That Click
Over my short lifetime I have looked into many sports, not as many as I would like I follow through into playing regularly. The most recent of my ambitions is surf boat rowing..
One thing I have noticed and love more than anything is that through the learning curve you get that “Click” in your head.. This doesn’t make much sense because it is something I made up, it probably has a name already, but when you make a correction to your technique and notice improvement.
It happens so often during the early adoption of a new activity and drives a persons craving to become better.
I raise this point because it happened during today’s training session, we were going about normally and I’m having a break on the beach watching another crew launch. I see that they finish the leg stage of their strokes really early.. I think okay I’ll try that. And boom! suddenly my strokes are easier to keep in time.
And that was all it took, speeding up one little thing.
I read somewhere that the difference between a beginner and an intermediate weightlifter is once you reach intermediate you no longer make quantifiable gains every session. After the beginners learning curve these “Clicks” become less and less frequent, and they become more and more valuable. So much to the point that you can only find these gems after long periods of mindless practice.
But its a positive feedback loop, the passion for the sport drives your discovery of these gems and the discovery of these gems drive your passion.
Then you get into a routine, your weekly hour training session becomes so much fun you pick up a few more hours. Next thing you know you are there 2 hours a day and doing additional activities like weight training to speed up your development.
At this stage you have to decide whether to go professional, dedicate your life full time to the activity and find the impossibly hidden final gems. The opportunity cost of this often is too large however, your career can’t be pushed to the side. But later in life you regret not following it..
In The Talent Code there was a quote from a tennis player, I can’t for the love of me remember who but he said this:
“If I miss 1 day of training I notice, If I miss 2 days my wife notices, If I miss 3 days the world notices”
This describes the dedication required to maintain the top level of anything, any less and the competition overtakes. Its interesting that If you look at top level soccer players they have to compete against everybody for the most prestigious spots in the worlds favourite sport, the result is the craziest level of achievement and skill (to an extreme not found in other sports). Anything less than perfect is not good enough. They need to be genetically superior, be incredibly lucky and on top of that put in 200% all the time.
and it all starts with the one mental “click”.
Strikee 