Shutting Off the Competitor in Ourselves

Five of us were out playing around in our Lasers a few days ago. The breeze was light, but it never dropped off completely and its direction gave us some good long tacks and runs to work out our spring fumbles. I warmed up and then shouted over to a couple of others that were close to me that we should run some practice laps around a couple of buoys.

To keep the boats fairly close together I suggested that we try to jibe to cover the lead boat on the run and initiate tacking duels to force the lead boat to cover on the beat. After a half dozen tacks the lead boat should drop back and let someone else take the lead.

It didn’t work that well. When most people got in the lead they tended to try to just pull out ahead and maintain the lead. The need to stay ahead outweighed any encouragement toward practicing boat handling or tactics.

It’s just hard to shut off the competitor in us, to work cooperatively at skill building. I sometimes worry that I can do it too easily. I enjoy mastering the flow of decisions and skills and getting there first seems like a secondary goal.

I am reading Stuart Walker’s The Code of Competition. Coaching and psychology is my professional field, but I’m not grabbed by his insights yet. I’m keeping an eye on whether I allow my social pulls to trump my competitive pulls. I’ll keep you in the loop as I race and read.

 Jay Livingston