My next adventure as an official member of
the British ParaSnowsport Development Squad was a slalom-based camp in
Landgraaf (because going away skiing in August wasn’t strange enough we also
had to do it in The Netherlands!).
I did find this block of training a bit more
difficult than those in the past as my body decided to throw a bit of a tantrum
and my spasms were completely out of control. This meant I struggled to
tolerate being strapped into my rig in the cold, I also spent quite a lot of
time quite violently kicking both the dinner table and whoever was unfortunate
enough to be sitting opposite me! There was a bit of concern that my
intrathecal baclofen pump could have been malfunctioning but since coming home
my doctors have done tests and come to the conclusion that my pump is fine and
that it is just my condition that has got worse (this sounds bad but is
actually the better outcome as most pump-related problems require surgery to
fix). In a bid to try and counteract this progression I have now had my pump
baclofen dose increased as well as Botox injections in my legs, so hopefully my
next camp should be a bit easier.
Now onto the interesting stuff - the actual
skiing! This camp gave me a great opportunity to work on the two aspects of
slalom racing that have caused me the biggest problems, the start ramp and
hitting the gates to get a tighter line through the course. I think I can now
declare that I am over my fears of these things; yes my technique in tackling
these still needs to be refined in order to tactically maximise my speed and
control through the course, but no longer being so scared has definitely
helped. (In the past when approaching something I am not that comfortable with
I had a tendency to completely stiffen up which only made things more
difficult.)
Over the course of the week I managed to not
fall out of the start gate once! My gate hitting clearly came on as I had the
evidence of massive bruises on both upper arms, my helmet also took the force
of many a gate too as I found it turning from blue to white. At some point I
also managed to break a ski, so it can’t be said that I was lacking in
aggression!
This training camp gave me a great chance to
ski with so many other sit skiers (there were six of us in Landgraaf - and a
there are a few more who couldn’t make it this time), this is something I find
great benefit in, as it allows me to watch the styles of other people and
incorporate the good parts into my own skiing. Skiing with other people who sit
also makes it easier for me to track my own progress, as my weekly training at
the Chill Factore takes place with able-bodied skiers, in courses that are
designed to challenge even the best of them. This has done wonders for my
slalom technique, but it can be somewhat disheartening when I repeatedly fail
to do something that the rest of the group can do with ease, and I also have
nobody to compare myself with. The fact that we now have enough sit skiers for
our own training group is great, as for a while we were a bit of a rare breed.
To improve further I now need to keep working
on the same things I have been focussing on for a while such as maintaining
smoothness throughout the whole turn (avoiding jerky movements at the end) and
increasing my edge angle by bringing it into the turn sooner. This will take
time and effort but luckily I am very determined and have plenty of training
camps coming up in which I can put this into practise.
