So the adventure was over for this time. My wife and I have been back home for a few weeks after our road trip in Europe. During this period, we accomplished a great deal. However, the main focus was on our first intermediate goal. That was what guided the direction of the entire trip. Of course, I am talking about the World Championships in Sport Throwing 2025.
Before leaving, I noticed that time has a tendency to disappear, especially in the summer. In addition to midsummer celebrations and various boring private matters that had to be dealt with before departure, there were school graduations for loved ones.
Then it was time to concentrate on the vacation and, of course, the big event.
The Sunday before departure, I had some kind of dress rehearsal. There is quite a lot to practice because I throw "everything". Or more precisely, both No Spin, which is my main strength, and rotational throwing. Then, of course, there is axe throwing. I am a novice in that area, but I am learning as I go.
Throwingzone Pathfinder is my choice for No Spin
Within the different areas, it is primarily the discipline Walk Back that requires the most attention and time. It is this format that determines who receives the actual world championship titles. In short, this means that you throw from distances of 3, 4, 5, 6, and seven meters with three knives/axes per distance. This is repeated four times, and the total points that can be obtained are a maximum of 300. Think Bowling but with sharper balls.
For rotational throwing, my choice was Zitoon Le primitif rotation
In addition, there are a number of complementary disciplines such as precision throwing, long-distance throwing, and, not least, Games. There are disciplines such as Duel, Silhouette, Moving target, Plank, and, for me, completely new Hunter. Then there is also Speedthrowing and the game Coutanque. I was unable to practice any of the latter as I lacked both equipment and time. I participated, but more for fun than well, if you put it that way.
This probably applies to most of it, as I have only been training for a few years. This should be put with the fact that some people have devoted most of their lives to throwing.
This year's training in numbers
My preparations started as late as March 1st, as I don't have the opportunity to throw indoors and am therefore completely weather dependent. However, a cold but dry spring and early summer generated the following statistics:
80 000 throws distributed on
58 sessions, which gives a training time of
187 hours
Basic training, No Spin, but with completely different knives.
On average, I practice for over three hours once I'm in place. That's quite a long time, I must admit. If you're untrained, you won't be able to handle that time. The knives don't weigh much if they're held in your hand or thrown once or even ten times. But a few hundred throws, not to mention a thousand or more, are felt in your shoulders and arms if you're used to it. I can promise that. This is especially true for longer distances.
The focus has been on my relatively new No Spin knives, the Pathfinder from Throwingzone, and the rotational knives from Zitoon called Le primitif rotation. Both sets are from France, by the way. Those were the ones I chose as competition knives this time.
Now I know that you shouldn't change knives every season, but I'm still a beginner and haven't decided which ones I like best to throw with. I haven't even decided if I prefer more Bowie-like knives or daggers, which is a bit of a watershed.
Throwingzone Custom Ceratops
With the axes, there have been significantly fewer throws. Partly due to a lack of good targets, but mainly because I got them a couple of weeks before the competition. Therefore, of course, there have not been that many throws with them. But if you add earlier training with my Norsehawks, there will, of course, be a few more.
Thus, the number of throws with the competition sets before the World Cup can be summed up:
Throwingzone Pathfinder: 27100
Zitoon le primitif rotation: 16900
Throwingzone Ceratops Custom: 4000
In addition to that, I have also tested a whole range of other knives, including the backup knives, the Zitoon Spinner XL. I keep them because experience from early competitions shows that it can be helpful to change if everything goes wrong during warm-up. It's solely psychology and nothing else. If nothing works, change something!
Some of the first throws with Zitoon The Primitive, early this spring
The technique training has been a bit uneven. Sometimes I'm really good, so good that I maintain a good international level, mainly in No Spin. But it's the valleys that need to be made a little shallower. The lowest level needs to be raised because the technique tends to fail when I stress myself out. This mainly applies to the longer distances, which have been a problem for me in the past and turned out to be partly the case at the World Championships.
To remedy this, I have, of course, trained that part a little extra. Furthermore, I have trained to reduce the warm-up time and in more competition-like conditions. This includes doing a Walk Back after a few warm-up throws, for example. All to prepare myself for unknown conditions. It was my first World Championships after all.
However, there were things that I couldn't prepare for. More about that in part two of this series. Then you can never train for a competition, so to speak. That situation is as it is and must be experienced.
Precision training with Pathfinders. Something that would pay off, it turned out.
Overall, I think the preparations went relatively well. Especially in the last few weeks, I got in a couple of solid training sessions, we're talking about five to six hours at a time. Other than that, it went pretty well for the most part.
With that in mind, I was about as prepared as I could be. After that, it was just a matter of enjoying the trip.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar