Practice Toward Perfection

The first tack was a little sloppy, but the breeze was light and the lake was flat so it still felt good. I did a fluid roll up into the second tack, but the roll out of it was late and tepid. The third one was fine, good initiation and nice pull out, but I was headed low and over steered getting up to my course.

I paused and collected myself. I was enjoying being out on the lake in the middle of the day, but I was here to practice. Three poor tacks and three subpar results isn’t practice; it’s time on the water and I would have called it practice a couple of years ago when what I needed was to get the fundamentals of my hand and foot work coordinated. My current level of experience requires that I put together all the steps in a roll tack within a much higher range of effectiveness.

I sheeted in and started my practice session over. This time I took advantage of the light air to slow down my tack and pace each aspect of it precisely. It wasn’t perfect, I delayed a bit too long getting to the high side, but it was an average effort for me. The time I invest in practice is invested to improve my average so now I was focused on rolling out of the next tack at the optimal moment. I actually chuckled at myself – optimal was hard to tell without a competitor to gauge myself against.

After another dozen tacks I noticed that my attention had settled on the rhythm of the rolls and that my behind-the-back hand off of the sheet and extension wasn’t as smooth as I can do. I kept the languid pace and continuous tacks going but brought my attention to the choreography of my hands and fingers.

For me, practice is a form of meditation. And just like sitting meditation, I find my attention wandering. And just like meditation I need to draw my attention back to the present moment – the motion of my body and the boat. No recriminations for the slip in attention, just a nudge back to the task at hand. With practice my attention “learns” what it feels like to be placed in the moment and I can keep it there a bit easier, for a bit longer.

Jay Livingston