Cook: Mending the mind

(Park City, Utah) - After working out at the new US Ski Team training facility in Park City, Utah, Emily Cook appeared in an all-black Lycra outfit, sat down and said, "The most exciting thing for me since the 2006 Olympics is how unexciting it's been."

"I've had four consistent years of competition behind me," she explained. "It's the first time I've gone into an Olympics feeling fully prepared."

For Cook, a freestyle aerialist, the span included her first World Cup victory, in Moscow, Russia, in January 2008 and, last season, a pair of third-place finishes at World Cup events in Lake Placid, N.Y., and Deer Valley, Utah - not far from the Boston-native's adopted hometown of Park City.

Living in Park City means being surrounded by reminders of the 2002 Salt Lake Games - the Games that should have marked her Olympic debut. From her living room, she can see the ski jumping venue and the Olympic rings emblazoned on one of the landing hills.

"I was 22 and the world's most optimistic young athlete," she said, looking back. "I was so excited to represent my county that year, right after 9/11."

Cook made the US team, but two weeks before the Games, she was performing a simple trick in Lake Placid - a double back flip called a Lay Tuck  - but weather slowed down her takeoff speed and she landed on the knoll, well short of the landing area.

US coach Matt Christensen was standing on the knoll that day and said, "I heard equipment popping off and then, a really soft whimper - the kind that sticks with you in the pit of your stomach.

Cook had broken both feet, severely dislocated the left one, and tore most of the ligaments in each.

"It felt," she said, "like my feet exploded in my ski boots."

 

Three days after surgery the 2002 Opening Ceremony was held and Cook watched it in a wheelchair in the stands. "When the US team walked in, I just lost it," she said.

Cook had no idea if she would ski again, no less compete. Even after she healed, her left foot was turned out 45 degrees. In June 2003, she had a second operation to fuse the bone - a surgery that gave her hope but no guarantees.

All told, Cook would be out of competition for three years but while she was sidelined she began working one-on-one with a sports psychologist for the first time - and so began the crucial journey of mental rehab that eventually took Cook to the 2006 Olympics and has set her up to excel in Vancouver in 2010.

This is the little known tale of her psychological renaissance.  

Step one was for Cook to find her identity as a person and separate it from her identity as an athlete. She had been competing since she was 4 (originally in gymnastics), so the two were tightly intertwined. 

"There was a lot of building me as a human," Cook said.

Next, Cook had to decide if she was ready to return to aerials.

"I had to work on accepting that I could get injured again. Accepting meant that I was willing to put my heart and soul into this - and that was the hardest, because my injury was caused by something out of my control, [the weather].

In July 2004, Cook took her first jump off a ramp into the pool at the Utah Olympic Park - a ramp so small that the athletes call it "a hiccup." The idea was not to do tricks, but to experience impact again. 

"At that point, I'd chosen to be an athlete again and I didn't really know if my foot was going to work," she said.

As she moved to larger and larger ramps, so, too, grew her fears, and each jump was painful so she had to limit them. The limit, in turn, made each jump extra important. On top of that, she said, "My sole intention was to get myself to the 2006 Olympics and I knew I had very little time to do it."

University of Utah sports psychologist Nicole Detling taught Cook hypnosis to manage the pain and basic techniques to manage her thoughts.

"I used a lot of positive affirmations," Cook said. "You can only hold one thought in your head at one time so you might as well make it positive. A positive thought will also make your blood flow differently and your body will get cooler.

"I also used an outrageous amount of visualization. During my three years off, I did so much that when I came back, I was jumping differently - I was technically better. My arm positions in the air, for example. Also, there's something called an un-tilt, and it's how you square yourself up to land. Before [the crash], I used to land a little crooked because I didn't know how to do it. But when I came back I did. I'd just watched a ton of video and rehearsed it."

In her first World Cup competition, in Mt. Tremblant, Quebec, in January 2005, Cook had enough confidence to do a jump she had not performed on snow since the crash: a Full Full. She made the final and placed eighth.

"I narrowed my focus so much that all I could see was the hill and all I could hear were my coaches," she said.

Cook also had a series of pre-recorded visualization cues on her i-pod.

For example, in her own voice she would hear herself saying: "I'm standing at the top of the hill. I look at my coach Matt. He raises his hand to clear. I look at the wind sock. It's blowing up the hill...I take a step up. I take a deep breath. I visualize my jump one more time. I turn down the inrun. I trust that my speed is enough. I crouch down. I stand up and look at the top of the jump. I squeeze my core and my legs tight. I lean back as I ski off the jump. I look at the ground. I squeeze my feet and drop my left arm to initiate the twist. I squeeze my body and listen to Matt. I square up for landing. I land. I ski away."

The recitations took longer than the jump itself. "Normally, when I visualize, it would be in real time. The i-pod is more to get me in the moment," she explained.

However, that other moment - Torino - was still one year away and Cook feared history would repeat itself.

Eerie similarities emerged. As in 2002, Cook won the 2006 Olympic Trials, a winner-take-all contest in which the first-place finishers automatically earned the team's first Olympic berths.

Then came the Lake Placid World Cup, and - given her history - Cook was given the option of staying home.

"I said, 'Of course I'm going. I've got to be part of the team,'" she said.

"That one was hard," she can admit now. "I hadn't quite tackled all the demons left over from 2002. I was still scared about getting hurt just after making the Olympic team."

 

Her fear was for naught. "After my last jump at the last training camp, I was crying because I knew nothing would keep me from getting there. Everything was so exciting: getting on the plane, getting my credential, and especially the Opening Ceremony."

 

In Torino however, Cook fell on her first qualifying jump: a Full Full (two flips with two twists). "I tried to make it more perfect than ever so I was changing things. I was almost trying too hard. I took my vision off the landing hill and finished a little too late and didn't have time to absorb the impact."

 

She slid down the landing hill on her stomach. When she stood up, her family and friends cheered like she had won gold. "My first thought was, 'Did you miss that?' But I realized that getting there with a lack of preparation was a huge accomplishment. And I knew I wanted another chance."

In 2007, Cook started working with another sports psychologist, Craig Manning.

"Once you get over that fear of injury," she said, "Fear of failure sneaks in. Craig got me from 'Now I can jump and I've been to the Olympics' to' What do I need to do to win?'"

A major component revolves around being in the moment.

"It's a different level of it now," Cook said. "You can think you're truly present but, clearly, in 2006 I wasn't. I had so many fears that were buried."

"In the moment, there is no fear," Manning explained. "Fear exists in the future, not in the present. When you're present, you're making efficient decisions and adapting to the situation. You're still thinking, but you're just not aware of it."

Manning also has his athletes keep a structured mental skills journal. If used diligently, he said, "growth is inevitable and accelerated exponentially."

"I've never met a champion who didn't keep a journal," coach Christensen added. "A lot of it has to do with accountability, but Emily goes everywhere with it, to the gym, everywhere."

In fact, Cook's training journals go back to 1996, when she was in high school. She has so many that the first 10 years' worth is in storage.

"I log everything," she said. At the moment, Cook is using three journals simultaneously. One is a training log that has technical information in it. Another, on her computer, details what she ate, how much she slept, and hydration. The third has a steel cover with the word "Visualize" on the front. It was designed by Manning, and she writes in it at least twice a day. "It's one of my favorite things to do," she said.

At the top of each page, she writes her major objective, or long-term goal.

"I have my skiing goal and my life goal in there every day," she said. "Sometimes it changes, but today it says, '2010 Olympic gold' and 'Love the Process.'"

Next, under Plans, she said, "Sometimes I'll write one technical skill and one mental skill, but for me, I'm always working on a mental skill."

Then, at the end of the day, she writes three strengths and one thing she could do better. She must also rate her performance in five areas - motivation, anxiety, concentration, belief, decision making - on a scale of 1 to 5.

"On a day when you don't have a specific-enough goal, the concentration is low, belief is low, and anxiety is usually up," she said.

The information isn't only for her own reference. On training days, she shares it with Manning and Christensen via email.

"I think it's made a world of difference, especially over the last two years," said Christensen, who has coached Cook since 1998.

Cook's mastery over her mind has enabled her to master more complicated tricks. Last year, she debuted a double-Full Full, and a Full double-Full, both of which are variations of three twists and two flips. Having triples in her repertoire is essential if she hopes to take a medal in Vancouver, because the degree of difficulty is factored into aerials scoring.

"In the past, the other athletes would have to mess up in order for me to do well," she said.  "And now, I'm going out every week to win.

 

"I'm committed to go to 2010 and perform my best. It's been a different experience this time. In 2002, it was all about qualifying. In 2006, it was all about actually getting there. In 2010, it's about performing and coming home with a medal.

"There have been fewer peaks and valleys. No huge breakdowns, no huge breakthroughs. Everything is calm and peaceful going into these Olympics and that's exactly where I want to be."

 Aimee Berg is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.

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Tags: Emily Cook, US Ski and Snowboard