Goal setting is such a big thing in sports pyschology and career /lifestyle coaching. Dream. Think big! Or else "any road will take you there, if you don't know where you are going".
According to this school of thought, ve high goals should be set, as a challenge, as a comfort disrupter, as the best way to g high acheivement. However, how many high goals are never, ever realised and how many poeple just fall off the carousel, without even making any improvement? How many managers change lots without really acheiving anything? How many sports people train vaguely towards a massively distant goal only to blame mediocre performance on lady-luck?
The last point is far from mute in sailing. In reality, few champions have actually started out with the goal on outset of an Olympic medal or a world cup series win.
I will not mince my words here. Throw out lofty, precise goals, and bring in imprecise ambitions. Ambition is an emotional status rather than an actual arithmetic, qualitative goal. Ambitions can easily be right-sized, without the driving emotion being destroyed. Unachieavble goals, by being unrealistic or distant, serve only to frustrate and demotivate along the way to greatness!
Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water here by any means here, regarding goal setting. We need goals - we must have goals. Only that these goals are much, much smaller, supremely precise and tenable in the next session out on the water, or in the gymn, or in the 'library'. We will cover this modest and incremental goal-achieve philosophy in depth later, and go back to the principles of 'marginal gains' in terms of goal-setting and box-ticking.
Be Ambitious !
Back to ambitions, and the emotional drive we have in sport. It should be a Yin & Yang thang actually. We should on the black side, hate losing and chastise ourselves for idle mistakes. On the white side we should love winning but also love improving. Delight in self- correcting. Dare in trial-and-error.
We come then to the learning curve. There is an initial sailing competently round the course, after getting off the line on time, and this is a steep first portion of the curve in any career. We then maybe plateau a bit while we make small gains in use of rules and boat speed. Many, many sailors get stuck somewhere on the second steep bit where we start to eat our way up the fleet and need to learn boat length-by-boat length, how to beat the boat just ahead. On this ramp, we have to learn to be competant with all the rules, consumate in manoevres, polished in team coreography and commanding over boat prep' and rig tuning.
After this steep 'mid section', we may reach a portion of diminishing returns, where we have to put in much more effort to learn something from which we actually get a smaller positive effect. We need then to consider the removal of minor obstacles and unrequired stress on competitors and teams, and look at the net quantitative of small improvements ie the theory and practice of Marginal Gains.
Gains and Goals - Small is Beautiful
Each and every step though up that steep, amd often long, middle hill in racing includes definable, measurable and acheivable goals. They need to be really small, and you need to train away from the race nights or days in order to isloate the challenge and work to overcome it.
So for example, i needed to learn a great deal more finesse in dinghy helming. Firstly i was able to analyse the issues- i was too harsh on the tiller, and fumbled the sheet. Outside of racing, I booked some specific instruction, including as a bit of a challenge, roll tacks and gybes, in a Laser II at a sailing school. I also hired a Laser single hander to tootle around in myself, and focus on tiller control, sheet grasp, and my new found roll skills - which were a fortuity to have chosen at this point because in fact rolling and pitch are very key to smooth helming. My sailing leapt up the results board and I actually won the first yacht race that i had ever helmed from start to finish, by a country mile that year.
Now you see that it is a very low level break down for small goals which join to build achievement. Also the outset, the problems- to paraphrase, any road will take you there if you don't know where you're starting. "Challenges" is so hackneyed a euphenism....what are you crap at ? When and where do you fall behind other competitors? These should be minor problems, components of a larger performance picture, which lead to low threshold goal setting, and even further breaking those goals down into sub elements which are simpler to focus on solving and then performing.
The learning curve is steeper here not because it is per se harder to learn in the mid phase - the gains are higher than the same input earlier or later. You have a base learning which was often slow, fumbling and frustrating. You then have a base competance and you start to guilp down new skills and improvements at an often exhiliarating rate - on each start, each beat, each new wind/wave condition and each coaching session.
Meeting Ambition with Stepping Stones en Route
All the time along the curve, AMBITION is our fuel cell. Yet like climbing mount everest, we maybe live in fear and trepidation of the huge goal, but set out up the foothills to see how far we come and enjoy the way. The next small summit we can get to and hold that altitude, is a building block on the way to higher things.
Now going back to my clumsy dinghy helming, i used to own and race (badly) a Tasar which has a rectangular cockpit and broad gunwhale/decks. The tiller end should not need to go outside the inner edge of the deck, otherwise you are braking the boat with too much rudder angle. It was quite easy to fix- just concentrating , looking firstly, at keeping the tiller in, and then getting the feel for it "blind" : on- and off-wind, and during tacks and gybes. Combined with heel, pitch and sail balance sheeting I made a lot of progress that year from a small area of identifiable problem.
Starts arw often a bug- bear , fitness /strength can be a limiting factor, beat strategy can be a mystery, mark-rounding can be nervous, boat prep and rig setti gs need gto be learned. If you sat a goal to be champion, and thougnt that x hours per week get you there, then you might not see that you have one of these issues.
Coaching and Sailing with Better Sailors
Getting perspectives from outside your own bubble is vital to the process of keeping your learning curve in an upwards direction. Otherwise you will be 'myopic' to two things-
i. which elements you are truly weakest in
ii. how little a threshold there is to improve markedly.
My own personal approach to getting coached and cajouled is as an adult, and never part of the whole youth sqaud and teen-yachty scene. So I use either sailing schools or sail with better racers. In the first, I either have just gone and done an RYA certificate ( 2 and 4 in the old system) or I have booked one to one sessions to examine specific weaknesses or techniques. This has paid huge dividends and kept my learning curve steep, rather than unproductive from my own Tasar sailing alone. Also it informed by yacht and sports-boat racing immensely, adding finesse and even courage.
Secondly I was invited to sail with really competitve sailors, by pure chance or by them becomijng friends through the scene. What I immediately noticed was that they do very little different in fact from mid fleet 'dog boats'. There was no quantum leap. I have blogged on this before, but to summarise :
a) better boat prep, newer equipment and sails, everything works on board
b) confidence and aplomb on start lines, usually avoiding the worst of possible 'stramashes' at the biased end, or being in an aggressive, controlling position up there.
c) Spotting mistakes and wind shifts early and making correction or preparation
d) better boat handling - fewer mistakes, good team work, equipment fully functional
e) good wind and tide strategy. A bit more knowledge about all this on the course, and being able to interpret the natural signs of changes and shifts.
'Challenges" Are Actually Problems to Be Eradicated
I prefer to think of eradicating problems rather than tackling challenges. The latter is too soft a language- in my opinion you want to stamp out mistakes and performance issues. Challenge should be something longer term, part of your ambition.
You see the challenge as say a 20% improvement in your placings over last season. The first identifiable issue is getting a good start. Nerves are the problem at the route of this. Pratice starts; not taking some races so seriously; letting someone better helm; understanding the 'burn time' approach - these are your tools to overcome the issue and core nervousness problem.
Each problem, issue or gap in knowledge is then fixable, and gives quantifiable results in terms of boat lengths and in turn, results lisiting. Here we come back to marginal gains, because at the top you are looking at less than single boat lengths to beat your oponent by, especially off the start and on the first beat and run.
Marginal Gains and Mistake-Reduction
As all the good texts written by the medalists write, this aim of getting it right and also then making marginal gains, begins off the water with boat prep'. Small tweeks and improvements gain half or even qaurter boat legnths off the start line by superior boat speed, or the same margin of gain in ease and ergonomics for hoists or on-water gear changes. Add some more work in the gymn, some more hours on the water training, and you start to see that small improvements add together.
Sailing to win in a fleet is by in large a case of stretching your neck out ahead of the pack. After this, the gains are almost exponential becasuse you sail in your own wind, with fewer boats to encounter or slow you down at mark roundings. Very many OD races i have seen are characterised by the end of the first round by there being one boat in a definiative lead with a second maybe five boat legnths back, a third a littke bavk again but with a posse of chasers right on her heels. Then there is often a little gap or sparse patch, followed by the masses. The fact is that there is no miracle that the first three have built clear air for themselves- yes undoubtedly they know what they are doing anhave good boat prep. But the combined marginal gains they have made over the rest of the top third of the fleet results in them stretching their neck out.
Back to my favourite Uffa Fox philosophy for the common situation of "feast or famine" with the leaders eating greedily at the table of fresh wind - the third boat has maybe made three small errors- sheeted on too late by a second or two at the start, maybe not got the jib leads quite right, have a poorly faired rudder....boat two has just made two errrors and that affords her second place, while lead boat has just made one minor error and is going to win if she gets the second beat right and covers her followers appropriately. Sometimes her lead is erroded because in fact the chasing team have better boat speed, but she has the luxury of free wind and either a leisurely light cover on boat 2, or an aggressive, match-race-style tight cover dog fight.
As in many endeavours, identifying a problem and describing it is often more than half of the cure.
Experiment and Factor Isolation
Knowing your problem is one thing, but sometimes we are more left with a blank sheet of paper. We have to experiment in order to progress, or sometimes to solve a problem we have defined very well. This is very true in handicap racing, or when you live a long distance from the main fleet's or indeed when you are st the top of your class and looking for more gains.
As in lab' science, good experimentation means testing one element under one set of conditions, such that the cause-effect relationship can be firmly established. This entails that the sailor looks to firstly measure current performance in a relevant wind and sea state. They then look at what they want to introduce or alter- just one element, separated to it's definable little package.
So for example, you may want to experiment to make a quicker gybe. The manoerve has many elements, so which one would you choose first ? Is it a light air gybe which is your weak point or area to look for gains in? Will it be the roll into the gybe first? Or will you look at the snap roll out of the gybe? Or will you try to ease the both sheet and guy out when the pole is off to get the kite filling more ahead of the bow ?
Measurability is important and the latest super accurate 64-bit GPS will help. Some things in sailing which are fast don't 'feel" so right, like being in the groove on a modern short chord foil boat- a neutral feeling after acceleration is finished feels slow, but is 'groovy'. As a different example You may want to compare active sailing in waves versus setting the boat up for low and fast. This could be tested very well boat-on-boat in say a wednesday regatta or a 2 boat tuning session, but GPS is a verry good tool for single boat experiment. Failing gopd gps, or in addition to it, there are various means of using bouys and transits with stop watches deacribes in High Performance Sailing.
Paychology and Ambition Again
As i mentioned Ambition is a great fuel to improve - while each improvement itself is taken at outset as very objective. Achieving each small goal gives more satisfaction and lets you drop your shoulders more and enjoy racing with your new found skills, and perspective on the learning curve.
Another motivator I used to have, and know many sailors harbour, is hating losing. It really is a double edged sword because hate often leads to anger which in turn clouds judgement. But on the other hand, it drives you to be better.
Older and much wiser, I find that poor results are something to learn from. These days I know it is important to train often and I just dont, but I am pleased to get out racing and try new boats, like the 12mR not really caring about the results. I know there will be something to learn which will enrich my sailing later.
As a novice, I would recommend that before you even join a club, that you get out on an RYA dinghy course ( or your particular national association or private school) and set getting a couple of certificates underr your belt as a goal - the first of the foothills on the way up Mt.Everest.
Further up the curve, you do have to look at your budget and how to solve the issues around ving evrything in very good working order, and new sails as often as allowed. It may be the case that you want to consider right-aizing your boat to your budget and changing club even to get into a more economic fleet. Or alternatively findi g new sources of income, like sponsorship or investment from your crew.
High up the learning curve, you should be aware of the nature of the diminishing returns on effort, but also that these often hars won, small gains when put together make for a significant gain on the race course.
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