"I use this thing a lot:" Backyard trampoline helps high school slopestyle skier perfect stunts, improve skills

MUSKEGO (WITI) -- Visualizing is such a big part of sports and an athlete's success. A local high school athlete's ability to visualize has changed his life.

"Trampolines, a lot of trampolines," Jake Moeller said.

When Jake Moeller goes into his backyard, he quickly becomes one with a very weathered, rickety, yet bouncy, trusty old friend.

"It's pretty beat up, so I mean, pretty important. I use this thing a lot as you can tell. It's old," Moeller said.

The green trampoline that has endured more than just the annual Wisconsin weather patterns is always a welcome sight for Moeller.

While he's happy to be bouncing and twisting again, the disappearance of snow and arrival of spring has Moeller feeling a bit different.

"Most people are happy about it. I'm sad about it. If it could stay winter all year round, I'd be happy," Moeller said.

Even when Moeller would climb onto the roof of the house and jump onto his workout target, his dad Matt really had no idea what was going on.

He just said 'I'm going to go out and play on the trampoline.' Next thing I know, I see him on the ski hill and he's upside down and sideways and all that kind of stuff," Matt Moeller said.

"95%-100% of the time, every trick I've learned on snow, I've ultimately learned on the trampoline first," Jake Moeller said.

When Jake Moeller isn't testing the limits of the trampoline, he tests his own limits on skis as a slopestyle skier.

It involves rails and jumps, going inverted, spinning, stuff like that," Moeller said.

He first put on skis when he was two years old, and by sixth grade, his comfort level became clear.

"I started hitting these little jumps that were just made at my old home mountain. From there I progressed and got better," Moeller said.

"I see him doing tricks that it just comes natural to him, so to me it just looks natural," Matt Moeller said.

Yet Jake Moeller's natural abilities haven't quelled the natural fear his father has when he sees his son working on new stunts.

"I like the fact that he starts small and all that and works up to the big jumps. But I still get nervous when he's upside down or backwards. Whatever he's doing in the air makes me nervous," Matt Moeller said.

"I remember a few times when I've taken a jump and my take off got really weird and I got stuck upside down. I couldn't rotate any more. My body just stopped moving. So I remember just telling myself to stay calm in the air and the landing will be fine then," Jake Moeller said.

That's why his old, trusted friend in the backyard that's been stretched to the limit continues to offer support and help keep Moeller landing safely on the snow.

"It makes me want to progress more to see if I can learn better tricks, double flips, triple flips, things like that," Moeller said.

Jake Moeller has been nationally-ranked in slopestyle, but he's never had a formal lesson or been to a camp. That will change this summer when he goes to Copper Mountain, Colorado. He's hoping that will help to catapult him to the upper echelon of the rankings.