Archive for August, 2009
Stop whining! Why Scott Reardon will inspire you…
Surely you’ve caught yourself moaning about your age, a minor injury, rough ski conditions, Zero Off versus Perfect Pass, your ski breaking down, your boot coming apart, a bad day at work, etc. Well, I am no exception, I’m a bit of a whiner from time to time myself…that is until I had the great opportunity to spend a summer with Scott Reardon, one of Australia’s premiere athletes both on the water and off.
Scott is a three event waterskier, and an elite runner (competing for his home country of Australia in the 100 meter). He can run into 28 off in slalom, trick almost 2000 points including a flip, and jump around 75 feet. Sounds like a pretty solid 19 year old skier who many college ski teams would love to have. Well, the real catch here is that Scott does all of these things on one leg. Scott lost his leg when he was 12 years old in a farming accident and now pushes the limits despite this setback. HE has become quite an inspiration to all of us at H2Oz. I have never heard him bitch or complain a single time about having to ski on one leg or run with a prosthetic leg. Amazing huh?
Scott has trained with us all summer and just left on a flight headed to France for the Disabled World Championships where we hope he can sweep his events. After that, he will be back home in Australia training for the next Olympics to run the 100 and represent Australia against the world.
We wish Scott all the best and appreciate having had him around all season. We all feel like we have grown for experiencing his attitude, determination, and general upstandng character, in addition to gaining a new friend! We’ll be rooting for him August 31-September 6 as he competes in Vichy, France.
To follow Scott’s Results, checkout his blog at http://reardoski.blogspot.com/ or checkout the Diabled Worlds website at http://waterski.online.fr/competition.php?cc=D-09FRAD001.
“Dropping the hips” versus COM in desired direction of Travel…Dispelling the myths!
So it’s no surprise that at this point in the evolution of slalom skiing one of the biggest things I coach is for people to learn to move efficiently…with little to no waste or energy or direction. I speak a lot about moving in a positive direction versus a negative direction. This means you not only need to move across course, but with the boat as well. Without getting into the heavy details, the idea is that your center of mass should fall in the desired direction of travel rather than away from the boat or to the tail of the ski.
This is where I feel like I get misquoted as do many coaches and skiers…inevitably 9 out of 10 skiers say, “…yeah I understand about dropping the hips and everything…” or something to that effect. The funny thing is I purposely avoid the word “DROP” when referring to the hips at all costs.
Here are some different definitions for the word. The first four are exactly what you shouldn’t do and the fifth one is similar to what creates efficient positive movement, but again the definition suggests that the word would normally be followed by “down”. Nevertheless, I believe the word really tends to carry a connotation of a negative movement and should be avoided in describing our ideal movement through the turn and across the course.
drop [drop] noun, verb, dropped or dropt, drop⋅ping.
| 1. to fall vertically; have an abrupt descent. |
| 2. | to fall or move to a position that is lower, farther back, inferior, etc.: to drop back in line; to drop to the rear. |
| 3. | to squat or crouch, as a dog at the sight of game. |
| 4. | to cause or allow to sink to a lower position. |
| 5. | to move gently, as with the tide or a light wind (usually fol. by down). |
