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Solo-Training, Lost Cities & 360-Degree Non-Drowning by Mark Hatmaker

 


A year of self-quarantining and likely continued caution into the foreseeable future has left many to their own devices regarding leisure, study, training and other like enterprises that are commonly thought of as being group-dependent, or hands-on tutor necessary.

We would all agree that group dynamics are mighty useful for anything from tennis-doubles to wrestling practice.

But, we would also likely agree that many a tennis champion past, present, and future has a ready repertoire of solo drills within his or her grasp that allow them to continually hone their game.

The handball player has wall-return practice, the range-bereft shooter has dozens upon dozens of dry-fire drills, the striker has everything from bags to mirrors to, well, his own shadow.

Quarantined or not the player, shooter or combatant that requires the presence of others to sharpen the saw is at a deficit in comparison with the individual who will train with and/or without good fellows to share time with.

The auto-didact who sees no training partner as no true loss is fertile with creative ideas and the self-discipline to carry on lockdown or no.

[To be clear, training partners are always a plus—provided they are like-minded well-paced workers. I’m sure we all can think of some past partners who were a deficit to progress and solo would have been the wiser course of action.]

Today’s sermon merely tests the idea that “others are a must.”

The true test of auto-didacticism is how self-instructive one can be.

That is, how much progress can be made without the firm hand of the tutor to impart the lineal pearls of wisdom that can only be attained via “The master’s lips to the student’s eager ear.”



The Tale of The Lost City

In Homer’s The Iliad we have the tale of the Trojan War, and, as one would expect, the city of Troy plays a large part in this heroic epic.

For centuries scholars considered the city of Troy a confabulation or a metaphorical representation of many cities.

To the German merchant, Heinrich Schliemann, Troy was a reality.

Schliemann became entranced with the tale of Troy and decided to use his fortune to search for the city.

Scholars and contemporary archaeologists scoffed at his wrong-headedness. They considered Schliemann an untutored dilettante with no formal training let alone the good sense to correctly read and interpret metaphorical texts. Sinking money into something as complex as an archaeological dig was the height of folly.

Schliemann was an untutored auto-didact, not merely in archeology, but also in foreign languages. Despite having never attended a single foreign language class or having access to a “self-teaching” Rosetta Stone course he mastered a dozen languages.

Here’s historian Will Durant on Schliemann.

“In his travels as a merchant he had made it a practice to learn the language of each country he traded with, and to write in that language the current pages of his diary. By this method he learned English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Polish, and Arabic. Now he went to Greece, studied the language as a living speech, and was soon able to read both ancient and modern Greek as fluently as German.” Will Durant, The Life of Greece, pp. 24-25

Here's Schliemann himself on his auto-didactical method.

In order to acquire quickly the Greek vocabulary, I procured a modern Greek translation of Paul et Virginie, and read it through, comparing every word with its equivalent in the French original. When I had finished that task I knew at least one half the Greek words the book contained; and after repeating the operation I knew them all, or nearly so, without having lost a single minute by being obliged to use a dictionary…Of my Greek grammar I learned only the declensions and the verbs, and never lost my precious time in studying its rules; for as I saw that boys, for after being troubled and tormented for eight years and more in school with the tedious rules of grammar, can nevertheless none of them write a letter in ancient Greek without making hundreds of atrocious blunders, I thought the method pursued by the schoolmasters must be altogether wrong…I learned ancient Greek as I would have learned a living language.”

So, an un-tutored maven of languages learned without a tutor and, apparently, improved upon the current teaching method.

Intriguing.

BTW-He proved correct and the archeologists wrong with his successful dig.

OK, Mark, that’s a good story but that was an intellectual endeavor; isn’t it way harder to learn a physical skill without a qualified one at your shoulder?”

The Author Enjoying a Bit of Auto-Didacticism




How Not to Drown

In kayaking [sea and river] there is a counterintuitive skill called the Eskimo Roll.

[The Eskimo Roll is actually a catch-all term for many 360-degree righting tactics.]

In precis, if the kayak inverts leaving you with head underwater, using the right chain of tactics you will pop back to upright saving your life without ever exiting the craft.

Leave one chain of the rolling tactic out, hedge a link in the chain, or misunderstand a link and you are left in the precarious position of being head underwater, upside down in a pitching sea or roiling river.

For anyone who has performed an Eskimo Roll or attempted to learn to hit the skill properly, we can vouch that it is no easy feat.

It is counter-intuitive, a bit anxiety inducing, and a wee bit dangerous if you don’t train wisely.

For something as proprioceptively acute as this skill, surely more physically involved than learning a dozen languages, a teacher is a wise and necessary investment, right?

1927

Although Eskimo Rolling and all of its spinning cousins are a staple of many weekend whitewater kayaker’s repertoire, prior to 1927 there is no recorded instance of a non-native performing this complex skill.

Prior to 1927 one must have had the good fortune to be born into a tribe or society where such skills were valued and necessary for survival.

So, what changed in 1927?

Austrian, Hans Pawlata, become entranced by reading of the technique in the writings of polar explorers. He set himself upon learning how to do it.

Did he do so by seeking out a native teacher?

Nope.

Did he YouTube it?

In 1927? Nah.

So, how did he do it?

He simply read and researched deeply, particularly the works of Knud Rasmussen, Fridof Nansen, and Fredrik Johansen—which to be clear are not instructional manuals—they are tales of exploration with only vague details on the tactic observed provided.

From there, our intrepid Austrian took it to the river and worked, worked, worked until he cracked the code of what he read on the page.

His method is remarkably similar to Schliemann’s approach to a “dead” or “lost’ skill making it into a “living language.”

If such ability is available to one, it is available to all. We are wise to use Schliemann’s and Pawlata’s examples as beacons to our own solo work.

We never have to assume that no or limited access to training partners, state-of-the-art gear, certified instruction is what is holding us back.

It seems the best instructors are keen minds, boatloads of self-discipline, contempt for beaten paths, and pure OD grit and will to follow the passion.

To all in lockdown, or simply with limited access to training partners, and guiding hands—rest assured you can still make astonishing strides all by your lonesome.

[For more such historical training maunderings, explore this here blog.

For unearthed nuggets of combative history from tactics to drills to “Hit the river and do it for yourself” see our RAW/Black Box Program.]

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