First up, an embed that is making the rounds,,, Not my personal choice in entertainment, but I recognize talents when I see it, AND these guys are not us over the hill something or nudders that the young’uns give the side-eye to when we start grumpin’ about politics and our Glorious Leadership of such outstanding and upstanding representations of humanity (ok, I think I just got a little sick in my mouth there,,,)
This thing has appeared on three other sites that I know of, but to hell with it, these guys have a message that can be relayed to the younger crowd easily.
as for the ‘scrambled brains’ thing, I have been minutely dissecting my actions over the weekend looking to understand myself. I am not one to rip into someone like I did B, and I didn’t use a single curse-word in doing so,,, That means it came from deep down inside from some small pit I have been storing ‘things that bug me’, and, unfortunately, Bruce was on the receiving end of it.
That’s eating at me: resolution is going to have to wait on it though. Not time to railroad with that one just yet.
hmmm, seem to have lost the thread here,(scrambled brains, I toldya,,,,)
oh yeah,,,,
Skills, Tools and Confidence: This thought was going through my head earlier, and in response to part of a conversation that took place this weekend, but I figured my thinking is able to be shared. Confidence is NOT the tools responsibility. Having GOOD tools can increase your confidence, but shouldn’t replace the key ingredient of it: your skills. Knowing how to do a thing with the least than optimal tool, and do it above par,,, THOSE build confidence. Relying on the tool to accomplish the deed only produces an illusion of confidence. At work, we have a few different welding machines, from the lowest grade ‘home use machine’ to a couple high end pieces and a few in the middle. I can put anyone with three braincells on the Millermatic 210, and have them welding pristine welds in just a few minutes. BUT, put them on our HT130, and they can barely keep the arc together, let alone weld a seam, even if I set the machine up for them. Their confidence with the one machine is gained, but fragile, and asking them to perform the same skill on a different machine will shatter it.
When it comes to the white water thing, I don’t have my confidence built up yet, and I think that is a BIG reason why I blew my top, more than anything else. The tools aren’t the problem either. I watch old vids of wild water racing, and seeing those guys doing things very similar to what are being done today in ‘modern boats’, and know that it all started with the crazy ass slalom boats and guys and gals braving serious water with oversized life-vests and hockey helmets. SO, Its not JUST the tool.
And they gained that skill by getting out on water and daring nature to kill them.
My confidence is lack of seat time, no matter what the tool is. NOW, in kayaking, a seakayak vs a whitewater ‘spud’ boat is like the difference between a 1968 Chevy Impala vs a Porsche Speedster. I have a lot of seat time in the longs, but getting QUALITY seat time in the spud is far and few between. Some of the things do cross pollinate, but not all and sometimes what works in one, is going to screw you up in the other. (like the edging thing,,, what works well in white water can be a JakeBrake in long boats: it depends on the rocker of the long.)
Great example of what I am getting at. Even in the realms of kayaking, some things don’t ‘translate’ well. When I first picked up a “new to me” spudboat, the young lady mentioned ‘how fast’ the ARC was. Now, in long boats, speed is speed, specifically across open water. Agility is how it handles the rough stuff, and if you can ‘man handle it’ into turning on a dime. In White water, Speed is actually Agility, and responsiveness. And if you get the two different paddlers hitting talking points to each other, confusion is bound to happen. IE, I can’t turn Blue Jean 180 while in motion in anything less than 15′ or more. And that is really DIGGING HARD and leaning the hell out of her to do so, and she will shift heading, no matter what,,, The ARC, I can turn 360’s in and never lose heading, and (if my confidence were MUCH better) I could do that smack dab in the middle of the wild stuff. Even with lack of confidence, it gives me the edge of being able to ‘pick a different heading’ without changing heading, then DIGGING IN and making the new heading. Such as floating through a wave train and realizing you are headed for a bridge pillar and want to NOT be doing so. (I still scraped it, but didn’t slam into it. If my confidence had been higher, I wouldn’t have scraped it at all.). The downside to that “Fast”? everything about paddling shifts shorter. Your strokes are shorter for propulsion, your sweeps are shorter, closer or completely reversed depending on what sort of sweep you are doing. The mechanics are the same,( DUH! Physics) But its like that Impala vs Speedster thing. One may be borderline stroker motor, the other is undersquare stroke in the engine: Same power, different strokes, and FASTER reactions in one over the other.
So what is confidence? one definition from the hillbilly dictionary is “Knowing how far you can fuck it up without screwing the pooch. Usually discovered post “Hold my beer“.”
I ain’t there yet. BUT, MY problem I have found is that each time I go to get onto fast water, my physical reactions are stronger (in the negative) despite having survived and surpassed the last time. That tells me there is some other issue in play. I’ll have to sort that one out,,,,
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