Fast Skiing is About Feelings

By Published On: February 6th, 2018Comments Off on Fast Skiing is About Feelings

One of the greatest strengths of the ski racers I work with, whether a U16, FIS, collegian, or World Cupper, is their intelligence. Their ability to explore, understand, analyze, critique, and find answers and solutions is an essential tool that helps them pursue their goals. At the same time, one of the greatest weaknesses that holds them back from achieving those goals is, well, their intelligence. Yes, smarts are a double-edged sword offering both benefits and costs.

Being a thinker, which pretty much always accompanies intelligence, helps ski racers in several ways. It enables them to understand, plan, organize, evaluate, adjust, and make a conscious commitment to their training program. On the hill, it helps racers to hear what their coaches are telling them, make sense of the feedback, and incorporate it into their free skiing and gate training efforts. So, thinking can be a good thing in training.

But, being a thinker (and, often, an overthinker), can be a liability on race day. Here are two simple realities. First, you can’t think your way down a course. At the speeds racers go, regardless of the event, there’s simply no way you can consciously guide yourself down a race course (though some conscious cues along the way can be useful). Your mind would fall behind quickly and never be able to catch up.

When you think too much, you fill your mind with clutter. For example, worry, doubt, too much focus on technique or tactics, or comparing yourself to others. It causes you to get distracted and lose focus on what will enable you to ski your fastest. Thinking too much also creates a disconnect between your mind and your body.

Second, skiing occurs in your unconscious mind, not the thinking part of your mind, and in your body. The more you get stuck in conscious thinking, the less you’re able to trust the part of your mind that includes everything you’ve ingrained technically, tactically, and mentally and that will come out automatically if you could just shut your conscious mind off.

And the more that you can turn off the clutter, the more you can connect with your body and allow it to do on race day what you’ve trained it to do from all those hours in the gym and on the hill.

It’s about Feeling, Not Thinking

Which brings me to the fundamental message of this article: You ski fast by feeling, not by thinking. When I talk about feeling, I’m referring to two types of feelings.

First, your physical feelings. To ski your fastest, you must feel physically ready. The foundation of that physical feeling is being fit and healthy (no illness or injuries). That comes from being committed to your conditioning program, eating healthily, and getting enough sleep.

On race day, that physical feeling involves being warmed up, having your muscles primed and firing, and being at your ideal intensity—whether relaxed, a bit fired up, or fires blazing—as you slide into the starting gate.

The second feeling I’m referring to are your emotions. I believe that emotions are the real fuel that propels you to fast skiing. It’s so important that you generate emotions that power you rather than hold you back. Emotions that can act as an anchor can include fear, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, sadness, and despair. All of these negative emotions hurt you mentally (e.g., causing doubt, worry, and distractions) and physically (e.g., muscle tension, racing heart, too much or not enough adrenaline, choppy breathing), and prevent you from skiing fast.

You want to identify the emotions that make you go fast. Most often, it’s positive emotions like happiness, contentment, joy, excitement, pride, and inspiration, that produce fast skiing. At the same time, some negative emotions can also be effective fuel for your engine. For example, I had one of the biggest wins of my career (I had very few, so I remember it well) while at Middlebury when I was consumed by anger at having my time changed after the previous day’s race causing me to be dropped from 4th to 7th and missing out on a new piece of hardware. So, you want to figure out what emotions make you ski fast and do everything you can to generate those emotions on race day.

Feeling Blockers

Redirecting your energy away from your thinking and onto your physical and emotional feelings is real challenge, to be sure. If you’re someone who gets stuck in your head often, you’ve gotten really good at thinking, especially when the pressure is on. Not only has thinking too much become a habit for you, but there are likely “feeling blockers” that keep you from disconnecting from your mind and connecting with your body and emotions. The most common ones I find include:

  • Perfectionism
  • Fear of failure
  • Need for control
  • Expectations/pressure
  • Doubt
  • Worry

If you’re experiencing any of these conditions, you probably use your thinking to protect you from the emotions that they generate, usually fear, frustration, sadness, and just plain hurt. To tap into your physical and emotional feelings, you need to find a way to let go of these “ailments,” so you can release yourself from the grip of thinking and open yourself up to the feelings that will enable you to ski your fastest. This is not an easy task, but it is possible. However, a deeper discussion of these feeling blockers is beyond the scope of this article.

How to Tap into Your Feelings

There are several things you can do to bring those feelings out of you on race day. First, build trust in your ability to ski your fastest. This confidence is grounded in a belief in your coaches and the program they have created for you, your equipment, your training, and your race day preparations. This trust is essential because it enables you to turn off your mind, generates positive emotions, and allows your body to do what you’ve trained it to do.

Second, always go to why you ski race, for the love, passion, and enjoyment you get from ripping down the hill. There is no better fuel for skiing fast than those powerful reasons you ski race.

Third, as part of your routine on race day, do things that create those physical feelings. Have a good early-morning physical warm-up to get your body going right away on race day. Have a good skiing warm-up. In the start area, have physical exercises that activate and prime your body for your upcoming race run. Breathing is also a great tool to help you get to that physical feeling that tells you that your body is ready to rock and roll.

Finally, also part of your race-day routine, do things that create the emotional feelings. Listen to music that inspires you, calms you, or fires you up. Do your skiing warm-up and inspection with your friends. Have fun in the start area by chatting it up with your teammates and fellow competitors. Do anything that produces the emotional feelings that bring out the fast skiing in you.

In sum, your goal is to create those physical and emotional feelings every run and use those feelings to express yourself on the course with fast skiing.

Want to make get your mind in the best shape of your ski racing life? Or are you struggling so far this season? Take a look at my online mental training courses for ski racers, coaches, and parents or contact me if I can help.

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About the Author: Jim Taylor

Jim Taylor, Ph.D., competed internationally while skiing for Burke Mountain Academy, Middlebury College, and the University of Colorado. Over the last 30 years, he has worked with the U.S. and Japanese Ski Teams, many World Cup and Olympic racers, and most of the leading junior race programs in the U.S. and Canada. He is the creator of the Prime Ski Racing series of online courses and the author of Train Your Mind for Athletic Success: Mental Preparation to Achieve Your Sports Goals. To learn more or to contact Jim, visit drjimtaylor.com