Deconstructing your Sailing - To Reconstruct!

In my last blog I I mentioned that some sailors can become frustrated with their lack of progress - skills wise, and results racing wise. I include a former version of me very much in this. " I should be better than this!!" frustrations taken out on boat, crew, weather-gods or other boats! If you read the last blog and are in a tantric state of mind even, then read on because now we will delve more into " learning to learn again" Deconstruction In sport this is a term used to encompass analyses of your technique, attitude and performance. It means breaking down the constituent parts of performance, from motoric movements and hand-eye coordination to motivation and channelled agression. It means visualising your past successes, failures, weakness and stregnths. It may well be the case that from deconstruction as an open ended start point, you uncover an issue you didnt identity as important before you took things into little bites of the cherry. There are as mentioned. the mental aspects and the movement aspects. Elements from performance " on the day" and in training or practice or when you are being taught by someone. Let us Look First at some Deconstruction of Physical Movements Tacking as an example to deconstruct This is a good example of a sub-set, a first level "deconstruct" to then drill into. How is my tacking ? Am I and the crew doing things slowly or incorrectly ? Always though the attitude is " how could I possibly improve?" and this is part of the power of deconstruction. The mental aspect is something we will come back to ie "should I tack?" We are looking at the movements here and now. Timing wise, we have the pretack set-up, the entry to the tack, the mid point , the exit on the new side, the completion of the tack and last but not least the after tack movements. Now you can break these down into actions relating to equipment and then to movements of your (and the crew's) body Actually I am not going to write anymore on that. You can think through it yourself. So take this as a visualisation on the quayside, while motoring out to sail, or on the bus for that matter! When you go out and practice in light of deconstruction, do everything a little slower and when possible take a micro pause to evaluate and describe in your mind even, what you have just done. Define your base line like this. A tack can be done quite slowly with time to reflect at each of the main deconstruct elements as above. Just a two second assertion of what you have done, then onto the next movement of your body which is not being focused on, but for sake of completion alone. You dwell a little on your pretack, or when the helm goes down rather than attempting a perfect tack after that element is completed.
Analyse that part of the tack, and try to improve it. eg less helm used. See if that works better or faster? Or just more fluently which is important in sailing. As mentioned below, maybe get some video of your start point and how you attempt to improve this. Or some external advice from a club coach. When I teach sailing I now dont initially teach tacking and gybing. Firstly I teach starting and stopping. Then I teach hardening up, then falling off. And stopping from different angles to the wind on outset, on the same tack. This was my own deconstruction because these are the basic elements of good sailing I have identified from many years of sailing myself and teaching youth and adults. Now I hope you can see the philosophy. You divide these skills up into packages which you can focus on. Each one is a building block for improvment. Focus on each then as in a tack, you can string them together So going into a tack, set up, you dont even maybe need to tack! just repeat the set up - how you maybe stand up, or luff the boat, or even bear away a little in some older designs to get some way on for the inevitable braking during the tack. Putting the helm down, once again focus on this, doesnt matter if the rest is sloppy, you have been able to focus on this element and then REFLECT a second on how it went, ignoring the precision of the rest of the tack ( colision and other safety factors included though so you dont crash!) Now move on to a weak area for me for example. Knowing when you are head to wind - this is important because it relates to the amount of helm you need to use, which varies between boats and in different conditions. I have identified this as one important "deconstruct" - in my case, should I look at the windex? Can I relate this to the sail position and other eye level queus from the surroundings? How quickly do I achieve this and lastly how quickly do I come out of this so the jib begins to fill on the new side? A dinghy sailor in a performance boat may not want to use this deconstruct. They may rather want to get a feel for the sweep from helm down, to jib filling and how much helm they use initially and when they can straigthen the helm. Another element being looking at " choreography" with their feet and the crew. SO two instead of maybe four elements in my case Self Help Vs Schooling Deconstruction can be then a personalised thing, your own ideas and your own distillation of the elements and how to focus on them. You can very much benefit from outside help too. This is because in sailing as in many other physical sports, there have evolved some really good ways of doing things! Some people are very See-Do, that they intuitively can relate to other's movements and copy them. I had one kid sail a laser at sailing school and he was just a natural. He had sailed a day or two the year before, but he was as good as 12 year old squad candidates. He just had great hand-eye coordination, body control and could the see-do thing Most of us, me included are far from this. We try to emulate movements but we mess up. More on that in the mentalising section. Outside help can be very beneficial. It may just be in the form of a pal videoing you from astern in the case of deconstructing tacking, to actually hiring a seasoned coach to come out with you for a day. In either case you want to tell them you are deconstructing and which element you are focusing on! This might surprise some dinghy instructors who havent come upon deconstruction, but it will give them a steer to analyse you and instruct you with a very specific focus. They can then correct your movements or actions, and reinforce them when you practice. I would say an hour each on each element on tacking for example, so the best part of a day at a dinghy school where the instructor comes over to you once in a while and you tell them exactly what you want to look at under the microscope so to speak and are receptive to tips, change and practicing new things If you own a larger keel boat then there is a good case for a "transom consultant" ie someone who does not need to participate in crew work, but can sit or stand behind you and analyse your technique. Once again tell them you are deconstructing your sailing. Tell them what you want to look at as a practice, or in the course of a race. The beauty of mobile phones with relatively wide angled video is no to be underestimated. A mini cam ( Go Pro etc) fixed on the push-pit rail or if it can be mounted on the aft stay, or lets be up to date here, send a drone out to follow you through some manoerves! Another area to consider consultancy and reading the books, is in rig settings. If you sail one design you may notice other boats fair better than you in some condiitions. Are yuou adjusting your rig correctly or even at all? The first element here, for example, is usually confirming the forestay length is correct, then the initial rake of the mast, then the prebemd, then the running rigging setting to get more or less bend, and fuller or flatter sails. There you have a " whole bunch" of deconstruction elements on a plate for you. They inter-relate, but can be taken one at a time. Mental Deconstruction I think the point about using an external pair of eyes, or video view point leads nicely into how to deconstruct your mental aspects of skills and performance In the case of external coaching you are forced to think out of the box. " Oh, would some Power the gift give us To see ourselves as others see us" as Rabbie Burns put it. There is a power in this form of advice, but only if it is focused and actionable. We also need to see ourselves objectively when we consider the psychological side of sport Here a simple place to start is reflecting on yourself " before-during-and-after" - you may benefit from doing this as an actual exercise rather than retrospective to last performance. Before I sail.. What do I think and feel? Am I having constuctive behaviours for myself and others ? Am I forgetting things I should have done/fixed/alterered for the sail? Have I considered the weather forecast and how conditions will suit or not suit my abilities ? I found I was very nervous before races I was helming. In early days of owning a dinghy, I wasnt mentally prepared to go and set up the boat correctly - usually I didnt have time and took it for granted but messing about with rig tension or forgetting to set a tight kicker and outhaul messed up a good few races. I analysed this. My nerves were related performance anxiety. I was an experienced sailor, I should expect to have a competitive sail and do well. There was a slight conflict between and entitled feeling and an expectation of maybe failing. A bit like the English soccer team perhaps. Worse though, my nerves lead to adrenalin and cortisone coarsing in my veins and that lead in my case to more mistakes and oversights. Now high adrenaline maybe is beneficial to some sailors in being able to challenge themselves to get a really ballsy start but in my case, pre race, it was very counter productive. So I deconstructed it. And challenged it. And when I sank my shoulders and moved over to helming yachts, I won my first race by a country mile. During the prestart I was acalm and collected, reacted well to the bowman not having a watch, ran up and gave him mine, got a clean start and then used all my dinghy skills to ease the boat up the fleet, then making a decisive roll tack out of a hole and into a wind band on the other shore which I then capitalised on. Ten years of dinghy experience crystalised into one yacht race. I could sail really well, but my pre start nerves destroyed the whole game for me. When I realised in my heart (so to speak) that I have nothing to lose, that I can make an ok start without busting a ball, that I can perform up the field as the race progresses then I developed more consistency and as mentioned, it actually came as a quantum leap in my performance. I have written quite a lot in this deconstruction on what we have broken down to look at and how we may break it down into constituent parts again. But what about the mental process as a start point? Do you and your crew debrief post race? Is that not a deconstruct in itself? With major gains to be had in identifying errors and areas for improvement by taking time to talk through a race with your crew or objectively with a close competitior. It can be "why did we do well?" Often in the case of doing well, ie winning or podium, or doing badly that the crew lose objectivity. In the former boat packed up, off to the beere tent to brag and bask in glory. In the latter, taciturn crew, murmerings and whispered bitterness. Two good opportunities for objective analyses are lost. But a good start point in the bad day out is to just consider one " deconstruct" to get tongues wagging, then ask for more open, constructive criticism. SO let us talk about deconstructing mentally in how to approach this.- Is my whole approach philosophy good or bad? Do I really actually, factually, enjoy the type of sailing I am doing? DO nerves affect me badly or give me a positive energy and drive ? Do I have stress points in the course of a race or manoevre ? Am I able to analyse what I am doing underway and reflect on it after? Am I able to visualise good technique and comeptitive tactics before a race ? Am I capturing the information I need in order to then think through what adjustments to rig and running rigging I will need to do pre race and off wind ? Am I making the race enjoyable and challenging enough for the crew or pushing them too hard -? Summary Deconstruction is about compartmentalising elements of skills and performance. You are cutting things up into small packets. This enables you to focus on very specific elements both physically and psychologically as we have discussed. When you " fix " on packet you can then work on another, or string several packets together into a total manoevre, mindset, ability etc as we could do with tacking. Put all the packets you practiced together and practice the whole thing, being a little observant as to any poorer elements or now, as a package merged into one, if you are actually doing this fluently between the component parts you worked upon before. Tacking is a great example. But so is the verbal communication to the crew for a bear away hoist, during which you will maybe only swing the tiller but need to remind the crew what to do, and inform them if it is a gybe set, quick set, early pre hoist or wait until boat speed is up and hoist. In outset them you need to identify these potential "deconstruct" elements. You need to have a goal only to focus on these and see if you can improve. Perhaps there is a measurable target or goal, but I would suggest that is more in the realms of reptitive practice rather than deconstruction because stripping your skills down to basic small constituents is quite radical and can lead to a new start point for practice and repition to develop the skill further. In identifying elements and analysing them, do you need external help ? Remember to tell them what you want to explore - you are deconstructing one element, please focus on that. Maybe they will just film you from astern, but they need to be told what to film in detail. I would say for sailing start with starting!" How to start and stop the boat! How to sail over a start line without other boats to the shot of the gun! Are there sub elements you actually need to extract and focus on? The most difficult packages to identify are probably the mental elements which are holding you back. This is an area for reflection but also for another pair of eyes and ears. Ole Einar Bjørndalen is probably the greates ever biathalon athelete, and with 8 gold medals, one of the best olympians ever, winter and summer. One coach he turned to knew hardly anything about skiing. Ole Einar credits Oyvind Hammer, a Dick Vitale style pitchman for Filter Queen vacuums and motivational speaker on the side, for elevating his confidence and consistency of performance. A motivator. They had a long term business partnership and friendship. There can then be many elements, which relate to each other in a " work flow" or there can be mental elements linked to the physical ones. Where to begin? Given that you know you are very weak or error prone in one area, then begin there. Break it down. Ad infinitum should be obviously avoided, but a suprising level of detail should be worked on as a " deconstruct" element. If you are a seasoned sailor and are at a bit of a loss as to why you dont perform better then I would say get an outside pair of eyes in, a transom-consultant. Maybe you feel your sailing is rubbish, or that you have come to an impasse in performance, or just have a couple of bug-bears like for example tacking, then deconstruction is a powerful technique to strip down to elements and understand what you are doing wrong or how possibly you could do better. It is also a bit like a reboot for a computer with a lot running, you reopen with one software and its' settings at a time to use that analogy. Using it can be a positive turning point for your sailing or other sport or job for that matter. A major effect of deconstruction is that it breaks down barriers to learning.