The Wallace Chess Blog!
Reach for the stars (or what you can learn from a dive roll)
Chess can teach children a bunch of skills that reach far beyond the chequered board. In the same way, I find I get a lot out of the adult gymnastics classes I take. Some of the guys there say gymnastics is 80% in the mind, specifically overcoming fear. It is natural to be afraid of things that are new, especially if pain seems like a likely outcome. And the strategies that you are taught – or develop in your imagination – to deal with the new challenges can easily be applied to the rest of your life.
This particular day I was learning how to do a front somersault. Now I am a beginner at gymnastics, and never did it as a kid, so this was not going to happen in one session. So first thing was to break it down.
We set up a crash mat and a little trampet and I had to run up, jump on the trampet and do a dive roll.
So far so good so then we added a foam obstacle about a couple of feet high which I had to dive over.
That was going pretty well, then one of the coaches came over and said:
‘JP, you are not getting any height. If you aim low, you’ll get low.’
He then took the foam obstacle and lifted it in the air so it was about the height of my nose…
‘Now dive over that!’ he said with a grin.
‘Wow’, I thought, ‘he has to be kidding! Ok, nothing to lose…it is just foam anyway so I can’t get hurt if I don’t make it over..’
so I closed my eyes, and imagined my favourite Yoda/Luke Skywalker training scene, then opened my eyes and went for it.
Of course I cleared it first time!
And the coach smiled, said ‘you see, if you aim low, you get low’, and walked away…
12/01/12
Entry by John-Paul Wallace, Co-Director Wallace Chess Ltd.
Copyright 2012