We are now more or less a week into the season. It has been a good first week of training and on the whole I am definitely satisfied. My speed has definitely increased, and when the ice gets cold I'm hoping to push a 5.0x, which would be even better than what I had realistically hoped for going into this season.
One thing that has not been going well though, is my form. By form I mean the position that my body has on the sled as well as how relaxed I am. Of all the things that can help or hurt you in Skeleton, form is the most important and yet seemingly the most frustrating one. At the end of last season, my from was totally locked in. My head was angled the way I wanted, my shoulders were firm but not tense, and my legs were always together (like an arrow). I had hoped that my body would simply "return" to this state naturally when this season started.
Unfortunately, I have had no such luck. Simply put I just don't feel comfortable on my sled right now, and it is very frustrating. It's the feeling you get when you thought you had taken care of something that took a long time to get right, only to have to start over again at some point because some little thing was not where it should have been when you perfected it. I feel like I handled this problem last season, but it has come back to rear its ugly head again. Like some kind of bad nightmare that won't go away.
The worst thing about working on form is that if you spend too much time thinking about it it never happens. It needs to be something that just "is". Last year, I was so in the zone by the end that I didn't even thing about my form it just HAPPENED and aided everything I wanted to do on the ice. Right now, it's the opposite. I have to fight for it, and I feel like any time I get back into form its messing with what I want to be doing on the ice. This needs to change, as it is not a recipe for racing well.
Becca, my coach, tells me to not press too much, but be understanding with myself as we have only had 10 runs down the track. Of course she is right. Pressing is just going to make the problem worse, and I found that out today. My first run was really bad because I spent the entire descent thinking about what I was doing. The second one was better b/c I did not. I need to get back to that place where I just "DO" and not "TRY" to do.
Tomorrow, I'm going to work on letting my body relax and do what it wants. It's really important that I figure this out quickly, because without the form the rest is not going to come. On the whole things are going well, but I was hoping to not have to re-hash things I thought I had put to bed last season. The first race though is less than a month away, and I want to be at the point I was at when I ended the season last year. Hopefully I will be able to figure it out in time, and not drive myself into a mental hole too early in the season.
I guess what I'm feeling right now is the other side of high expectations - being patient and trusting they will come even if you aren't perfect from day one.
I'm forerunning for the USA Team Trials tomorrow! (That means I'm going first, untimed, to check the ice and make sure it is good). I'm super excited for that and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and let everyone know how it went.
Also, I have to say, Welcome Home Gilad.
#AmYisraelChai
-Bradley
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