Things I’ve Learned; Overthinking in the moment

24/01/2023

Today I Learned about overthinking in the moment. I felt that I started this mornings training session well, I was balanced and composed, I felt like I had speed and power. After the first two laps I decided to try and increase my intensity a little bit and really push some pace. I made a conscious decision to do this on my next few efforts, but I found myself rushing my strokes and being a lot more tensed and forced with how I was paddling. Realising this, I tried to refocus and make a quick fix in between efforts, what happened next however was todays learning opportunities. On the next lap I tried to simultaneously focus on all the things that were allowing me to paddle well in the previous few laps (flat boat, stable strong edges, deliberate and powerful key strokes) and consciously keep building on intensity. This caused a bit of a chaotic next effort as I tried to have conscious focus on about 5 or 6 things at once, obviously a little bit too much. After a few sections of struggle, I finally decided to make another change but this one was for the better. I realised I was trying to do a bit too much all at once and I recentred and refocused. I took relaxed my attention and let go of the things I know I can do well instinctively, those being the flat boat, strong and powerful key strokes, strong and connected edges, smooth body movement. I decided to pick one thing and only focus on that for the last lap of the session. I put aside the desire to build intensity for this lap and the one focus I had was all of the strong and powerful key strokes, to really get back into a rhythm. This last lap felt really good, I felt connected and clear once more, I felt like I had time and patience and I felt like I was just gliding across the water, which is exactly how I want to feel.
It is an obvious thing to know but sometimes a difficult thing to remember, especially when your right in the middle of it with your brain going a thousand miles an hour. It was a nice reminder today that recentring and only focusing on one key thing a session is very important and valuable and will yield much more efficient results.