 Poster: A snowHead
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Any type of sport can burden the athlete with psychological pressure, but some sports must be less prone to pressure by nature. For example, I think figure skating puts the athlete under enormous pressure. On the other hand, alpine ski racing looks like it's less prone to pressure. Just my observations.
Does anyone know about this? Are some sports particularly vulnerable to nerves? How is alpine ski racing?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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My experience:
Slalom - top fifty Army back in the day, probably FIS level but low. - the pressure that got me was I couldn't manage the course well. I'd start really hard and then be too fast for the 4th-10th gate(ish), I'd then have to back off and then was rubbish/slow as I'd be playing catch up. Always found it hard to hit a rythym.
GS - Very good - was a top seeded Army guy and wouldn't have embarrassed myself in FIS. The biggest pressure wasn't the skiing per se, but absorbing the course during the walk-throughs. If I found the course 'instinctive', I'd always have great results. If the setter threw a spanner in the works (for me) then I'd lose time and not have good results.
SuperG - As above. Loved it and embraced it.
Downhill - a bit of above but also I knew I never really had the experience to hit the course hard. Full scale Downhill racing is really, really scary. I have/had large balls, if I say so myself, but to commit fully takes a special sort of person. The psychological pressure in a DH race, isn't peer driven like the other disciplines. It's simply confronting your personal fears. It's survival.
I've raced DH about 6 times (over 3 seasons) First season - was learning and always backing off, 2nd season hit it hard and scared myself shitless but had good results. Third season - was too scared to get good results. Didn't push hard enough as I knew serious injury would kill the rest of my season as an instructor.
Pressure: Team - I was the top guy in my regiment and one of the top guys in GS (Army) and if I performed well, the team tended to do well. However, I had some serious personal problems with Slalom (as above) and some real (DH) fears.
Not meant to be braggy - the context has to be there.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The reason I can valuate myself, regarding FIS, I trained with Austrian and GB national & FIS guys over 4 seasons.
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When you are sat in the start gate knowing you have just one run to make it count and full attack has very real risks (speed events) I'd say that is serious pressure. It is over so fast and requires such focus there may not be space and time to think too much on course whereas tennis or something you can be up knowing you *should* close it out but could have 30mins+ left to play and that is when the mind games begin.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Yeah - the nerves you have, after cranking your boots, standing in the start gate is mental.
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The last half of a DH run is pure hell. Your legs get close to running out half way through. The 3rd quarter uses the last of the energy you have. The last quater, you can't feel your legs, you have no idea when they're going to fold. You're still hitting 100km plus and you still need to pre-jump a couple of sections, you need to land them and then finish the final section.
And you are at a level of fitness that your average Joe woud never get to, and you still find it tough as  .
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Can't think how ski racing would have less pressure than ice skating, as not only are you on the course on your own, in DH and Super G you are going terrifyingly fast with the risk of serious injury!
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Maybe everyone has a different definition of "nerves" or "psychological pressure". I participated in (all recreational) ski races, tennis matches, swim meets, and music concerts when I was young. If I had to choose their order of psychological pressure, I'd say music concerts > tennis matches > ski race > swim meet. Yes, you have to focus when you're running DH or Super G, but to me it's more fear and focus than butterflies flying in your stomach. When I was standing in front of a live audience to perform a piano sonata, there was no "fear" involved, but it was the most nerve-wrecking experience of my life. But then again, I was an amateur in all of these, so the elite may feel differently.
The reason for asking this: I'm wondering if it's very personal and everyone's different, or some sports/activities just make you more nervous than others. I know some people can handle pressure better than others. I'm definitely not one of them. I went through such a lot of psychological hell as a youngster when I had to perform music or play tennis that I don't want to push my children through the same. They can enjoy piano and tennis as purely hobby, and I'll nudge them towards activities that are less nerve-wrecking (like skiing!).
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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jimmer, +lots
Although I can see New Daddy, 's points.
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| jimmer wrote: |
| Can't think how ski racing would have less pressure than ice skating, as not only are you on the course on your own, in DH and Super G you are going terrifyingly fast with the risk of serious injury! |
We are social animals and I think for many people, failure, ridicule or rejection are the really scary things. From that point of view, ice skating in front of a crowd probably is very nervous-making. The most scared I've been was speaking to a crowd of several 100 (with a message many didn't want to hear). Contrariwise, I used to rock-climb, including solo (unroped) climbing where a slip would certainly have been fatal. That didn't make me particularly scared; I was able to put fear of death or injury into another place and concentrate on what I was doing.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
We are social animals and I think for many people, failure, ridicule or rejection are the really scary things.
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Time is on the board for all your friends and colleagues to see, and ski racers (as much as I hate to say it) can be very elitist! ski racing is the most mentally intense thing I've done.
A thought exercise if you will permit me:
You are moving over 30 miles an hour on conrete solid ice which you are fighting for grip on, making a different correction and reaction every tenth of a second to varying terrain, you're trying to remember 30-60 turns and undulations while in real danger and needing to push as hard as you can on legs that are screaming, on your 2 minutes that you have trained all year for, surrounded by your team mates who will judge you on this result.
Racing is NOT for the weak willed (probably why i sucked at it  )
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I would say a mistake in figure skating is more costly than one in skiing and harder to hide. Also in one you are judged on quite tight criteria and in the other the clock doesn't care about your artistic interpretation.
I know ski racers train extremely hard but have you ever watched figure skating patches where they spend an hour doing figure of eights to try and achieve a stupid level of exactness.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Yes, I am not saying the result of the mistake is less dramatic. I am saying racers are judged less harshly on mistakes.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| dulcamara wrote: |
| Racing is NOT for the weak willed |
You can say that about any competitive activity.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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This thread is conflating different kinds of 'nerves'. Performance nerves can be utterly debilitating - many concert artists are on beta-blockers to combat them. Fear for one's life is a completely different kettle of fish and there's little point in comparing the two.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
Yes, I am not saying the result of the mistake is less dramatic. I am saying racers are judged less harshly on mistakes.
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Hospital buddy! Ok there's no judge telling them that their technical marks have halved, but the punishment is far more severe.
This is a HUGE effect on nerves! It's much easier to deal with "performance nerves" which any athlete/artist/speaker has when you don't have the risk of death hanging over you, causes may be different but the result is the same.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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dulcamara,
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the result is the same
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Rubbish
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Pedantica wrote: |
| This thread is conflating different kinds of 'nerves'. Performance nerves can be utterly debilitating - many concert artists are on beta-blockers to combat them. Fear for one's life is a completely different kettle of fish and there's little point in comparing the two. |
^^This. Definitely. Some people handle nerves/butterflies better than others and some people handle pure fear better than others. Different strokes and all that.
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Pedantica, It's not rubbish, when I reach a scary bit of a climb, actions become more conscious, less natural. I lose a lot of motor control and have to concentrate much harder on what I am doing and am therefore more likely to make mistakes.
is that not the same result as a pianist who has a fear of failure?
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dulcamara, no
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Same applies to a beginner learning to snowplough for the first time or a racer on the edge of their abilities, fear of injury and fear of failure manifest in the same way, the main difference is the type of people and methods used to counteract them
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Pedantica, your eloquent rebuttals are extremely refreshing, good to see proper information and evidence go into a well crafted point... you a scientologist by any chance?
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Well over the course of my 49 years I've engaged competitively in swimming, show jumping, offshore yacht racing, cycling time trials, cyclocross, target shooting and dressage, have also done a fair bit of climbing and caving, I've also bee the solo clarinettist in school and local adult orchestras.
In terms of psychological pressure dressage is far and away the toughest (despite being probably the safest apart from the shooting) for me as it so much a partnership between horse and rider the slightest little thing can turn a winning test into a disaster in an instant. All certainly involve a change in levels of awareness and excitement though that said none of those things have every really scared me, yes if managed to get myself into some difficult and dangerous situations, particularly with the climbing, caving and sailing but they've been just that, difficult and dangerous rather than scary. For concert performances yes there was a psychological effect but I think I'd describe more as being sort of over excited, though that is probably because I worked out from an early age how to blank out the audience so I could just get on with playing in my little bubble of orchestra, conductor and me.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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In ice skating you get to practice what you do repeatedly pm ice that is generally the same quality, the same size etc. Ski races you generally don't get to practice, you get to inspect, the conditions are quite variable and so in some ways there's a lot more you have to do.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| dulcamara wrote: |
| Pedantica, It's not rubbish, when I reach a scary bit of a climb, actions become more conscious, less natural. I lose a lot of motor control and have to concentrate much harder on what I am doing and am therefore more likely to make mistakes. |
"Gripped" in climber's parlance. You should work on that. The art is to be able to assess risk, mitigate it but once accepted, tune it out. It's part of what makes climbing a psychological as well as a physical game.
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My 2p's worth - competition nerves are a product of adrenaline. Therefore any activity which uses adrenaline will result in the nerves becoming less once the activity has started. An activity requiring poise and calmness ( ice skating, music and dressage are both mentioned above) will not. I used to 3 day event. Nerves before each discipline were probably equal, maybe most before the crosscountry because of the risk of death! However, once underway, they were least noticeable in the xc, most in the dressage.
The more aggression in an activity, the less nerves will be noticed once underway. I think!
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