being the "best" means, and how we can balance that with our fast-paced, ever-exhausting lives. It takes on a different meaning for everybody, and the key to endurance is finding out how being the best plays in your life. 

We spend our lives living in relativity, who is “better,” “more suited,” “stronger,” “fitter,” etc. Better is a term we use to compare ourselves to a societal optimum. And therefore we like to translate the societal optimum as being the “best.” But is best really a relative term? I don’t think so. I think best is something that comes from inside. It is a term that honors the value of the individual. When you are the best, you are not the best because of quantitative factors. It’s not because you are necessarily stronger or more suited than the people around you. It is because you have found a way to take who you are and what you have to offer and utilize each of these qualities to the maximum effort. We can best use terms like “better” to set goal marks, because we have no other way to measure our progress. But it’s not about how we are in comparison. When you get caught up in the idea of better and worse, you begin to bog yourself down in defeat. Being the best is an individual effort that comes independent of everybody else. You take in what you see and you take your personality, and the opportunities offered to you and you make it your own. No one will ever reach the point of being “the best.” Realistically, there is no right way to get there. We live in a world of billions of people where everybody is living their own individual life and has their own ways of looking at the world.

             Consistency, looking for quality, and positive mental attitude. It doesn’t require any special talent, or special genes… It requires you to believe in yourself and to know yourself better than you know anyone else. There is no endpoint because no matter where you are in life, you will not be perfect and you will still be looking for quality. The “best” take these three things, and apply it to everyday life. Notice, each of these three things has NOTHING to do with anyone else. Then we reach the problem, what about ourselves? Aren’t we our own worst enemy anyways? But like I said, the term “better” is not something to use to quantitatively measure things. Every day we are at a different point in our lives. It is important to understand, know, and accept the past so we can progress, but we can’t lose ourselves in it. We see the progression, we understand where we’ve been, but we deal with life in the present. Sometimes life will throw us a curve ball, and we “fall backwards” in what presume to be our progression. But we adjust, it’s a blank slate and we move forwards. Perhaps the level at where we were changes, but consistency, quality, and positive mental attitude don’t. It is when we understand this adaptability, the variables rather than the sum, that we can continue to strive to become the best. We probably will never be able to quantify what our best is. But quantity does not even hold a candle to quality, and we will never stop looking for quality.


Once we are able to inspire ourselves, we can inspire others to no end. 

Tahoe (February 10-12): Going with the FLOW

Sometimes when life is taking you for a ride you just have to hold on.  It's like riding a bull: you need to learn exactly which way to lean when the bull is bucking, and if you lean wrong you will be thrown. You just can't fight it.  Even when you learn which way to lean, you are going to get bucked eventually - all the good bull riders do. But what separates the champions from the hombres is getting back on the bull and trying to learn more so you can stay on for that one second longer.

The last couple of weeks following the Jackson trip have been crazy - filled with adventure, excitement, happiness, and frustration. It has been a struggle to find a solid rock in a fast moving stream. After Jackson I decided to stay in Utah and enjoy the company of friends. It was a adventure-packed week filled with surprises and new experiences. It ended up being too cold to snowboard for a few days, but life definitely did not lack excitement. I had a good few days to myself, learned some new tricks, broke a board, and just lived and love, and at the end of the week felt ready to dive back in.

The following weekend was the Brighton Gatorade Free Flow Tour. We woke up early and drove to Brighton, signed up, and began practicing. Unfortunately during practice it started dumping snow and the jumps were literally not hittable. To clear the first small side you needed to straight line past all the rail features, and even after making that jump, you could barely get up the lip of the second jump. So at the end of practice the competition was cancelled. While this was a relief for the day, it made things a little complicated for the following weekend...

This weekend was probably the most stacked competition weekend of the entire year, they (whoever organizes competition schedules) scheduled the dew tour, aspen open, revolution tour, and gatorade free flow finals right on top of one another. Because I did not get to compete in Brighton meant that I did not have a guaranteed spot at the Gatorade Free Flow Finals, but since I had placed 2nd in Jackson Hole I had a good chance of being given a wild card, because they had invited all the second place winners last year, but it was not for sure. This made decisions difficult because if I went to Tahoe for Revolution Tour, then I would be driving back the night before finals which would not be ideal. After days of back and forth of going and not going between the entire team, I decided that going to Tahoe would be the best decision because I was not guaranteed a spot in Finals, I have a boreal pass, was already signed up for Rev tour, and had figured out lodging. After a lot of indecisiveness, Scott, Mitch and I finally packed the car on Wednesday to head to Tahoe. As we were getting in the car we found out that Gatorade Free Flow was not giving out wild cards to finals. While this was a bummer, it put a lot less stress on our trip.

We trekked the 8 hours on I-80 through the beautiful Nevada desert (mmm, my favorite drive) and arrived late Wednesday night at the Stanford Ski Team cabin. Although it was a new cabin, the familiar drive up northwoods felt like going home. It was the same drive I had made hundreds of times before, and I couldn't help but smile. The next day I rode Boreal for the first time all season, and it felt like nothing had changed. The course was probably the best rev tour course all year: 50 ft jump to battleship box or gap to down rail, to flat down box or gap to flat down rail, to launch box/drop down feature to a 45 ft jump. It was a long course and flowed really well. After getting comfortable with the course I was determined to land my front 3 off the first jump. I had told Scott my goal for the trip was to finally stomp my front 3 in a competition which I had not done yet. I must've fallen at least 10 times trying it on Thursday. The jumps got really icy in the afternoon so I called it a day without landing a front 3 and headed over to pipe to watch Mitch compete. After Scott and I worked hard on my approach into the jumps so I would stop washing out on my landings. The next day was warm and sunny again and the girls were competing in the morning and things were good. I set out to do my safety run, got the first part of the course but then corked out a back 3 and landed on my thumb on the last jump. Second run I was ready to lay down my front 3 on that first jump. I came in just like we had practiced and stomped my front 3. I was so excited that after the down rail I fell on every other feature, didn't have enough speed for the last jump, and then fell getting on the lift. Talk about sloppy nuggets! So all in all, I completely blew the competition, but accomplished the goal I had set out to do. As soon as the adrenaline stopped rushing through my body, I realized I had actually beat myself up pretty hard that morning and was pretty much done for the rest of the day. After riding we hopped in the car and headed back to Utah. It ended up being a very quick and easy trip and relatively very successful. Sometimes success doesn't come in contest wins. `

Now I am back in Utah, enjoying two weeks without competitions. It is time for a much needed break. Sometimes you need a few days to remind you why you do what you do. Everyday I am overcoming new obstacles, and I absolutely love it. It's not always easy, but it's a journey and I feel very positive about where this journey is going.

As for today, it's Valentine's day, and all about loving. So live and love it up.