The Longhorn is a freestyle ski jump I first started doing as a teenager with my ski buddy Jirka Balcar¹⁾ in Alberice in the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše).

We did it for no other purpose than to amuse ourselves, dumbfound the onlookers, try to get the attention of the girls and intimidate the other guys who were also trying to get their attention.

We didn't bother giving the jump a name²⁾. It was just a silly thing we did for our entertainment and to show that we could. Same as riding steel rails and other useless nonsense done on skis today.

Some things change with time and I've been happily married for a long time but the Longhorn jump still has the power to amuse me and confuse the bystanders. Sometimes it confuses me, too, but I don't want to talk about that right now.

A couple of weeks ago I was showing it to some young freestylers in Eldora and I told them that I will finally give it a name. Since I invented the thing and I never saw anyone else doing it, I say I can name it.



It's the Longhorn, dudes. Officially³⁾.



Video: The Longhorn Stampede freestyle demo and clinic at Eldora 2007



http://www.youtube.com/v/OXwhS96IlRs

In the near future, I will post further details here including the history and evolution of the Longhorn, specs and variations, proper sounds that should be made during the jump, etc. Until I find the time to do it you will have to find me on the mountain.

____________________________________________________________

updated on Feb 29, 2008 at 2:45 PM by Pavel Bouska
____________________________________________________________

¹⁾ Jirka, I am still trying to dig up my old photographs from Alberice. Do you have any early pictures of the Longhorn?

²⁾ I was fortunate to be initiated into another extreme sports jump developed by my elementary school classmates Dan Fikejz and Milan Šura in Prague a couple of years before the first Longhorn was ever jumped. Their jump was not done on skis but it did have a name. It was called the bednoskok (box jump) and the jumper was a bednoskokan. A tall tool box in nearby city park was usually employed but the jump could be performed anywhere. The box jump looked like the first phase of a Fosbury Flop but instead of rolling backwards over the bar and falling down, the box jumper ended up sitting upright on the ledge of the high box and looking down at bewildered pedestrians. We were doing this jump several years before the great American athlete Dick Fosbury stunned the 1968 Olympics with his flop. Our jump was also more daring and dangerous than his. If the box jumper misjudged the distance, he either undershot and hit the box hard with his sacrum on the way up or he overshot and landed hard with his tailbone on the box on the way down. Either way it hurt a lot and we quickly developed great respect and precision to avoid such painful mishaps. I know that the revolutionary advantage of the Fosbury Flop was in keeping one's center of mass deep below the bar which we of course did not do but I always wondered why Dan---who was a great athlete and an accomplished bednoskokan---did not develop the much easier and more benign high jump version himself and beat the great Dick Fosbury to it. It was probably because we didn't have any soft stuff in the park for landing on our backs. We were into extreme sports but not that extreme. The Jackass approach appeared much later and night Prague was yet to be introduced to my sister's parkour techniques in climbing up our apartment building in a prom dress. Anyway, thanks to Dan I am still a decent box jumper. I don't know about Dr. Šura, though.

³⁾ In the unlikely case someone thinks that he performed the now famous Longhorn cross jump before I did and can reasonably prove it, I am ready to accept whatever silly name he wants to give it. I will not argue about the name but I reserve the right to ask Glen Plake for binding arbitration. I assume that Glen knows every asinine thing that can be done on skis. He may not take the case but if he does, his judgment will be final. Who is going to argue with him?

____________________________________________________________

Pavel Bouska flew and landed many Longhorns and quite a few Box Jumps.
His tailbone is still good and he's very happy about it.

____________________________________________________________

... and the unofficial website of the

Box Jump

in Czech also known as

"bednoskok"