Please don’t diagnose me but I have a problem. Well actually many of problems but only one under this umbrella. I don’t wear a watch but always need to know what time it is; perhaps this is a veiled arrogance or a deep desire to live more in the moment and be less of a slave to the abstract 4th dimension. Either way our relationship with time is all about control and that is not the only rude word I will use in this blog.
I was sitting on a lovely new Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for about 15 hours of flight. It was the first puzzle piece of a week-long itinerary for the first World Archery Masters Championship in Geneva. I have flown a great deal and listened intently to very many pre-flight safety spiels. There is also the heavily branded service announcement with the customary ‘if you need something, please don’t hesitate to contact us…’
This grabbed my attention, were they asking me to be fast? Were they telling me to not look for my own solution and not think through me issues and just dump it on them? Were they telling me not to hold my issue for the online feedback form they had told me about? All valid possibilities but it got me thinking about the actual term of Hesitate and It allowed me to give this more thought as I snacked and napped the flight away.
It often has a negative connotation; to hesitate is to lose an opportunity. But I offer that to hesitate as a deliberate choice is actually an elevated level of understanding and gives an enhanced view of the situation. It gives space and time to make better choices and at a minimum gives a moment to evaluate the current plans.
I met a traveller, actually he was a teacher so as to fund his need to travel, and he said that when you get worried or confused sit down and have a cup of coffee, and whilst you drink, watch what is happening. I listened but didn’t really think it was that important. But I have used this theory so often and it is perhaps the prime landmark of the Hesitate philosophy during the next week I was to take this advice on a lot more than I expected.
In parenting, to hesitate gives you a moment to assess the situation. It allows for someone to review past biases that are clouding judgments. It allows for a glance into the possible outcomes of the decision.
With food, we should allow ourselves some time to enjoy each mouthful of the dish and the paired wines; thinking for a moment of the effort that has gone into the production and preparation of the meal and the years of dedicated storage for the wines to mature to an optimum point of flavour and depth. When cooking, before seasoning we assess the dish for the need of new profiles before overcorrecting (another curse word). The low and slow movement for food we perhaps draw the hesitation to a very long wait, but even though time is slower, there is still a need to monitor time and not rush the process.
One thing I hate when watching AFL is that players play on from an advantage mark or penalty. I really think that it is rare that not taking the allocated time will give a better result. Perhaps in players that have transcended from mere players to immortals but the years of study needed are generally longer than the average playing career. What prompted the thought around this blog was in fact the time spent at the Archery tournament. I learned a new term called Target Panic where by an archery would come up on aim and be consumed by anxiety around how and when to lose the arrow. Some would overcome this by very deliberate attention to the shot cycle. Others would take a very deliberate pause before committing to the release phase of the cycle. This hesitation is the key to overcoming the Target Panic or at least allowing the archer to assess the process so far. There is much written about the amount of time you can hold the aim position and the mental focus of the aim so again momentum and energy flow is essential hear. As I breath out, I am adjusting my aim to compensate for the body change in the exhalation. As my breath is emptying, this is the stillest my body can be for a few seconds until I start to draw breath in. This is the ideal point for best aim and execution of the cycle. I would suggest that only one or two breath cycles are able at full draw, maybe a third if you are very ‘bow fit’. If you can’t release in these breaths, you have to exit the cycle. A well designed follow through will promote a great release. I work on a gentle contraction in my shoulder blades of the back and push my elbow back and this promotes a great release. Eugen Herrigel talks in his 1952 text Zen in the Art of Archery that one “must become purposeless –on purpose” to find the ideal wait time. Sure in a competition, there is an overall time limit but it is very rare to exceed this for competitive Athletes.
This extends a little to the etymology of the snap shot in photography. There is also a lot of discussion around the perfect or chosen moment of when to release the shutter and capture the image. Waiting too long you will miss the prime moment and being too quick will not allow for the scene to reach it’s prime. This may not be as relevant in the digital age with high speed cameras and the ability to take multiple images in a short period, but in order to make a valid point in a philosophical way, I am talking about these art forms and pursuits in a pure sense with limited technical advantages.
It is rather in vogue to roll directly into a Masters level study Program once a student completes an undergraduate course. This also extends to trades and sports where junior artificer or athlete can progress to Masters Level accreditation rather swiftly without the years of dedication to the field. Again I am not saying the someone should rush or delay. I am not saying they should wait and let others overtake them, but perhaps hesitate and wonder if this is the most appropriate next step.
I was once at sea in my previous role as a Naval Engineer and witnessed a most perplexing interaction between the Navigator and one of the trainee ship drivers. We were exercising with a foreign Navy and were assigned a small pool of ocean to be in whilst other events were underway. The Officer of the Watch had the ship safely at speed inside the assigned sector and the Navigator yelled at him to do something to make it look like we were an active part of the exercise; the reply was that we were safely in sector. The order to do something was repeated so we increased speed and darted around the sector to ‘look busy’. I still feel that all we did was increased risk by moving faster in a small zone when our slow deliberate hesitation was just a fine plan from my limited point of view.
I also feel that Hesitate should be a default option when posting to social media; perhaps with an inbuilt delay from when a post is submitted to when it is published. I am on a parenting group and many times I have forced myself to pause before posting so as not to deliver a reality check and smack down to a narrow minded member of the group that most probably didn’t leave high school on their own terms and embarked on the parenting journey with a critical skills waiver… see what I did there, making a snappy post that I could have hesitated on? I have included it here to make my point, not to inflame so please don’t look for offence as none is ever intended.
I could not complete this article without a comment on mental health. I always think that having a good General Doctor is the best way to co-ordinate care and then access other professionals as needed. There is much though for simple relaxed, thoughtful and deliberate moves. This is a great example of the hesitate to assure these moves are most appropriate for the situation. So here is my two cents on yoga for mental health such as PTSD; every day, do these six poses or something that resembles them in intent…
1. Plank = it is flat, but you will get better
2. Cat = a focus on the mind
3. Dog = a focus on the body
4. Ball = because you will do something active today
5. Sun = look at it, grab it’s energy
6. Tree = you are growing
this post is made with honest respect to the true art and religion that is known generally as yoga. I am not trying to replace the genuine guidance of true practitioners. And finally I just offer that if all I have said on Hesitate is not really working for you, I am glad you at least read all I had to say and might suggest that until I can convince you otherwise that you remember to measure twice and cut once like all good carpenters do.
I wish y’all the very bestest and hope you have a great day.