If you are a fan of sports blooper shows or YouTube, you will no doubt be familiar with basketball great Alan Iverson's meltdown during a press conference where he was challenged for not showing up for a practice. "But it ain't about dat'," he says. "I supposed to be the franchise player, and we talkin' about practice? Not a game, where it matters, we talkin' about practice," he says. "How silly is that?"
His point, if you listen on, is that it was a practice and not the game that he missed, and that it is game time, not practice, that deserves the discipline of the harsh criticism he was receiving.
Spring Warm Up at the Water Rats is practice, and it started this past Sunday. It was not a terrible day. Ten races in light to medium wind under a bright sun can't be called terrible regardless of the result, but I did frustrate myself by not recognizing it was just practice and that, when you are practicing, your key task is to identify what exactly you are practicing that day. I sailed, and I competed, but I did not practice properly, or identify what exactly I should have been practicing.
Our sport is multifaceted, and so when we go to practice, we face a variegated, uncontrollable environment that we must accede to. We practice not what we want, but what we can. The wind on the day was from the southwest or thereabouts and, when it is, you go left. And when the line is biased to the pin, you start at the pin and go left. There is no other track (I am sure I've said this before). You can try to find another track, but you will fail, and you will not win.
So, what is up for practice on a day like that? Is it to go find wind where there is none? Is it to be at the windward end of the line at the gun? Is it to sail fast in 30 knots? No, the thing to practice is to fight for the pin. Again and again and again—to fight for the pin.
This I did not do, wasting, in my mind, a full day of practice. On my way home, I berated myself for not doing well, but then realized that I deserved much more of an emotional beating for not realizing what the day was for and about. It was a day for fighting like hell for the pin and not once did I do so.
But I did learn what practice is for. And, tangentially, that I need to define my practice from my racing. Good lessons.
For the record, between four and eight boats were on the line for the various races. Ken Walton won straight bullets except for mine in the first race (before he figured out that the pin was the point) and one where Paul Muldoon was the pin guy. I would tell you exactly the results, but I don't have them and I have no mind or heart for it at the moment. And, anyway, it was just "practice..."
Rob Koci races in both the Laser Full-Rig and Laser Radial fleets around District 3. Currently, Rob is the District 3 secretary and maintains a frequently updated race diary on D3Laser.com. Rob's home port is St. James Town Sailing Club in Toronto, Ontario.
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