Coach's Column: Working Together to Win Together
Emily Cook never let go of her dream to compete in the Winter Olympics. Days after making the 2002 Olympic Team, Emily broke both of her feet and had to watch her hometown Olympics from a wheelchair. She missed the next three World Cup seasons rehabbing to return to competition and eventually make the 2006 Olympic Winter Team. Emily is a three-time Olympian and six-time National Aerials Champion. After retiring from competition Emily coached for the U.S. Aerial Ski Team and this season marks her first away from the jump site in many years. Her absence will create a new chapter for the Team she has been so ingrained in as athletes work toward their own Olympic dreams for 2022. Before leaving, one of Emily's final marks was planting a seed to grow and nurture the Team's culture, sparked by an intense day of team-building with the renowned performance experts at Liminal Collective. In this next installment of our "Coach's Column," Emily shares the importance of Team in an individual sport.
We’re bringing you stories from the ground through the lens of our coaching staff who know our athletes best. These staff members spend countless hours traveling from point A to point B in the winter with athletes, eating dinner as a team, training in the gym and on the mountain, often celebrating Thanksgiving away from home and instead with their athletes and fellow staff members, and the list goes on. They’re more than a team…they’re a second family – a winter family. It’s not easy to be away from home. The days are long and the load is heavy, and it’s sometimes thankless work for these behind-the-scenes heroes. We hope that by sharing their stories, in their words, it will give you all some understanding and appreciation for what it takes to create an environment in which our athletes can thrive.
Enjoy the journey,
Lara Carlton
Freestyle Communications Manager
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U.S. Ski & Snowboard has put an emphasis on exploring team culture across each of its disciplines. In an individual sport like freestyle aerials, team cohesion is not always an obvious focal point. However, in addition to everyday training, skill-building, strength & conditioning, nutrition, mental strength and more, working towards being an amazing team that works well together is often the factor that will accelerate an athlete towards success. I recall watching the U.S. Women’s Cross-Country team develop over the past few years and experiencing the exhilaration of witnessing Kikkan Randall and Jesse Diggins win Gold in PyeongChang and I can’t help but believe that their amazing and infectious team dynamic was one of their building blocks to success.
When the aerials athletes were asked if they would like to see more of a focus on team culture, they responded with overwhelming enthusiasm. So, we all started taking it on… as a team.
In addition to coaches and athletes adding some fun activities throughout the summer, the coaching staff invited some of the best in the business to support the team in this exploration. We had the privilege of working with Dr. Andy Walshe, Jurgen Heitman, Hoby Darling and their team at Liminal Collective. Prior to Liminal, Dr. Andy Walshe was the high-performance director for Red Bull and at U.S. Ski & Snowboard, and he brought with him a team of military, tech and culture leaders. With Liminal, the aerials team spent the day exploring what is currently working within the team, pushing their boundaries both physically and mentally, and engaging in conversations around how to up their game as a cohesive team.
We kicked off the day with a breath control exercise which would require the athletes to both push past their comfort zone and work together to support each other when things got hectic. On an aerial hill, things can get extra challenging, or even scary. Whether it’s learning a new trick or staying calm during a windy session or bad weather, staying in the ideal mindset and keeping your heart rate low and mind calm is key to performing a skill well. We can support each other in getting to this ideal state.
I’m not a scientist by any means, but from what I understand from the Liminal Team, the way the breath-hold activity (and an athlete’s performance on the hill) works is this: The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a part of the nervous system that influences the function of our internal organs. It operates in two modes: 1) sympathetic, which is fight or flight or 2) parasympathetic, which is rest and digest. In an exercise like the breath-hold, where we generally have some level of fear or discomfort, we can learn how to move into our parasympathetic state in order to lower heart rate and other bodily functions, and in turn perform at a higher level on the jump hill, or hold our breath for longer underwater.
After a few hours in the pool, the team was invited to engage in a conversation around how the challenge felt individually and how that differed when working with a teammate for extra support. We explored our own performance-arousal curve, digging into which mindset was ideal when performing this challenge and how that could translate to our sport. We learned that we could develop a new skill by following a process and that many of us underestimated what we could accomplish (I know I did).
I personally found that calming my mind (cooling down my ANS) and knowing that I was supported by the team around me was key to breaking through the barriers that I thought existed at the beginning of the day, like holding my breath for 3.5 minutes underwater! What?
Throughout the team’s time with Liminal, we explored conversations around what each teammate brought to the table (or jump site) and the most effective ways to communicate with each other. Each athlete had the chance to be a leader and to be supported.
We learned from Jurgen some of the key aspects to military success: having defined roles and responsibilities, the importance of debriefing and the value of having a team Ethos, or character that describes the guiding beliefs or ideals of the team, a theme that spanned each activity. As an athlete this piece was extremely important to me, and I truly believe as a coach that creating this as a team is even more powerful. We had some fun and laughs doing partner yoga to wind down the last session and overall learned a lot about ourselves and each other. I have to admit, I got a little emotional at the end of the day, but think it has to do with the fact that for the first time in many years, I won’t be standing with them at the top of the hill all season.
In November I left the team in the very capable hands of two amazing coaches and Olympic medalists, Head Coach Vladimir Lebedev and World Cup and Development Coach, Eric Bergoust. As I move on, I hope to have left the team with the tools to continue to develop their own version of amazing team dynamic. We can all gain inspiration from other teams who are known for amazing team culture, like the New Zealand All Blacks and the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team, but we won’t look the same with their Haka or glitter and pink hair. This team culture will be their own, and will always be changing, flowing, developing and growing and knowing how to navigate this is key.
As I step away from coaching, I will continue to be around the team and support them in any way that I can. For now I am proud to move on to support athletes and kids in a different way as I start a position with a non-profit very close to my heart, Classroom Champions. Classroom Champions matches athlete mentors with underserved schools across North America to teach kids grades K-8 the social-emotional skills needed to be successful in and out of the classroom. As I know from many years of working with the U.S. Aerials Team, athletes are perfectly equipped to pass on life lessons such as perseverance, teamwork, courage, diversity, community engagement goal setting and healthy living. I was a mentor with Classroom Champions, and it made all the difference in the world to me to connect with kids and pass on the lessons I learned.
I love this U.S. Aerial Ski Team and know that they have every ounce of potential to be the very best team in the world. Though I will greatly miss being on the hill every day, I cannot wait to cheer each and every one of them on throughout the upcoming seasons.
Andy Walshe presents to the Aerials Team as part of a Liminal Collective high performance camp
The Team practices a breathing exercise before testing their limits in the pool
Andy Walshe explains the pool breath-hold exercise to the Team
Alex Bowen and Eric Loughran during the pool-breath exercise
Alex Bowen and Eric Loughran during the pool-breath exercise
The Team during the pool-breath exercise
Chris Lillis and Megan Nick during the pool-breath exercise
