We’ve made it to La Ventana, BCS, and already have a few days of kitesurfing checked off. It always takes me a session or two to find my muscle memory and get reacquainted with the best combo of kite/bar/lines/board. In contrast to my other sport of running, there are so many moving parts, not least of which is the weather itself—there’s a lot to keep track of!
Two days ago, my third time out, I had struggled to get up away from the shore and up and riding—my kite was just a tad too small for the wind speed, but I knew it would pick up as time went on, so I wanted to err on the small side at first. At some point, after having fallen again and needed to drag myself to get back to my board again and having a nose full of salt water again, I had this clear thought: “This should be so much easier by now!”
As in, I’ve been learning this sport for years, why I am I still falling and struggling and feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing? Seriously, what the hell?
I caught myself going down the road of, “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this sport, maybe this sport just isn’t for me, maybe I’ll never get good, maybe I’ll always just be mediocre.”
So, fuck it, I thought. Maybe I’ll just stop trying so hard.
Stop trying so hard to fly the kite that I oversteer and pull myself flat on my face, superhero style, splat on the water. Stop trying so hard to stay upwind that I forget to make the small adjustments to my hands and body that make it possible to stay in control of my speed. Stop trying to transition when I’m in bigger swell than I’m used to and just plop my butt down into the water and relaunch so at least I don’t fall.
Of course, you can see where this is going. The moment I stopped trying so hard, I had the longest rides of the day. I felt confident in where I needed to move the kite, the board, and my body to make the adjustments to stay upright and moving. I could let the muscle memory take over rather than my over-thinking brain.
I wasn’t suddenly a perfect rider, but I was more in control. I was out of my thinking brain and into the part of my brain that could be in a flow state on the water, not thinking about anything else but where I was, not comparing myself to anyone around me, and importantly, not down on myself when I would fall again. Just like, hey, I learned something there, let’s try again.
There are so many ways we do this in our lives—try to force something to happen so hard that we get in our own way. We over-think, over-engineer, over-organize, over-plan and pull ourselves flat on our face when our actions don’t match up the other factors at play—wind and water become other people or time availability or unexpected illness; you know—life.
We all have so much more engrained knowledge in our bodies than we give ourselves credit for. We can do the work to learn something, and then need to let our bodies take over the performance. This isn’t just for sports, so let’s say instead, we need to put our over-thinking brains to the side to allow ourselves to perform. We do the work to learn the craft of writing (or painting, or music, or speaking, or whatever else we have to learn rather than know by instinct), and when we sit down to write, the moment we start overthinking if what we’re writing is any “good” is the moment we have writer’s block and get stuck and fall.
In what areas in your life do you need to trust your muscle memory more?
Thanks for reading~I’d be delighted if you would share or comment!
Sub skiing for kite surfing and I know exactly what you mean. I don’t get to ski often enough that I ever feel proficient. And when I do get to ski, it takes me a bit to remember that I know how and to turn off my brain. More thinking = more time on the ground, always.