As I get ready and am “chomping on the bit” for the upcoming clinic I’ve been doing a lot of reading and watching videos on the NWC (No Worries Club) site. One of Clinton and Shana’s tips for success is to make sure you practice with your tools. You should practice swinging the stick about 3 minutes a day or 100 times with each arm before the clinic.
At the ranch, that’s easy to accomplish while working with my horse, but when we are at home on the boat…it’s not as easy. First, there are certain space requirements, and also we’ve usually got ourselves knee-deep in some project or another. So I’ve found a time and place to get some practice swinging my arms.
Our boat is the biggest on the dock (70ft.) so we are at the very end, furthest away from the parking lot about 550 feet. Every day, sometimes 5-6 times, I have to run errands, run for parts, or whatever comes up, it’s a great walk to swing my stick! Well, it’s a great walk to at least swing my arms. I can get in about 80 rotations on each arm. I walk past about 40 boats on our dock and the Marina is always full of life, other folks who live aboard their boats, boat mechanics, and divers, we know most of them by name and hang out together. On the weekends the place really fills up! I thought that I might actually scare some people swinging a stick like a crazy woman, but then I remembered, that they all already think I’m crazy.
The clinic is about two weeks away and I think it’s time to bring out the stick and get more practice in. Now I fully expect my fellow boaters to comment on the fact I am walking down the dock swinging a whip, and my husband will have to bear the brunt of the jokes sure to come.
I’ve also figured out that instead of finding a clump of dirt in the arena to try to hit, we have an abundance of bird poop on the dock to help me improve my aim.
Where there is a will there is a way…
So today was my attempt of swinging the stick and string while walking down the dock. Well, that’s not really working out as I had hoped. There is way too many things to hit as I make my way down the dock. Boat anchors, ropes, and let’s not leave out the satellite dishes sprinkled down the dock. I think I even managed to hit a couple of the concrete pilings. So I devised a new plan, just swinging my heart away at the end of the dock next to our boat.
I’ve also found that if I give the end of the rope a little dunk in the water I can watch my progress as I aim for the knotholes. As you can see by the photo my left arm is going to need more work!