Coaching Fundamentals: Creating a Common Purpose

I find coaches in Singapore are excellent examples of the sport in their own right. They are technically proficient in their sport, possess technically sound fundamentals in the strategies employed in the sports that they have played in for years and create good platforms for the those who are willing to learn the sport that they so enjoyed in their years in the sport.

However, I believe fundamentally, we as coaches find some difficulty expressing the desire for the teams we coach to excel by creating a common purpose for individuals who come from many different backgrounds and experiences. I personally found this a challenge because each person in the team has their own motives and reasons as to why they join the sport of their choosing. I hope to share in this post how I have personally gone into framing the minds of my teams to create a shared purpose for them to paddle not just for themselves but for the good of the team.

1) Objectives / Goals
I think it can be clearer to the team if the objectives of joining the team can be expressed right from the start. Many coaches fail to see this as an important point to unite the team in the shared purpose of pursuing their goals. Whether be it finishing the race together even if they come in last, or racing till their lungs burst, the objective has to met out to the team to set the expectations for the team.

2) Expectations
Although used interchangeably with the word "objective", I believe the word expectations has a more roundedness in its use, especially when used in the long term. The team has to understand how their expectations of themselves has to match the objectives of the team and how they are to be accountable for their own improvement. I have personally set the bar high for my teams to expect the best of themselves in any of the training sessions they are to execute because only then will they be able to race easy. As they say, train hard, race easy.

3) Clarity
It is only with clarity of what the team wants that will fully embody the purpose of the team's existence. If the leadership in the team becomes clear with the above two points, the team will set a higher standard for themselves in achieving the goals set for them. The reasons and purpose for them to come to training will become stronger as they see a clear direction in the path the team is taking.

I think the challenge in coaching young teams has definitely giving due time to make sure that the above 3 points are constantly being imbued into each training session. Setting goals, expectations and giving clear directions in the actions they take in each training session gives them a strong purpose in achieving success in such a dynamic environment where many individuals may have different opinions and establish their own set of expectations. I hope that I may have done better in this aspect, because I know there is only so little in terms of fundamentals that I can coach, for the better part of the team's success is getting them to paddle with one heart, one mind and one soul.

Singapore River Regatta 2013: Post Race Reflections

With the Singapore River Regatta 2013 behind me, I have seen all my teams earn credible results in their outings in their respective categories..

Team MSF finished their race beating their previous timings in trainings.. They fought incredibly hard against their much more experienced opponents and I could see it in their eyes that wanted to do better out on their next outing. I admire their courage for taking up the sport and I can see much more potential in them with more to come:)

Team NUS managed to go into the tertiary finals only missing out on a podium spot by mere seconds. Their juniors went in fighting for a spot in the semi-finals of the mens open also missing out by mere split seconds. I only can say that it is only really the beginning of more exciting things come March when they battle it out again with their rivals in their Tertiary Category. It will take time and effort to reach the possible goals that they are going to achieve. It is going to be an excellent season ahead!

And finally, I ended the weekend with a truly deserved second place finishing with Team OneStroke in the PA GRO finals.

The runners up, all smiles!

More of the winning team!

That race was truly a nail biting finish as they were behind for most of the race until the final 25 meters where they edged out the other 2 competitors to finish a close second merely 0.2 seconds behind their rivals.

The race was purely exhilarating even from shore; when we only managed to inch past almost everyone only in the final few meters of the race.

What made that second place finish more delightful was that for many of these paddlers, they have been awaiting a Regatta medal for many years; for a few as long as 5 years and for one, an excruciatingly long 7 years.. I was not only happy for the results but the true happiness it brings to the entire team for them to experience a new level of greatness that they have ever rarely felt before.

It all started from believing in the will to win, regardless of their circumstances and ability because it is all this team truly needed at the start.

The management team with me, Edwin, our team manager and Jojo our captain. 

I have still to learn alot more of this fine art of dragon boat, a classic sport that truly entails all manner of beauty, grace, aggression and skill all combined into one majestic performance on race day.

Time for me to reflect back on my learnings and learn more to share with the world this art and science of dragon boat paddling. Till my next post..

Yours Truly,
The Original Paddlegeek

Goals: How to Stay Focused When You Get Bored of your Sport

Having been a student athlete for the past decade plus of my life, I have had constant goals and dreams which i have always wanted to achieve in the course of my athletic pursuits. However, as many of you would have encountered, it can be difficult to stick to these goals. Every step of the way, I would hear of an athlete who comes in with lots of enthusiasm in the sport, seems to possess all the talents necessary of the sport; fit, athletic, extremely well built and runs like a bull on the track. Traits many might imagine may be perfect like a sport like dragon boat.
But as the drudgery of school, relationships and family commitments move along in their tertiary life, they fall out of the sport in pursuit of things that matter more. 

Photo by Getty Images

Race Piece Breakdown Part 1: The Starts

The starts in a dragon boat race set has been and still is the most adrenaline pumping moment for any racer who takes part in a race. Let me paint the scenario a little more clearly through the eyes of a racer called Jackson. 

Courtesy of Boston.com

Jackson is a strong and powerful athlete, weighing in a mere 70 kilos but has the strength of a bull on a rampage on a good day. Sitting in the pace group as the second pair of paddlers, he has the responsibility to set the pace for the rest of his team with mininum error to maximise the potential of his team heading at the start. His team has practiced doing the starts during practice sessions at 90-100 strokes per minute and he knows he's not holding back. As soon as race horn sounds, he will pull with all his might to push the boat up to speed and hit the team's intended top speed as soon as possible. He is going to release every ounce of energy on the first 20 strokes or its nothing at all. His heart is pounding furiously as he awaits the inevitable sound of the horn. Adrenalin is pumping into his veins like never before. Its the finals of the National Championships and it is now or never. A second later, the announcer makes the final adjustments..

Are you readyyyyy? 

Attention!!!

(Sounds Horn)

For the split moment of a second, Jackson shifts himself into a self-induced trance like state, adrenalin surging through his veins as he pulls the immensely heavy pool of water in front of him with his newly bought carbon fibre paddle. The water boils past him as he moves in for his second stroke, then his third and before he realises it, his team is running at an incredible pace at 100 strokes a minute. It seemed like forever when at the 20 stroke into the starts he transitions into race pace at 80 strokes a minute. He catches quick glance at the team beside him and he sees no boat in sight. He knows his team got it but there's still two thirds of the race to go. 

In sprint races or 200m to 500m in length, this behemoth of the race piece is one of the most difficult parts of the race to execute to its maximum potential due to the sheer physical strength and speed that it requires from the paddlers to reach the boat's critical maximum speed. Teams in Singapore have been known to hit speeds of up to 16-17km/hr based on actual GPS readings but on the international front, I'm sure it has went closer to 19km/hr. 

So what makes a good start piece? 

Having been a padder myself for the past 7 years, I've seen myself hitting 90 spm (strokes per minute) starts to really initiate any sort of advantage against the competition. Yet, technically it is really difficult to achieve due to the following factors:

1) Technical Proficiency of the paddlers
This is meant in the sense of the paddler understanding what he is doing to the water when he is at that rating. I've been to races trying to race at 90spm and I really felt that I basically didn't do anything to the water other than shove it out of my way. But when a more technically experienced paddler does it, he has a clear understanding of the essence of the catch every time he pulls the water even at high ratings. 

2) Physical limitations 
Going in depth into the muscularity of the paddler, the stroke rating may very well be defined by how well conditioned his fast twitch muscle fibres are able to move at high speeds. Many paddlers at the recreational/novice stages may not have fully developed fast twitch muscle fibres in their body to initiate any form of power through the starts nor hit high stroke rates due to lack of conditioning. 

3)Weight of the boat. 
As far as I remember, I only managed to hit these high ratings and high speeds in boats like the Champion or the German Buk. Never have I hit my best timings in heavier boats like the Malaysian Kim Tuck Huat boats. Its very much more challenging to push a 15-20 stroke start piece in a KTH than trying to hit it at 80-90 strokes per minute in a German BUK or Chinese Champion. 


Typical vs the 5-5-5 method
Typical starts that are very common in Singapore are known as the extended starts; made up of a 5-6 stroke slow stroke followed by 20-30 strokes at a rating of 80-90 spm. Many in the community deem it the NORM which I find a fallacy when it comes to racing at the international standard where boats like the Champion are used. 

The New Starts: 5-5-5 method
A recent blog I read suggests using a 15-20 stroke routine broken up into 5-5-5 strokes to increase the instantaneous increase in speed to hit the top speed of the boat.Each of the 5 stroke increase in spm of 10 strokes spm to ramp up as high as the paddler possibly can handle. I find this radical but yet very logical at the same time. Why? Because extended starts although suitable for heavier boats, do little to increase instantaneos boat reaction at the start. It ramps up the speed over a longer time which also hampers total timings. 

The new way of doing starts emphasises the importance of the use of ATP in the muscles in the window of opportunity where it comes and goes within a span of 10 seconds. Any energy expended beyond that is in the part aerobic region which defeats the purpose of using all out Power at the part of the race. Therefore an extended starts that run almost 20 seconds into the race do little to the athletes to maximise their aerobic energy systems which could have already been expended in the starts. 

I don't mean to deny the merits of the starts that we already have been using for the years that i've been paddling for. However, it does not hold ground when we really figure out the energy systems that we use. I think talk is cheap so I'm trying this new method out with my team to really see if we can get any results from this method. I hope this information has been useful to you guys. Till then! Paddles Out!

Quote of the Day

Do it at your best! 

10 reasons Why LKY Could Have Been an Awesome Dragon Boat Coach

To commemorate our founding father's, Mr Lee Kuan Yew's 90th birthday, I thought I'd put up a tongue in cheek post of something no one thought about.. If he could have been a dragon boat coach.. Here's what I imagined him to be... 

5 reasons why Singapore Dragon Boat is Stagnating

More often than not, you will hear your dragon boat friends rave about the recent races at the Singapore Dragonboat Festival (SDBF) and exclaim how well they did during the races and how well the top teams did in the Opens Category. Congratulations to NTU for coming in first in the Men's Opens.While it seems like a true feat to be the best in Singapore, to the trained eye, I have seen a not much improvements to the timings clocked over 500m race distances. 

Before I touch on the 5 reasons why our dragon boat scene is stagnating, I would like to emphasize that none of these are gathered facts but truly opinions of my own. Based on observation and fact finding plus a few interviews from coaches, I think its fair to be a critic so that our Singaporean paddlers to continue to improve beyond the standards we have today. Maybe you may find a better reason and we could share over a cup of coffee:)

#1 Singaporeans are too impatient

Dragon boat paddling is a very very very very technical skill that requires years to master. Honestly, in my short athletic career I only really learnt how to paddle the best way to my ability when I got the experience after 4 years of paddling. Yes, you heard right. 4 years. But it seems many of us tend to treat learning this skill like writing your name. As long as you can write your name down properly, you can buy a Mont Blanc pen to sign your name on anything that needs it. 

This attitude of learning is probably a Singaporean thing. When we learn something in the workplace, it has to be learnt fast and as efficiently as possible to make sure we get the job done. Many paddlers bring this idea to the water, that when they can paddle with a wooden paddle after 1 month, they need a carbon fibre paddle. I only got mine after I paddled for 5 years. This impatience has created a big boom to the paddling business. Everyone can afford to buy one because it looks good, but sadly few know how to properly paddle with one. 

#2 Getting bigger and stronger is always the first priority

As I have covered in a previous post, generations upon generations of paddlers have come to believe that paddling requires monstrous biceps and a huge chest to be able to paddle well. Oh man, they are so wrong. One of my ex-teammates who was paddling for one of the tertiary teams in the PM cup was a mere dwarf at 48 kilos. But was he any weaker than the rest of the squad? His team came in 0.23 seconds behind another which had 2 thirds of them weighing over 70 kilos. The paddler's experience made the difference not his size. Of course size can be a factor especially in the eyes of coaches who were brought up in the era of big = strong, but these days, the complexity of the sport has evolved so much that winning teams require so much more than just brute strength to win races, much less clock world class timings. This myth has been debunked on many occasions but still, the legend continues. 

#3 Singaporeans are too vocal

As far as history is concerned, dragon boat is a Chinese tradition that has evolved into a spectacular sport that has gained many enthusiasts all over the world. The sport just like its original predecessors believed that it was a communal sport where it brought together people in the village together to row as one. It is very much "let's just follow what our seniors has taught us and not do our own thing kinda sport.". Well, that just doesn't happen in Singapore. Competitive teams face issues of paddlers who may have come from different backgrounds and experiences to dictate their own way of the perfect stroke. In the end, we end up with a mish mash of strokes in the same team that may not truly optimise the performance of the boat in general. Teams have been stuck at timings which they see year after year of races which sadly does not justify the number of hours they put into training. We put creativity in the wrong place in a very communal environment where everyone should be doing the same thing every time. 

#4 Paddling is only a hobby

In all honesty, coaching has brought me a new side stream of income that allowed me a few more luxuries in my life and I love it. Fact is we can NEVER make real money off dragon boat either as an athlete or a coach.  It is sad to see the turnover rate of many of our top teams in Singapore either due to the more practical reasons like work, NS or in some students' cases. overseas exchange which is something well worth giving up dragon boat for. Our standards will only improve if people take it as seriously as the PM cup, where the standards for winning races become high enough to our regional neighbours. But it will never take shape because we won't earn money from it. Yes I do, but not as a paddler. I have struggled through school because I chose paddling over working part time but that was a choice I made. But for many people who are definitely more pragmatic, who would want to give up 6 months of exchange for a race that lasts 4 minutes? 

# Singaporeans teams are generally selfish

I was having a conversation with another coach in the dragon boat fraternity and we were exchanging views of how the race timings were barely improving year upon year. We have never gotten to the levels our regional neighbours are at internationally and I was searching for answers. 

He explained to me in the most simplest of terms that Singaporean teams are a selfish bunch of paddlers. We like to come together to paddle and race but teams hate it when paddlers move over to another team better to improve ourselves. One example is how we gather paddlers for our National team (Nteam). It has been a well known fact that anyone joining the Nteam has to commit fully for all their trainings for obvious reasons, however these paddlers may come from many of the tertiary teams that usually prepare intensely for their most crucial races in the SDBF. Misunderstandings led to another and soon many of these paddlers lose the time to train with their tertiary teams causing a lot of rife between the National Squad and their tertiary teams. Today, it has almost come to a point that if you are ever in a tertiary team, you had better not join the Nteam because we will kick you out. Today, the Nteam has taken a beating knowing that the best talent that it can muster from the nation's limited pool of paddlers is clearly not trying out for the simple reason where these paddlers fear to be judged by their  "original teammates". Sad to say, as long as this persistence of being selfish stays, we will never be truly able to say that this National team is the best one that we have in the country. I guess it is really a mentality where being Asian, we have this stigma of being left out and being judged which is very unfair knowing how much we progressed as a "westernised" society. I guess some things are meant to stay in our very modern Singapore. 

Wrapping it up

I hope you have enjoyed this light-hearted article of 5 reasons why our dragon boat scene is stagnating. While there may be more reasons why we may be stuck, I guess these are the more salient ones for our situation now. 

Nevertheless, I always believe in the future of our sport and how well it progressed throughout the years. I will never discount the fact where many teams have seen incredible improvements in race timings on a local level. I hope this may generate discussions for people who are interested in a good debate. Till the next article!

5 Simple Ways to Take Advantage of Your Body Type and Outperform your Competition!

In physiology, the human performance can vary from many factors which include body types or somatotype as it is scientifically known. We make references to these body types and refer to them as fat, thin or lean. To better educate the layman, it helps to know which category of the body types you fall under and to use the following general physiological terms to describe these body types. These definitions are courtesy of www.brianmac.co.uk. 

Are you fat, beefcake or athletic?

Mesomorph

A mesomorphic individual excels in strength, agility, and speed. Their medium structure and height, along with their tendency to gain muscle and strength easily makes them a strong candidate for a top athlete in any sport. They can sustain low body fat levels and find it easy to lose and gain weight.

Endomorph

An endomorphic individual typically has short arms and legs and a large amount of mass on their frame. Their mass hampers their ability to compete in sports requiring high levels of agility or speed and perform sustained weight bearing aerobic activities such as running. Sports of pure strength, like power lifting, are perfect for an endomorph. They can gain weight easily and lose condition quickly if training stops.

Ectomorph

Individuals in this category are typically long, slender and thin, and therefore power and strength sports are perhaps not suitable as their slight build leaves them susceptible to injuries. While they can easily get lean and hard, their lack of musculature severely limits their chances in sports requiring mass. Ectomorphs dominate endurance sports and gymnastics. They can archive low levels of body fat which can be detrimental to health and for females in endurance sports it can result in a cessation of periods and iron deficiency. 

So what can you do about it?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. As much as you would want to change your body type; genetics play a huge part in what kind of athlete you already are. However, here are 5 ways for you to get the most of your god given body. 

1)Master the technique of your sport well

Whichever the chosen sport that you engage in regularly, it makes sense to take advantage of your body type by mastering the technique well. Mesomorphs who play soccer can learn to sprint faster, ectomorphs in volleyball to spike better and endomorphs to powerlift with better form. You will learn to generate better performances simply by complementing your genetics.  

2)Take advantage of your strengths

God gave you your body for a reason so use that body in the best way possible. Try sports that fit your body type and you never know it might be the right direction for you. 

3)Adapt to a diet suitable for your goals

Eat right!

If you wanted to lose weight, eat a diet that will help you lose weight and vice versa. It will not help one bit if you knew you were an ectomorph but you are still eating like a mouse trying to gain weight. Fit your diet to your goals and see more performance increases in your strength and general health.  

4)Understand the training responses for your body type

Ectomorphs respond to training with heavy, low rep sets with a minimal number of total sets per workout.  Ectomorphs need to resist the urge to increase volume because it increases metabolism and depletes glycogen. 

Endomorphs are better suited to short-term high intensity cardio of 15-25 minutes total duration, 5-6 times per week. Endo’s also respond better to multiple short sessions of hard cardio spread throughout the day. Endomorphs rarely exhibit overtraining symptoms. 

Mesomorphs make good bodybuilders but have a tendency to gain fat easily. They need to follow a program geared toward building a harder and leaner physique. They respond well to heavy, high-rep work. There is also a need to include basic movements without neglecting detail and finishing exercises.

5)Create a positive image of what you want to be

You will never be happy with the body that you have unless you already have a positive mental picture of yourself. Your body is the physical ambassador of your thoughts so believe in the strength of your body type regardless of how it looks now. Believe in a stronger version of yourself and work towards that goal constantly. 

you can do it!

Although we have been given the body to start with it is very much a degree of 'you are what you train for' It does form a starting point for sports selection but learning to deal with it and taking advantage your body's abilities will psychologically push you ahead of the competition! If you like this post, please share it with your friends and like the Facebook page @  Paddlegeeksingapore 

5 Quick Ways To More Successful Goal Setting and Win Races!

Goal setting is a very common phrase everyone uses in many fields to establish absolute success in the different areas they may be in. Although individually it may be very simple to set goals for yourself, it is incredibly challenging for a coach or a captain to really define and set goals in the context of a team because of many different reasons and factors involved. I hope that with these 5 quick tips and lots of hard work, you are able to bring your team to podium finishes and act as a guide for recreational or competitive teams  to define a particular set of guidelines to set the all important race targets!

1) Establish Ground Rules - Before we set up any goals at all, each of the paddlers must be able to agree to a set of ground rules for the team to apply any sort of goals at all. Based on my experience as a team vice captain as well as a coach, it has been a challenge for myself to set any sort of definitive goal when most of the team can't even arrive on time for trainings. As simple as it may sound, set standards for starting on time; even starting without 5 paddlers who are late. It will emphasize great credibility in the team's culture and accepted practices and maintain discipline in an otherwise chaotic mess of 30-40 people. Peer pressure works everytime. 

2) Break Things Down - Getting the paddlers to know what they are aiming for in a particular race may be challenging to paddlers especially if they are new to the sport. Apart from the more experienced paddlers, these newer paddlers may need to be educated in what entails a good timing for a 500m race. For example, I break each race phase down to expected timings for them to visualise and internalise; hit their max speed for starts within 20 seconds or maintain an average of 250m splits in 1:04 minutes. breaking things down this way helps them understand better how their timing can improve in each part of the race while building up to the full race sequence. It definitely creates better mental focus in each phase that they try to execute.

3) Be Specific - I think this point could not be stressed more. Coaches these days use the ever popular phrase "try your best" which I sometimes am guilty of using alot. However, it makes more sense to the paddlers to strive for " 15km/hr in the first 20 seconds of your starts by May" or " Maintain an average speed of 14.5km/hr for at least 250m in a 500m race by July 2013". It makes the team clearer about what, when and how they are going to achieve these goals and creates a sense of urgency with a time parameter.

4) Let the team set the goal themselves - This may sound very inherently impossible to accomplish because the team may not exactly understand how to define the goals. This is where the coach must come in to educate the team in providing choices to how the team can meet these goals. It can be a multiple choice question where 3 sets of timings leads to 3 different sets of training programmes; the faster timings attached to the more intensive training programmes. Or it can be as simple as going around and asking "what do you think our likely timing for a 500m race should be?". Question and answer sessions can greatly increase the sense of ownership for the team's members and create a high level of enthusiasm in the team's goals.

5) Be Realistic - Eventually the coach will need to assess whether the team is able to accomplish the goals set within the given time frame; sometimes given the team's recreational nature, it won't make sense for him to set goals close to elite timings. The coach therefore needs to make a fair judgement of where his team is and truth be told if they can win races. While it is possible for a varsity team to win medals at the tertiary finals, are they really ready to beat the rest of the nations top teams considering their experience level?

Based on a fair amount of experience at the varsity levels, these guidelines have helped me establish goals that are literally SMARTer; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Based. Establishing these guidelines will definitely help your team in one way or another get to a podium finish or even ending off a fantastic season with a bang. I hope everyone enjoyed this post thoroughly. Till the next time! PaddleGeek signing off!

Discover 7 Secrets to Achieve a Stronger, Athletic Body

In my years of training as an athlete, I have had many experiences of friends and family asking me how I got a body like mine and I find it distracting knowing that I trained without even thinking of a a nice lean body in the first place. It just came with all that training. With some knowledge and experience, I began to understand why exactly it was so easy for myself to build a strong athletic body through these well known secrets.. 

1. Do Pull ups. Period. There was a reason why armies around the world believe that pull ups are the most effective exercise for gauging strength in the upper body for its recruits. How else could they have tested thousands upon thousands of recruits coming through its doors? It is the best compound exercise that involves the arms, traps, lats , shoulders and even your abdominals, so nothing else really beats it. If pull ups are not in your regime, you can really forget about building strength at all. Just get a pull up bar start pulling. Period!

2. Eat your greens. Eating vegetables have always been a part of my diet ever since my mum told me its good for me. Yeah and I really ate anything that looks green because I know it is good. A good balance of fruits do just well and it does help in the overall immune system. If you're not a green person, you better start now. 

3. Do not think about the outcome. It is ok to think about your goal of becoming the lean, mean, fighting machine that you want to be, but its easier if you take it one step at a time. I think you should be looking forward to creating a new experience with your body with every training that comes along so that you will feel more pumped and regenerated, looking forward to the next workout. If looking at the mirror and seeing that extra few inches is so important to you, the trouble is, it will never be enough. 

4. Do interval training, I hate it but its good. Nothing else in the world gets your body to sweat, your heart to race and your testosterone pumping than a good old interval workout. Studies have shown tremendous results in  athletes engaging in interval training for increasing VO2 Max, muscular endurance as well as just general aerobic conditioning for the fitness enthusiast. It can be done through weights, running or just about any cardiovascular activity. So what you waiting for? 

5. Get yourself out of the couch more. Move, just start moving. Do anything other than sit down. The human body is created in such a way that sitting down on a chair is the most unnatural thing to do but people do it for more than 8 hours a day. So what is the problem? When you sit down, you disengage the back muscles from doing its work, which is to stabilise the core. Your posture starts to sag and before you know it, TA DA!! Backpain! Which brings me to my next point..

6. Work your core. Stop doing crunches because they don't work. Yes of course, that's the easiest one you can do but why do easy when you know it doesn't work. There is a plethora of core exercises you can do that you can find on the internet. Wipers, L-sits, L-sit pull ups, superman, back extensions and many more. But that is harder to do you say? That's the point isn't it?

7. Have fun with friends. I think the one key ingredient to really working out and having that athletic body is really just to have a blast with your friends. Being in a team sport really makes it much easier to do this as everyone would have the similar fitness goals as you do and it makes training a whole lot more fun. Let your body experience new challenges and frontiers together with friends and you will reap the benefits as a RESULT of your efforts. 

Nothing difficult to think about really but these were really fundamentals that made me who I am today. Staying really active and getting into an atmosphere where training is fun. Give it your best shot! You really never know what your limits are until you go for it!

Learning to learn. A skill for Lifelong Learning.

All of us have many motivations when it comes to learning the subject of our choice. Many children learn as a result of exploration just like how my baby niece does. They do it through trying by trial and error many different ways of how to balance themselves on their feet, legs and hands to move forward or toward a toy that they may be interested to play with. Naturally, they also learn through mistakes that there are certain ways that do not make moving feasible such as walking with their feet pointed in so on and so forth. 

Why are you afraid to learn a new skill?

Then why else does an adult learn differently? How exactly does an adult learn at all and why is it that he or she doesn't learn a skill as well as he should have. Adults generally set limitations on themselves on the things that they want to learn because of the fear of people judging them. That they cannot do a better job that others can. That they are not good at a skill. Logically, it does make common sense to not do the thing that you can't do well.

 I realise that I fall into this trap where I would be afraid to learn something especially if people were able to judge me or look at how lousy I was. This is especially true of when I see adult swimmers in the pool whom had no swimming background trying to swim their laps for the first time. 

An example: Adult Swimmers

A  few minutes of close observation in a typical public swimming pool will reveal a stark reality of adult swimmers; that most of them will not even go back to learning how they used to as a baby or a child, via exploration. All they want is to get from point A to point B (i.e. one end of the pool to the other) in the shortest time possible. But with swimming being such a technique driven skill that is very much alike to walking, why is the adult skipping the steps of nature to get towards the desired outcome? Shouldn't we be learning just like how our children do? 

Race for knowledge vs Exploration 

As much as our pursuit of knowledge comes at a price, be it in time, effort or money, I believe that the learning of the knowledge through exploring the subject matter has more desirable outcomes than if it was to pursue the skill in the shortest amount of time. It drives the creativity out of learning to see someone racing to get learn the skill without going through the necessary steps to success. 

To put theory into practice, I have begun a personal journey of learning to learn again in various subjects. One of them being writing this blog, learning to swim, picking up new sports, learning German, revisiting strength training fundamentals and even learning to do a muscle up all in the name of fun. Although there were outcomes I knew I wanted to achieve, I knew the entire process of trial and error was inevitable for myself to achieve success. I look forward to learning more in my journey for personal development and I hope this article has inspired you to do the same. 

Learn to learn. It will feed your mind for life.