To those of you that take the time to read my "blah blah blah" - I really do appreciate it. I need your help to get the rest of the community on board.

#1: JOIN EASTERN FREESTYLE EMAIL LIST. PLEASE help me and share this resource with your fellow parents, coaches and officials TODAY, so we can continue to build an educated community that raises the next Olympians!! Just tell them to: GO TO THE SITE AND CLICK ON EMAIL NEWS AT THE TOP. Boom. Done. Thanks!

#2: DO NOT CONTACT USSA. The ONLY reason a member of the Eastern Freestyle community should have to contact USSA is to register, renew or upgrade a membership. We are one of the only divisions to have a USSA employee in our office. If they continue to receive emails and calls from our community, then we may lose this position. THIS WOULD BE BAD!! From this point forward, please refer all questions to the Eastern Office: Sherry Albert at: office@easternfreestyle.org. Having said that, Chances are MOST of your questions can be answered right here on the Eastern website. Please take a moment to hit all the "trails" on the Trail Map - you might find a few that improve your skills!! Ultimately, Eastern Program Directors and Head Coaches should really be your first point of reference as the professionals. Most of the time, if one parent has a question or concern, then it is relevant to their entire team or the entire community - let the program directors/head coaches get the answers for you so they can turnaround and communicate the answers to the whole team. If your Program Director/Head Coach cannot answer the question, let them contact their fellow colleagues to get the answer for you.

#3: How to be a Winning Parent...this document is a favorite of mine. Let your kids own their sport - be a supporter, a fan and the bill payer!! We can't thank you enough for all that you do to support our athletes - but, please, just do that. No need to solve the world's problems at the bottom of the course/venue. Nothing will ever be perfect in freestyle or the world - except your child!!

1. Your child should never be taught to view his or her opponent as the “Bad Guy”.

2. Encourage your child to compete against himself/herself.  The ultimate goal of the sport is to challenge oneself and continually improve.  Winning in sports is about doing the best that you can, regardless of the outcome or the results of your opponent.

3. Do not define success and failure in terms of winning and losing.  If a child competes his/her very best and doesn’t achieve their goals, you need to help them feel like a winner. 

4. Be supportive.  Do not coach.  Coaching interferes with your role as a parent and supporter of the team.  Be your child’s best fan - provide support, encouragement, empathy, transportation & money - but leave the coaching and instruction to the coach.

5. The more fun an athlete is having the more he/she will learn and the better they will perform.  If your child is not having fun – investigate!  What is keeping them from having fun?  Is it the coaching, is it pressure or is it you?

6. Whose goal is it?  Is your child competing because they don’t want to disappoint you, because they know how important the sport is to you and are these goals and aspirations theirs or yours?  It is quite normal and healthy to want your child to excel and be as successful as possible, but you cannot make this happen by pressuring them with your expectations or by using guilt or bribery to keep them involved.  If they have their own goals and reasons for participating, they will be far more motivated to excel and therefore far more successful.

7. Remember the importance of high self-esteem in all your interactions with your child-athlete.  Athletes of all levels and ages perform in direct relationship to how they feel about themselves.  Make your child feel good about himself/herself and you’ve given him/her a gift that lasts a lifetime. 

8. Give your child the gift of failure.  The most successful people both in and out of sports do two things differently.  First, they are willing to take risks and therefore fail more frequently.  Second they use their failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve.  Failure is a perfect stepping-stone to success. 

9. Stress the process, (skill acquisition, mastery and fun), not the outcome.  In any peak performance, the athlete is totally oblivious to the outcome and is absorbed in the here and now of their actual performance.  An outcome focus will almost always distract and tighten up the athlete insuring bad performance.  If you truly want your child to succeed, help get his/her focus away from how important the contest is and have them focus on the task at hand.  Supportive parents de-emphasize winning and instead stress learning the skills and participating.

10. Avoid comparisons and respect developmental differences.  Comparisons are inaccurate and destructive since every child matures and develops differently.

11. Teach your child to have perspective on the sports experience.  The sports media would like you to believe that sport and winning and losing is larger than life.  This lack of perspective frequently trickles down to the youth sport level and young athletes often come away from competition with a distorted view of themselves and how they performed.  Parents need to help their child develop realistic expectations of themselves, their abilities and how they played without robbing the child of his/her dreams.

THIS WEEK IN EASTERN FREESTYLE - Jan 22nd - 24th.

No one has sent me any fun teasers for their event yet so we are just stuck with the event info sheets on the Events page.

EQS Central B's

Stevek Mogul Challenge at Stratton Mountain, Vermont. Moguls on Saturday and Sunday. 

Carinthia Cup at Mt Snow, Vermont. Slopestyle and Aerials on Saturday. 

EQS Western B's

Seven Springs Mogul Smackdown, Seven Springs, PA. Moguls on Saturday and Sunday. 

ECS A Mogul Teams

Rosemary Bowl, Waterville Valley, NH. The Aerial events were postponed until February 14th! The Eastern Division Jump qualification on Friday. Click here for more information. Mogul training on Friday does not open until 11am. Saturday Moguls. Sunday Duals.

Athletes At the Peak

Starting Thursday our former teammates will be competing in Lake Placid, New York at the last stop on the FIS World Cup Tour before the 2010 Vancouver Games. Come on over and cheer the crew on as they compete to gain spots onto the USA Freestyle 2010 Olympic Team!! For more information, check out the event info site.

Have a great weekend!

Go Big!

Coach Deb