U GO FOR IT! By Ryan Jahnke


Editor’s note: In the December issue of SKATING, 2003 U.S. World Team member and skating coach Ryan Jahnke authored a col- umn on overcoming self-doubt and low self-esteem in the competition arena. In this month’s column, he addresses something that all skaters will face and must deal with: failure.


say he or she likes to fail. Most in- dividuals with a competitive na- ture have an even greater dislike of failure than the average per- son. So here’s the catch: The more you pursue excellence in skating, the more you will need to deal with this thing called failure. In the words of Super Bowl–


S


winning coach Tony Dungy, “We don’t always get a happy ending, and sometimes, the middle isn’t so happy either. You never real- ly know how tough people are until they encounter the rough spots. We’re


all tough when


things are going our way. We’re all tough when we’re getting the breaks. That’s easy. But the truly tough man is the one who stays grounded in his values and fo- cused on his goals when things are challenging. When things in life don’t go according to plan, the tough man will exhibit a de- termination to reach his goal no matter the obstacles.” You have a decision to make:


Either you can fear failure or you can use it as fuel. When your skating pursuit is over (however many years down the line), you want to have no regrets. But if you fear failure and start thinking about all the negative things that might happen in advance, it is like dragging a 50-pound bag of sand around the ice. It prevents you from taking the very actions that will get you to your goals. Holding yourself back because of negative thinking is something you will regret. So learn to recog- nize this and shut it down imme- diately. Now for the better option:


Use your failures as rocket fuel to move you forward. This begins by realizing that doing signifi cant things means you need to be willing to come up short some- times. Then ask yourself, “What


48 APRIL 2013


o who likes to fail? Probably no one on this planet would go so far as to


can I learn from this to make me even better?” I am telling you from expe-


rience that your greatest gains will be from your failures. I was at my fi rst Skate America in Oc- tober 2003 and I was headed out to perform my free skate. I had made the U.S. World Team earlier that year and my skating seemed to be coming together. I went out there and missed every jump except my double Axel. Needless to say, I fi nished last and I was crushed. I performed my jumps well in the past so why not now? After sorting through my emo- tions, one thing I came to real- ize was that I was saying my cue words in my head but I was not connecting them to a rhythm or a feeling in my body. I was taking them for granted. That explained why they did not work. I made the correction, worked hard for the next two months and per- formed a totally clean free skate at the U.S. Championships. That is not the only time


failure pushed me forward. My fi rst year making it to the U.S. Championships as a novice was in 1992 and I placed 12th. That is a kind way of saying that my double Axel, which seemed to be on vacation at the time, resulted in me fi nishing in last place. With- in the next year, I learned three triples and won the novice title in 1993. In 1994, I missed mak- ing the U.S. Championships as a junior by one spot. The next year I came back and earned the bronze medal at nationals. Take a minute and think of your biggest so-called failure. What did you learn from that experience and how are you going to come back stronger because of it? Robert F. Kennedy said,


“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” That is 100 percent true.


Yes, you will make more mistakes than the person walking down


se your failures as rocket fuel to move you forward


Coach Ryan Jahnke and intermediate-level skater Jun-Hong Chen enjoy the skater’s success at the Midwestern Sectional Championships in Strongsville, Ohio.


easy street, but your life will also have many more victories. The next time you are saddened by your low placement at a com- petition, think for a minute how many people are not even on the results list; the many people who did not have the guts to go for it like you did. President Theodore Roos-


evelt said, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stum- bles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no eff ort without error or shortcom- ing, but who knows the great en- thusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows,


in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” If you are reading this, I am


confi dent that you are one of the few who want to be diff er- ent than those “cold and tim- id souls.” Is it all right to be sad when things don’t go as you had hoped? Absolutely, but only for a short time. Then brush yourself off , get up and look for the seeds of your next victory. Ryan Jahnke has been on the


Athletes Advisory Committee for 15 years and is a 2003 U.S. World Team Member. He also started MySkatingMall.com, a website where skaters can buy and sell new and used skating items while rais- ing money for skating charities.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60