I was at the Huggers Ski Club “PaddlePower” end of season party, and a couple of us were discussing a person in the club who has absolutely *horrible* technique, and yet because she’s so awesomely fit, she manages to be the fastest woman paddler in the group at the Wednesday night time trials. I told the people I was talking to that this other person is way fitter than me, but she’s six minutes or more slower than me because she just horses herself along using her arms with no body rotation or core muscle involvement at all, and if she learned some technique she’d be scary fast. The people I was with scoffed and said it was all because I’m in a much faster boat. I couldn’t seem to make them understand that it was only the fact that I’ve spend literally tens if not hundreds of hours working on my technique with a coach or a video camera or just doing technique drills alone that I’m even able to keep a boat like that upright, never mind make it move efficiently through the water. And lets not forget that between the last time trail last season and the first time trial this season, I managed to improve my time by nearly three minutes, without changing boats.
I think next time trial season, I’m going to challenge them – the first one of them that manages to get into my Thunderbolt and paddle it around the time trail course without dumping gets $5, but if they dump they owe me $5. If they manage to better my best time in the Looksha, I’ll give them $25. I think I could get rich on that bet if anybody would take me up on it.
I have the same issue with photography. People are constantly saying “wow, those are nice pictures, you must have a really nice camera”, completely discounting the fact that I shoot daily, and am constantly working on my photography. Next time I hear that I should come back with something like “yeah, and you’re a good programmer because you have a nice computer”.