For me water skiing started as a social sport, but I kept challenging myself and constantly improving, pushing harder and moving up into competitions, until one day I set myself a goal, a big goal….i had been working towards it for over a year. Make the victorian team ! I made a pact with my coach I would work hard, restrict my social life, ski during the cold weather and put in the effort required if he would help me. We could do it together was my pitch and he agreed to help me get there.
All had been going well with a lot of new tricks in my arsenal and some encouraging competition results. But coming up was a comp at Columbo creek near urana NSW.. possibly one of the best water ski sites anywhere in Australia and maybe beyond. Conditions would be favourable so here was the opportunity to register a good score and take a huge step forward in making that Victorian team. Problem was we were a week out and my backwards wake slalom wasn’t going well, my form was ordinary and with restricted training during the week this was my last opportunity to practice.
We had a private back water where we skied just off the Murray river in a big horse shoe lagoon, it took a while to access so once in there we had to make it worthwhile. We started in the middle headed in one direction, I got up on the ski and flipped it around so I was skiing backwards then the boat accelerated to over 60k per hour and I stepped off backwards onto the water. To slalom we would cut hard across the boat wash and lift one foot in the air so crossing the wash on one foot, then change feet and cross back on the opposite foot. Do this as many times as possible in 15 seconds. A balance between aggressive sking and being smooth in execution. There wasn’t many people on the river who could do this back in the mid 80s, it was difficult to achieve and took a lot of time and practice. More modern teaching methods have made it somewhat easier today.
Once I had made a 30 second pass I would drop off and the boat would turn around and pick me up then return to the ski and do it all over again. I had set myself a task that this session needed to last an hour .. no short cuts, it was going to take time and I needed to stick to the plan. This was my secret I didn’t tell kelvin my coach or Linda my wife who were both in the boat … it was my plan and all was going fine until about ten minutes in. I caught my foot on the edge of the wake and took a huge fall flipping backwards head first into the water. Definitely one of the biggest falls I had ever taken. Such was the impact my knee came up and plunged hard into my eye socket. It really knocked me and a few hours later developed into a nice black eye. Ouch ! it hurt and as the boat drove back I had thoughts of stopping. Negative thoughts … I can stop now that was a big fall … nobody else knows I wanted to ski for an hour I can opt out easy… ive still got a week till the comp ill be ok. Fortunately I made a decision … no im not quitting ! I will regret it, I said an hour and an hour it will be ..i need to do this ..and whats more im going to work hard.. its a progression towards that goal. It wasn’t easy the first few passes I was a little unsteady and down on confidence, but I worked my way through the session and at the end I felt ready. Ready to take on the columbo creek comp next week.
Not being able to train during the week made it a mental game in the lead up, but my confidence was high after a good session on the water and of course it followed through with a great result at Columbo. Had I left that session partly finished with questionable form the head space may well have been very different.
There was still many hurdles to overcome as I worked towards Victorian selection, and eventually achieved, but that Columbo creek comp and the training session the week before were both important steps.
Average Jim 