The First Setback of 2017
It’s definitely not what I had hoped to have to deal with to start off 2017, but, it is what it is, and I just need to keep pushing forward, and try and figure out what I am going to do as quickly as possible.
As of a couple days ago, I have officially split ways with my coach. We had been working together for just over a year, and made some fantastic progress together, but in the end, I just couldn’t afford financially to keep working with him, so it had to end. Unfortunately, it didn’t end the way that I would have liked, but that is the past now, and I need to look towards the future.
The thing is, I know that I will find a solution. I am very, very motivated. From my experience, when there is a problem, and you are really motivated to find a solution, you will find a solution. The question is more how long it is going to take and how much of a hit I will take to my sailing through this transition period.
Over my sailing career, I have changed coaches three times, every time was difficult, and each one was harder than the last. The reason being that coach’s tend to contradict each other. At least it appears that they do. More often that not, it’s not that one coach is right and another one is wrong, but more that every coach has their own perspectives, and their own philosophies and their own language that they use to teach the sport. Because of that, it often feels from the athlete’s standpoint like straight up contradictions. Believe me, it get’s very confusing, and very frustrating! I think when you are at the earlier stages in your development, when a coach tells you what to do; it’s easy to listen to it because there’s nothing really for it to conflict with. However, as you develop further and then somebody tells you to do something, it’s not so easy to just accept it, especially when it contradicts directly with the way that you have trained to do things. On the other hand how ever, after you get through that transition period, for sure there is lots of potential… new coach, new ideas, new perspectives… that can lead to great progress.
Anyways, I’m getting a long way a head of myself. These are the challenges that I’m worried about having when I start working with a new coach, but first I have to find that coach! That’s not as easy as it sounds. Finding a top quality coach and training partners that are training full-time, willing to take on a new sailor, and that I can afford financially are a lot of difficult boxes to tick. In the end, I expect that I will have to make some compromises, but, we’ll see how things play out and what opportunities present themselves.
It’s all quite stressful, but I just need to keep reminding myself that I can only control what I can control and that through all of this, I still need to be fully focused on my training. When all else fails, I just need to put in the work, train hard, and allow things to fall into place. I’m only 9 days out from a major regatta – the Sailing World Cup, Miami, so my preparations are still the number one priority. Despite everything that’s going on, I’m actually pretty happy with the way that I’ve been sailing these last few days and feeling pretty good about where I am at.
That update was a bit all over the place, as you can probably tell; I have a bit on my mind… Anyways, thanks for reading, and stay tuned to my Facebook page for updates leading into, and during the Miami World Cup!
Fillah
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