If you can’t do it slow, you can’t do it fast

I think I just understood what that means. It is actually quite literal. It’s all about baby steps in my mind.

Learn to walk before you start to run.

Start to talk then you can bust a rhyme.

Fledgling to hawk flying under the evening sun.

The ticking clock that says it’s your time

I just finished listening to “The art of learning”, read by the author Josh Waitzkin. A book about incremental learning. The embodiment of the above image and quote it seems. The more I learned about his life, his exploits, the deconstruction of his programming, be it in chess or Tai chi push hands, the more I was feeling the truth behind his words.

But that was all in my head.

And when I say that, it’s because I tend to keep most of it, the knowledge thus acquired through the life lessons of another that is, in the realm of the conscious, the mental, the Ego. And as I seek to control the information, it seems to take forever to download into my operating system, my unconscious mind so to speak.

But then it happened.

My friend volunteered to teach me the basics of swimming last weekend. The infamous crawl. The lesson consisted of three basic exercises that I was to perform as he coasted by me in the next lane. Developing a baseline.

Dutifully I executed these tasks. 30 minutes and then we jumped off the diving board a couple of times. Unwind. Keep it light. No pressure. I have to say that I learned a bit. Noted some details to improve and realized I felt good. I like swimming more and more. The workout, the mantra. Splish, splash. Splish, splash.

A couple of days have passed since, and now I’m at the hotel after a day’s work and decide to go for a couple of laps in the pool. I saw this quote on my facebook page before going to work and slowed my pace on a whim.

Something very subtle was happening.

Not only did my friend’s advice make more sense to my body today, but as I was slowing my pace I became much more aware of the minute changes that I was now perceiving. I was no longer thrashing, It’s more like I was lurching along. An upgrade in my case.

Also, I felt like I was developing a better sense of the movement that was being undertaken by my arms, my hands, my feet, my hips, my breath. It was all coming together. Slowly. So I slowed down even more and caught more of the image still.

I’ve always been the type to look at the finish line and celebrate before I arrived at the podium. Heck, I celebrate before I arrive on the practice court, if I ever get there. When I don’t get it at the first try, I often abandon.

Well, thank you Paul, thank you Josh. I am learning to slow down in order to speed up, eventually.