GETTING OVER THE HUMP: When "Practice" becomes "Play", and perseverance starts to pay!

I am lucky to have several hobbies. The two that I have posted about the most on HIVE so far in the roughly 6 weeks since I joined are:

•the music that I write and perform, and
•surfing in my hometown of Cape Town, South Africa.

I am fairly good at music – writing songs, playing acoustic guitar, harmonica and singing, which is why I have the confidence to perform live, despite having a naturally shy personality. In contrast, I am fairly mediocre at surfing, but I love it and I’m good enough to have fun with it!

So, how did I get good at music? How did I get (ahem) “good enough” at surfing to at least have fun with it? The obvious answer is practice, and you’re right… but practice is a word that sounds harsh to me. It has connotations of perseverance, determination, or even suffering as you wish you could be doing something fun instead. It has the connotations of the “10 000 hours to mastery” that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book “Outliers”.

What about the word play? Isn’t that the whole point of having hobbies to begin with? Well, I have a theory about how people get good at stuff, that I am going to call “getting over the hump”.

MUSIC / GUITAR

Starting guitar is hard. Your fingertips hurt… a lot. The strings buzz because your fingers aren’t holding them down properly, because your thumb and wrist aren’t in the correct position yet. To overcompensate for this, you press harder… and it hurts some more. You can’t change chords fast enough to keep up with even the slowest songs and everything sounds awful. Many people will give up at this stage, thinking guitar is just not for them. Not you, this is when you practice and persevere.

But one day, you get over the hump.

For guitar, that day is when you have learnt how to strum and transition between about 4 chords. This may not sound like you have come very far yet, but… more than half of all pop and rock songs are only 3 or 4 chords in their most basic form. If you enjoy singing, you should be able to sing some of your favourite pop or rock songs to the 4 chords that you have learnt. Here are some examples:

“Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry
“Talking ‘bout a Revolution” by Tracy Chapman
“Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison
“Zombie” by the Cranberries
“Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac
“With or Without You” by U2
Even “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X feat Billy Ray Cyrus!

Yes, over half of all pop and rock songs are now at your fingertips if you just move a capo around to suit your singing voice. Suddenly you are having fun! Yes, you will improve from here, but from now on you will be playing, not practicing!

A few more years of playing around and you’re up on stage…

SURFING

Starting to surf is hard. The water is cold and you are getting bashed about. You feel like a drowned rat! You didn’t realise that it would be so strenuous. I have friends who run marathons who are exhausted by about 30 minutes of attempting to surf – unfortunately there are many kinds of fitness in the world and here’s a new one you didn’t even know about! Your shoulders ache, your forearms ache… you feel like you’re paddling but you’re going nowhere. You’re not even lying on the board properly! You can’t duck-dive yet and every oncoming wave smashes you and sends you backwards towards the beach or probably knocks you off the board entirely.

Then when it’s finally time to want to catch a wave, it goes by without you, while your more experienced friend yells at you to “paddle!” You thought you were paddling? This is when many people give up and decide surfing is not for them (Good! More waves for me! 😋). Not you, this is when you practice and persevere.

But one day, you get over the hump.

For surfing, that day is when you manage to catch a wave before it breaks, and angle your board along the unbroken face and feel the rush and exhilaration of cutting along that face with so much more power and speed than the broken white-water waves you were trying to ride up until this point. Maybe you only stand up once the wave has broken… maybe you don’t stand up at all… it doesn’t matter, you want to feel that feeling again!

Getting over the hump in surfing means being able to cut across the unbroken face… even if you do no turns and just experience the wave’s energy from there!

This is the view that will change the game and get you over the hump!

From now on you will want to get into your still wet wetsuit on a cold morning and paddle to the back behind where the waves break… because you will be playing, not practicing! Yes, you will improve from here, almost by default!

MARTIAL ARTS

I do several martial arts. I am pretty much a beginner at all of them. The one that I’m focusing on at the moment is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), which is the form of grappling that Royce Gracie shocked the world with, when he managed to win the very first UFC MMA Cage-Fighting competition over boxers, kick-boxers, wrestlers and other styles of martial artists (eg. Taekwondo and Karate), some of whom were a lot bigger than he was.

Starting BJJ is hard. As a man over 6 feet tall, it feels very emasculating to be tapping in submission in under 10 seconds to some tiny expert! As you apply one hundred percent of your strength to surviving maybe 3 more seconds, you get totally gassed out. I even got physically ill and vomited a few times. It is hectic!

One of the important things about BJJ is that you “roll” in every class against your classmates, who are actively trying to get into a superior position and submit you with a type of choke or joint-lock (like an armbar) while you are trying to do the same to them. Boxing/kickboxing is another martial art I do that puts heavy emphasis on sparring against live opponents rather than just doing drills…

Have I got over the hump yet?

I had to take a couple of months off my BJJ classes recently. First, I had a bout of bronchitis, and just as I recovered from that, I got real Covid-19! I then did a bit of surfing to (ahem) “check that I had fully recovered” (or maybe the waves were really good last week, haha!)… and finally I got back to class last night!

Well, the class had some newer students in it – and in several of the rolls, I got into a dominant position or even managed to submit my partner, instead of defending vigorously trying not to be submitted myself. It made me realise that I have actually learnt something, and that the way we’re being taught actually works. Of course, there are some classmates who will still make short work of me, but I am also coming to terms with how long a journey getting good at BJJ will be, and to treat it like a bit more of a game in the mean time!

So maybe I am approaching getting over the hump? We will see if it’s all fun and games from here!

AND YOU?

Thank you to those who have read this far. Do you agree with my theory that you “get over the hump” and suddenly you are playing your hobby rather than practicing it?

I’d love to hear in the comments about what your hobbies are, and what getting over the hump meant to you?

THE END