January 22 Training Log

January 21, 2005

Today was the finals for the Junior Olympic Festival
for Australia Slalom racing at the Whitewater park. The race went on all
morning and it was cool to see. Jay, Emily, Lawrence Simpson and I all
got to the course during the race and were warmed up and ready for the
race to be over. The moment they opened the course, at exactly 10:15am,
every gate on the course got pulled in at the same time, it was cool to
see. At that exact time I was racing to the hole with 10 people in my
wake. Given the quantity of people here wanting to train during open rafting
and kayaking, getting there first means you get two rides before a line
forms, cool.

Goal: Hone the transitions between moves, make final
decisions on the exact routine I will use for prelims, and make sure I
can sell every move I have planned.

Results:
• My entry move is 95% solid and I almost always can do it with
my head 2 feet out of the water, looking at the judges, so I don’t
have an issue selling it.
• My first air loop is killing it, so far I am looping way higher
and sticking them way more than anybody here. This is huge since a loop
carries 12 technical points as well as a full variety point.
• My splits struggled today, flushing more than once on them. It
was almost like the hole was waving out more than normal, but I got it
down after my third try.
• My blunts were really good today, getting air on a clean blunt
at least once and getting all four blunts each time I tried, even though
I did the left blunt three times.
• My space Godzilla went two out of three times, going low on the
first one, getting a great righty one for the first time since I got here,
and one great lefty one landing way in front of the pile and in a blast.
Righty Space Godzilla? I have a new move to try tomorrow! I would gladly
eliminate two regular blunts and exchange an aerial move for them.
• I did my biggest backloop since I got here today. It felt very
weird on initiation and I found myself really high in the air and landing
with zero resistance from the foam pile since I completed it in the air.
• I also nailed the only Lunar Orbit I got to nearly completing
my ideal ride for the event.

Things to work on: I am so used to flushing before
getting my 45 second ride in and all of my moves that I still don’t
have a good feeling for what move comes next.

I need to make a decision on the move order and memorize
it like the names of my children and then train with no question marks.
Right now the hesitation that comes in the form of a split second decision
on what to do next, is just enough to prevent me from having that split
second to set up the next move to be huge, or perfect, but instead it
is compromised in quality, or worse screwed up and flushes, because of
the lack of confidence that comes from being ahead of the game. This is
why I do best looking at the judges and showing off, knowing already what
to show them next, because I am going for doing a quality move and nail
it, while when focused internally it is apparent that there is time to
make a decision and that blurs my vision and slurs my moves.

So Starting on Monday I am going to have the
routine and the transitions so memorized that I can do the whole routine
like reciting the alphabet.

🙂 EJ

EJ doing entry move

EJ during USA Training