Conscious Competence and fresh meat otters

A derby post! YAY!

The fresh meat sessions have started back and I've been lucky enough to assist coaching both sessions so far. It's incredible to think that a year ago I was in their skates, and now I'm helping them perform transitions and turnaround toe-stops!

With school starting back recently we've had a few professional meetings and seminars on teaching and pedagogy, and one thing I learned in particular really stuck out as useful in derby coaching and learning.

The theory is that there is four stages to learning a new skill. For the sake of coaching, I'll use the example of transitions.

The first stage is unconscious incompetence. This is the stage where you don't know how little you know. You see your coach do a transition and go through the steps. You look at how it's done, and maybe think it looks pretty doable. Think of when you went to your first derby session. Did you think you could pick up skating really quickly? Did you (like me) think that because you skated years ago you'd be onto it in no time? Welcome to unconscious incompetence.

http://freshmeatotter.tumblr.com. Go there.

The second and most dangerous stage is conscious incompetence. This is the known unknown, when you realise that what you're learning is actually really hard. You try transitions moving for the first time, and fall on your ass. You can do it stationary, but not rolling. You can do it rolling on a straight line, but not on the track. You can do it on one side OKish, but the other side feels so wrong you can't begin to describe. You get frustrated, and it's tough. This is dangerous, because this is when a lot of people give up. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. I can transition. Sort of. I can transition clockwise pretty well, but counter-clockwise? Absolutely not. What was my response to this last year? Stop worrying about it, put it in the "Later" pile, and move on to other things. Think about all the skills you've been shown or tried out. The guitar gathering dust in the attic. The skateboard you fell off as a kid an hour after you unwrapped it at Christmas that ended up in a garage sale (mine had the Ghostbusters logo on it). Realising that something is difficult and having the determination to learn it anyway takes a lot of mental fortitude and it can seem impossible and intensely frustrating to proceed to....

Conscious competence. That one day when you come to training and they make you do a transition drill as a warm up. This time, you decide to try and turn on the whistle. Every time. No matter what. And this time, you manage it. Not every time, not always perfectly, and you can't really talk to anyone or think much beyond where to put your feet while you're doing the drill, but you can transition. Welcome to conscious competence, when you're over the hump of stage two and you can start to see a way forward. Such a good feeling! Now, as long as you stick with it and keep going, you'll move up to the pinnacle, the stage we call....

Unconscious competence. Your body can move without your mind thinking about it. When it all seems to flow at a molecular level, and you can spin, transition, skate backwards and stop without nary a thought. Think about that start jammer in your league, who can transition at speeds you reckon you could maybe crack going forwards with a favourable wind. Think about watching Suzy Hotrod or Stefanie Mainey on DNN and wondering how the hell they manage to do that. Years of training and honing skills have got them to the point of unconscious competence and it's a place we can all get to with enough time and determination.

The reason I thought this was so useful as a coach and a skater is it's a reminder that just because something is difficult doesn't make it impossible. Bonnie Thunders wasn't born with an innate ability to do the things she does, it's come out of practice. So when we were doing transition drills yesterday at the rink, I decided to stop making excuses. I grit my teeth, and started transitioning on my "gumby" side. Time after time after time. I didn't let myself give up. Am I at unconscious competence? Not even close. But I'm definitely getting over the hump and I hope to be there by the end of the season. The fact I'm giving myself a long enough time frame means that I'm well aware of how hard I find it, but also that I know it's achievable.

The last part of this little lecture concerns how we feel when something is difficult. Teachers love acronyms, and we learned about NAK.

N- Notice your feelings. Does the drill make you anxious? Nervous? Will you find an excuse to check your pads, retie a lace, or talk to a latecomer if you're told you're doing it? Do you feel frustration rising when it's nearly your turn to go through the paceline? Identify how what you're doing makes you feel.

Unconscious competence, right there. Photo: Asa Frye

A- Accept them. There's nothing wrong with finding something difficult. Even if your coach is telling you the drill is silly and easy, it's OK for you to not enjoy it. You will find some drills and skills hard, if you don't you are a terrifying automaton that needs to be KILLED WITH FIRE.

K- Keep at it! Don't let that dislike of the drill or fear of failure stop you from succeeding. Think about how you can better improve. Can you talk to a sympathetic coach or a more experienced player and ask them to run through it again? Can you go to a public skate session and try it when there's nobody watching you? (this was me with swoops. Hours on a half-empty rink. Hours). I once watched a skater try a drill for about twenty minutes, failing over and over again but her determination and grit pushed through the frustration and anger at herself she obviously felt and she finally succeeded. It was glorious to watch and must have been even better to be the one succeeding.

With the new season upon us and new skaters joining the sport (HI!) I felt this was really useful to me as a coach and as a skater. I'd be really keen to hear your thoughts and any feedback you might have.

The loneliness of the workshy skater

Working in the education sector has its drawbacks. Mainly, these drawbacks are between 5 and 6 feet tall, belligerent and can swear at me in several different languages. To make up for having to deal with such ongoing professional issues I get an obscene amount of time off. I think they worked out it's cheaper to give us 13 weeks holiday a year than it is to clean up the ensuing mess that would result from accumulated stress and pent-up rage if we didn't get regular breaks.

With all this time off, I get to spend lots of time skating in the rinks that are opened over the school breaks to give bored childminders something to do with their charges. What actually happens is that I get a whole, glorious rink all to myself, to do whatever I like in (if I don't mind the occasional small child trying to hit me with a football).

The hard part comes in amusing myself after I've done all the grunt work. Say today, where my 2 hour session was pretty much on my own (apart from a welcome interruption from the lovely Pina Collider in the last 30!). I started like I do every public skate session, with a warm up and then heavy heavy endurance/cardio. Instead of my beloved sets of five minute/25+ laps today, I did pyramids. If you don't know, pyramids is one lap as fast as you can go, then a 30 second rest. Then two laps, then thirty seconds. After five laps you're starting to feel a bit put out, but thankfully after five you go down to four, and then so on back to one. Getting off my backside for that final lap always feels like an amazing leap forward in the development of my willpower, but it does wonders for my fitness!

So, after the grunt work, what to do? I've made it my mission (apart from trying to fit 30 laps in 5 minutes) to master turnaround toe stops before the league starts back in earnest in February. Here's where not having a proper job works in my favour. I get hours of empty rink to over the same things as often as I want, in my own time, and find what works for me. I estimate I've spent about 30-40 minutes per session these holidays doing nothing but turnaround toe stops and backwards/forwards skating. That's a lot of practice! I'm not 100% on it yet, but I can do it at speed and not cause damage to the floor, so with any luck I'll have it cracked for next month.

The rest of the session was lots of practice of the skills test basics, and skating, skating, skating. Tomorrow my sister arrives and I'll be off the rink for a couple of weeks, but I've squished in a lot of skating over the last two days that I think I'll survive until I can get on a rink again. I'm hoping I can get in a lot of walking and swimming with the sibling while she's here so I stay on the fitness wagon, apparently she's keen to get out and about while she's here so all to the good!

Foodwise, this morning was toast and peanut butter and lunch was some leftover curry and brown bread. I'm currently enjoying a crisp, cold apple before I turn the spare room into habitable space. It may take some time.