Patience with your self: How I learned the flip-turn

Listening to an account of how my brother, after nearly a decade in repose, made his triumphal return to competitive swimming today, I was reminded of a story from my own swimming past. For lack of a better name, let's just call it, "How I learned to do a flip-turn."

For those who don't know, a flip-turn is a technique used by pool-bound competitive swimmers to reverse direction at a wall during a race. It's only legal with two of the four strokes (freestyle and backstroke), but it's basically essential for competition (here's a video explanation).

It's not necessary early in one's swimming career, as most races last only a single lap; no change in direction, no problem. As one gets older, however, the race distance grows, as does the need for fast, efficient turns. It's at this point when most young swimmers begin learning the technique.

As I recall, this happened about the same time I took up long-division, and the initial results of both were about equal; that is to say, spectacular failures. I tried to make up for my seeming lack of natural ability by obsessively studying the mechanics of each from afar, watching, noting, and trying to imagine the process in my head. And while all this watching, noting, and imagining did succeed in heightening my anxiety over the matter, if did little to further my progress in learning the technique. A test-trial here and there confirmed my suspicion: I was not getting any better, and would soon be left behind by my peers.

I did master both skills eventually, and the break-through--much like the hang-up--occurred for very similar reasons. In both cases, forward progress occurred when I did the following:

1.) I stopped belittling my lack of skill.
2.) I broke down the difficult task into manageable components.
3.) I found that "manageable" was still too much, and simplified further.
4.) I performed the "simplified-manageable" components repeatedly.
5.)  Finally, I gave the process as much time as required. It was a long time by most standards, but eventually it worked.

This was a very important learning experience for me, and may prove illuminating for others. Most everyone at some point has a hang-up, or becomes frustrated for lack of progress in a desired direction. I found that frustration is normal, but rarely leads to much good. As a friend once told me, all emotions are valid; all reactions are not.

In learning to do a flip-turn, the first step for me involved an act of patience; I had to stop hating my lack of skill before proceeding. After that, it became a matter of reasoned action, finding the optimal approach for mastering each component according to my specific needs. It took a while for me to master the flip-turn, but it might never have happened had that act of patience not occurred, and "never" is a whole lot longer than "a while."

Learning something difficult seems to take time and well-considered action. One's progress varies according to circumstances and the pace of one's learning curve. Accordingly, a little patience with your self in this endeavor may go a long way. Something, perhaps, to consider.

Happy Sunday, friends :)

If you liked this post, feel free to share it with others. Many thanks!