| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
bred2shred
Joined: 02 May 2000
Posts: 989
Location: Jersey Shore
|
 Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:25 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| PeconicPuffin wrote: | But that's what you guys are doing: Saying that being self-taught is more satisfying.
|
For ME, it is. I also said that taking lessons is a valid way to learn.
What I did not do was make any blanket statements insinuating that one method of learning is more satisfying for EVERYONE like this...
| Quote: | | Completely untrue, and spoken in ignorance. It is neither easier nor more satisfying. The "satisfaction" notion floated by non-instruction people is wishful thinking. |
sm |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"Completely untrue, and spoken in ignorance. It is neither easier nor more satisfying. The "satisfaction" notion floated by non-instruction people is wishful thinking.
Your issue is money."
Spoken like an arrogant fool that is truly clueless about others. Fortunately, there are thoughtful folks here that understand what I was saying.
You need to relax a bit and chill out. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bred2shred wrote: | What I did not do was make any blanket statements insinuating that one method of learning is more satisfying for EVERYONE like this...
| Quote: | | Completely untrue, and spoken in ignorance. It is neither easier nor more satisfying. The "satisfaction" notion floated by non-instruction people is wishful thinking. |
|
Wow. I hadn't seen that. Yup -- over the top. There are some people who actually LIKE banging their heads against brick walls, reinventing wheels, and maybe even coming up with valid new ideas; more power to them if they don't mind the time it takes.
If I were to start over, I'd make professional lessons a priority, as nothing else in my life took more years or was as frustrating as learning to jibe. I was planing in the harness within weeks, but a half-reliable planing jibe took me another 12 years of sailing year-round including several summers in the Gorge. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bred2shred
Joined: 02 May 2000
Posts: 989
Location: Jersey Shore
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| isobars wrote: |
There are some people who actually LIKE banging their heads against brick walls, reinventing wheels, and maybe even coming up with valid new ideas; more power to them if they don't mind the time it takes.
|
Teaching yourself is akin to banging your head against a brick wall, or reinventing the wheel??? Really, come on now. Tell that to any one of the countless experts and pros who have never had a single "professional" lesson.
The accomplishments, failures and generally pushing yourself to improve are all part of the game. If you're stuck on learning a certain move or technique, then by all means consider taking a lesson to help getting over the hump. If you want someone to spoon feed you the answers and think you need a lesson to progress every step of the way, then windsurfing probably isn't the sport for you. And if someone suggests that you can't have a satisfying experience windsurfing unless you get lessons, they're full of shit. Many of us have risen satisfyingly high levels without taking a single lesson - get tips from other sailors, push yourself to improve, and just get as much time on the water as possible - satisfaction guaranteed.
sm |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 5:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bred2shred wrote: | | Teaching yourself is akin to banging your head against a brick wall, or reinventing the wheel??? Really, come on now. Tell that to any one of the countless experts and pros who have never had a single "professional" lesson. |
Their natural ability overcame the challenges; for many of us, including myself, that takes decades, not just years. The minute I hear people talking about all the contortions required for fancy tricks ... all this clew-first/invertedwhatever/switchstance/monkeythis/backhandthat/lookoverthere stuff ... I am totally lost; I simply can't picture all that at once, and sure as hell can't imagine combining it with what the wind can do to a sail and/or hull. They may as well be speaking Klingon with a southern British accent while talking about a menopausal wombat in a leg trap.
Given the number of people who agree with me that it took them over a decade just to jibe, I'd say I'm not alone.
| bred2shred wrote: | | The accomplishments, failures and generally pushing yourself to improve are all part of the game. If you're stuck on learning a certain move or technique, then by all means consider taking a lesson to help getting over the hump. If you want someone to spoon feed you the answers and think you need a lesson to progress every step of the way, then windsurfing probably isn't the sport for you. And if someone suggests that you can't have a satisfying experience windsurfing unless you get lessons, they're full of shit. Many of us have risen satisfyingly high levels without taking a single lesson - get tips from other sailors, push yourself to improve, and just get as much time on the water as possible - satisfaction guaranteed. |
Tell that to the legions who quit when they realized, or came to believe, that they would never learn to plane through a jibe. Only my stubborness and one tip got me there; I'm not sure my many thousands of failed attempts taught me crap about it other than to get so pissed that I had to mash that lee rail down with ALL my weight if I wanted that damned board to carve past downwind ... and that just left me eating the rig and a few MORE years of frustration. I will never forget the frustration of that process, but at least now that my losses of balance and muscle memory are taking me back towards that phase, I can accept it and improve in other ways.
I just don't want newbies to presume that they'll be jibin' and shreddin' like the experts in less than a decade or two. I'd rather see them pleasantly surprised if they excel quickly than devastated by the reality so many of us face. I was lucky in that sense, as I knew no one who could jibe or waterstart back when I tackled them. Out of >100 WSers on our local lakes, I'm guessing >80% gave up without ever learning to plane through jibes, and many of those not until they lived in Maui, Corpus, or the Gorge for an extended time. I think folks who pick this up like you did are a small minority in a different time and probably a different place. That ... or they were indeed born to shred.
I still shake my head in awe at the young man ... hell, kid .... who wanted to to test new Gorge gear with us. We asked him to demonstrate some skills, whereupon he blew us away with tricks we had never seen outside the Hatchery. He just didn't look old enough to have mastered such a high-end, magazine-level repertoire. Then we asked him how long he had been sailing: a year.
Shit. Just ... shit.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
J64TWB
Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 1685
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Pretty sure everyone chiming in here learned on their own. So whats the big deal? Seems we all still love it?
It doesn’t take more than a simple video or youtube clip to learn how to put two feet around the mast and uphaul. Fast forward 30 seconds in the video and you learn how to head upwind and downwind. Not that tough. Put the video away for a few days and next thing you know, your in the straps with a harness feeling the rush.
Now what? Buy a waterstart video or youtube it. Watch 5 times, practice. Buy a gybe video, gets some pointers on the beach, phone a friend, use a lifeline. Point is, by now you are in the sport! Yes, you can take lessons and camps and probably improve faster, but most people don’t have access to PERFECT CONDITIONS or even instructors.
I had to learn on my own with offshore winds swirling above 70 ft. trees up on a 40 foot bluff over Lake Michigan. The only way an instructor could help was if they had a motor boat following me, screaming a 1/4 mile offshore. Yes I knew how to sail and get back, that was always my limiting factor, but I didn’t know how to waterstart or gybe. I watched a simple video in 1992 on how to uphaul and I was on my way. If you want to nail down gybes or learn some crazy trick or jump, go to Bonaire or Baja and take a lesson.
Most of us learned on our own and still love it. As mentioned before, a sailing background really helps, but if you take lessons, you need the right conditions and the right instructor. In a youtube and iwindsurf world, much can be learned on your own. Its all about desire, money and time. By the way, I'm still fairly awful, but really love it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cgoudie1
Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 2599
Location: Killer Sturgeon Cove
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Jibing's a doddle ;*)
-Craig
| isobars wrote: | Given the number of people who agree with me that it took them over a decade just to jibe, I'd say I'm not alone.
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| By "lessons", I'm including instructional videos, as a stretch, if first-hand pro lessons are not available. Neither of those was reliably available even at WSing destinations when I was struggling, and even many accomplished experts say they still learn a TON from camps/lessons. The only one of my local peers who could jibe finally learned it by living with a top-ranked wave pro on Maui one summer. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
NOVAAN
Joined: 28 Sep 1994
Posts: 1551
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
What a beginner thinks he is doing on a windsurfer and what he is actually doing is way different. A simple thing like leaning the mast forward to get the board off the wind can be so difficult for some to do that they will give up. Good instruction from a good instructor can make every step of the process much more enjoyable. Also greatly speed up the learning curve.
Yes "we" all did it the hard way because there wasn't a better way. These days there is a better way. The best way to grow our sport is to make it easier to learn... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
coachg
Joined: 10 Sep 2000
Posts: 3553
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
We are not all created equal. Each of us has a unique and different gift with different abilities to learn different activities at different rates. We are not the same so do not expect our experience to be shared by others.
Do I need a lesson to learn to windsurf? No.
Will I learn faster with a good lesson? Yes
Will we feel more satisfied learning on our own than with instruction? No
Students experience their most enjoyment through intrinsic rewards. In other words, when they are internally satisfied they have a greater sense of enjoyment than when they are externally-extrinsically-motivated. A good instructor will guide his student towards success; help the student achieve self-diagnosis so the student can self-correct his mistakes. But whether through self-teaching or with an instructor, the greatest sense of motivation is intrinsic. But the joy you felt the first time you got in the back straps on your own was no greater than the joy I felt when Pete Dekay taught me at an ABK camp. The only difference in feelings was in the amount of time it took to feel that joy.
A final statement about lessons. Someone here said they didn’t like taking lessons because they didn’t like being told what to do. In my book when someone tells you what to do they are not teaching, they are preaching so that is not taking a lesson. That is going to a sermon.
Coachg |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You can attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
|
|
Search
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Register
