Missing in Action

Yesterday I spent a lot of time that should have been dedicated to writing an essay for one of my classes to talking to an old friend from skating. It sounds really weird saying 'old' friend when I'm only 18. This former skater, was a great one. One that I personally loved lining up next to because I knew that we were going to bring the best out of each other. I have many fond memories racing this person and it coming down to a hawk at the line. Most of my memories from ODN involve him for the better and the worse.

During our conversational I realized a lot of things. One, our sport is growing a little boring in the sense that where are all the new talent? Obviously we are a declining sport but even so you expect some up and coming skater right? Or am I and my generation that up and coming skater(s) so it only feels that way to me? I don't know but it seems like we have the same personalities and nothing is changing. We need excitement or something. In my generation a lot of the people that were suppose to bring the excitement vanished from the skating scene and its sad. Now you are left with a few of us diehards who are great skaters but don't have that outgoing expressive personality. I want it back.

Next we were talking about the work ethic and talent pool in the US and how both are dwindling. We talked about how the rest of the world and the US are growing apart rather quickly in terms of talent. Yes we have Joey, but without him the rest of the world wouldn't know who the United States was and that's the bitter truth. Most of all we talked about work ethic. We shared some time on a world team and it was a terrific team in terms of work ethic. It got me thinking what happened? Where did the want for training and to be the best and to just flat out work hard go? And then I realized it didn't leave everyone. What I realized was old faces leaving. So many people that were common faces on the world team moved on and left us in a bit of array. I'm talking about Sebastian, Jonathon, Josh the three of them had a run of world teams that made everything flow. And I'm being serious. In 2007 when I made the world team everyone worked hard and I mean literally everyone. I don't remember anyone taking extended time off or complaining about every single drill like we have now. I realized it was the continuity. It became habit to them, they came to residency worked their tail off and went to worlds. Josh especially, he was so outspoken when it came to calling out a group of skaters or the entire team on giving 100% and that's what is missing. He was so common on the world team year after year that everyone respected him and if you didn't you kept it to yourself and listened to what he had to say.

In 2007 we had a group of skaters that competed against each other at residency for the better of themselves. If we did a distance drill there was 12 guys out there finishing the drill and competing with one another whether that skater was junior or senior was irrelevant they were racing as one group of guys. The seniors all got a long for the most part and the juniors all skated like they had to prove they belonged with the older guys. The egos got checked at the door and I honestly believe that.

That's what we need, is the ego's to be dropped when the plane lands in Colorado Springs. That's the only way. Instead a lot of skaters have a particular training method and feel that deviating from said method is always going to be for the worse and that causes a lot of problems. For me it was always 'tell me what to do and I'm going to do it.' But the only way that works is if you trust who is talking to you. I don't always like who is telling me something but I trust what they can bring to the table.

I don't know what happened to the work ethic but I can only hope that I will be on another world team that gave as much effort as the one is 2007 did. It is extremely difficult for me to think of a single person that showed up out of shape to residency.

Now that we don't do racing for races at residency like we once did I think it still has a negative impact. Everyone is racing in drills now trying to figure out if they do better in this drill or that drill if it will earn them a race. The idea of a race at worlds occupies the mind throughout residency rather then the prospect of training our ass' off. That's another thing, when Sebastian, Jonathon, and Josh came to residency they thought about training not about winning races and that's what made them successful.

Another thing was in 2007 when it was my first year on team I never spoke up about anything because I didn't feel like I had earned the right to speak. I was one of maybe 3 first time world team members and we kept our mouths shut and listened to the veterans.

Attitude Adjustment

Lately I have been focusing on a completely different aspect of well, everything that I do. That would be my attitude towards certain things. For instance: if you hate broccoli, every time someone says you are having broccoli for lunch then you might go ugghhh broccoli is gross. What I am trying to do is instead giving broccoli a fair chance every time I have it. I understand broccoli is a completely extreme example but you get the gist.

Most people who talk to me about indoor and outdoor skating know or find out that I prefer outdoor skating 10x over indoor. Every time I go skate indoor I try to give it a fair chance of being great it is difficult at times but it makes it a lot easier to try and make it a better situation. Falling instantly makes it hard to like indoor. Falling at practice indoor is like sleeping on rocks, who does that? I hate falling at practice especially when it's purposeless. Like not when I through a late pass and go down. When I'm skating by myself and just fall down at practice. It makes it frustrating. I've been trying attack indoors differently to makes it more enjoyable but it is difficult. Especially this winter when I was confined to skating indoor because of the ridiculous 60-70 inches of snow accumulation we got this winter. That made it almost impossible for me for a while but it's getting better.

Another problem I had was I found that I was always rushing in the morning and it is a bad start to a day to always be rushing. Then it just hit me and I started waking up a little earlier so I'm not rushing and it has done wonders for me thus far.

A Different Approach

The snow is ALMOST all melted. At least at my house. Which is thankful and it is starting to warm up which means outdoor skating has begun not just for myself but even for the people that never do it in the winter. This winter I got a lot less outdoor skating in then I normally do but it doesn't bother me that much because outdoor nationals is so late.

Normally I am gearing up to go skate down south at either Georgia or Tampa. I wish I could attend both of these meets every year but it's just not possible at this point for me and this year I'm actually passing on both which I haven't done in a long time. I was going to go down to Tampa just for the outdoor portion but I think I'm passing on it too. I can already tell you how I would have done, great in the 500, good in the 1500, and pretty bad in the 20k. With that being said I am fully aware that I am not in the type of outdoor shape I wish I was in. So instead of going and racing I decided to stay home. If I don't race then I can believe I am in awful shape, and if I train as if I am in awful shape well then eventually I will be in good shape.

Sometimes I think people race too much and if they race good they lax a little in their training whether is conscious or not. If you don't race as much and you believe you have a lot of work to do then you are in an ideal situation. The best improvement I've had in a year is 2006 and I trained like I sucked. Partially because I couldn't stay on my feet long enough to find out if I was fast or not. But that's what my outdoor season is going to be like. I am not racing a single outdoor race as of right now (except my beloved eastern seaboard series races at trexlertown that I would recommend for everyone). Without racing I have no choice but to assume everyone is faster than I am right now.

Right now I am in poor shape but as my shape gets better I will not notice it as much as someone else because it will happen gradually as I keep skating. But if I continue to think I am in poor shape then I will train harder to get back into shape. And when I am in good shape if I still think I am in poor shape I will train harder further improving myself. This might get confusing but that is what it is all about. You have force yourself to believe that you have so much work to do. And when you go to races sometimes you realize that you might not have as much work so you get lax. But if you don't race then you are forced to train at the same intensity.

NSC Tribulation 2

Wow is about as much as I can say. If you didn't see it then you missed out, but fortunately, they should have the racing file online soon for like 4 dollars or something and trust me, it's worth it. I'll probably get it myself even though I saw it live. I don't think I have ever seen racing like that in my life, it was incredible and awesome. Sure there may have been one race like that before at a meet but in 3 hours we had 5 incredible races.

The floor was really fast like it should be, I mean it is 90ft wide and in great condition. But there was lots of passing and plenty of falls which made it more exciting. It was the most incredible display of racing I have ever seen it was awesome. Thinking about it I still wonder how exactly each race ended up as good as it did.

On a personal note I finally skated pretty decent at NSC.. My results look better then I actually skated but I still skated a lot better then I had in any of the previous events. I still have a lot of work to do and a lot to improve on which is going to be awesome if I can get it all put together. One thing that is kind of bothering me a little is my start because well, it sucked and it never sucks but I will get it fixed shortly, I'm just trying to work on one thing at a time and because it's not awful it gets put on the back burner while I work on some aspects that I am well.. awful at.

Other then NSC, the Battle in Seattle was cool, the people out there are welcoming and kind which always makes a trip much better. Hyper and Atom both had new wheels to show. Hyper's while they will still probably make some adjustments have seemed to come a long way and their wheel skated great on the big floor. Atom's new wheels were a first prototype therefore they were limited to just a few people but they seem good in theory, just need a few tweaks as well. Look for both companies to make adjustments and have wheels for Georgia and Tampa that will be fast.