Great Video on Positive Self-talk and Imagery for Ski Racers
Here's a link to a great video in which three of Canada's top female ski racers demonstrate and discuss how they use positive self-talk and mental imagery to prepare them for success.
20
01, 2014
15
01, 2014
New York Times Profile of Mikaela Shiffrin
The New York Times published a lengthy and in-depth profile of Mikaela Shiffrin recently. The article provides a great exploration of how Mikaela has risen so far so quickly as an alpine ski racer while also developing into a mature, happy, and just plain nice young woman. I had several take-aways from the article that [...]
6
01, 2014
Mikaela Says it Best: In Ski Racing, “Embrace” Adversity
As I noted in an article I wrote last winter, Ski Racing is One Brutal Sport. The fact is that our sport throws so much at racers, it can be a more than a bit overwhelming. Just a few of the challenges that racers must confront include the course itself, terrain, snow conditions, and weather. [...]
23
12, 2013
Are Your Expectations Helping or Hurting Your Ski Racing Children?
Setting expectations for your ski racing children is an essential responsibility to help your children ski their fastest and achieve their goals. Expectations communicate messages to your children about what’s important to you and establish a standard toward which your children can strive. But expectations can be double-edged swords. They can be a tremendous benefit [...]
12
12, 2013
Be the Best Ski Racing Parent You Can Be: A Review
It's hard to believe, but I’ve been back on snow working with racers since October 16th and that rollercoaster called another winter of ski racing is well underway. Racers aren’t only members of the ski racing community who experience the intense ups and downs of our sport; their parents do too. The fact is that [...]
3
12, 2013
Ski Racers, Get Up to Speed for This Season: A Review
Hopefully, you’ve spent the summer getting ready for this winter of racing. If so, you should be stronger, better technically, and more mentally prepared than ever before. You're now entering the final stage of preparations for the upcoming race season with a final period of conditioning followed by getting back on snow and tuning up [...]
20
11, 2013
Instill 5 Perspectives in Your Ski Racing Children
These days, children seem to be given every opportunity by their parents to experience success in ski racing and every other performance activity (e.g., school, other sports, the performing arts). Many young ski racers receive extra help from personal fitness trainers and summer camps. They are given the opportunity to develop every possible ski racing [...]
10
11, 2013
Three Steps to Ski Racing Success
Greetings from Loveland, Colorado, where John Hale and his crew have done another remarkable job of creating mid-season training conditions by the middle of October. As I am out here helping prepare a variety of racers for a very busy early season of races, I have been thinking a great deal about what it takes [...]
25
10, 2013
Skiing Your Fastest Starts with Respect
In my many years in ski racing, first as a racer, then as a sport psych consultant, I have studied and tested what I believe are the most important mental contributors to ski racing success including motivation, confidence, focus, and emotions. But there is one that I have recognized quite recently as being really important, [...]
17
07, 2013
Ski Racing: Think Now, So You Don’t Have to Think Later
I just returned from Zermatt where I spent a week working with a group of highly ranked U.S. tech skiers. After a few days, the feedback I was getting from them was that I was really getting into their heads and causing them to think a lot, in fact, to a few of them, a [...]