Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2007 23:14:30 GMT
Scunthorpe 8th December 2007
I wasn’t particularly interested in going to Scunthorpe today for the practice session. I could have made excuses like Christmas is almost upon us and I have other things to do. I could have said the weather was bad and likely to take a turn for the worse. I could have made a number of excuses not to be there. I could have said the reason I wasn’t going was because I couldn’t be bothered to and that would have been closer to the truth than any of the other excuses. But I went all the same.
I had been disappointed with the way things went the week before. I have always been of the school of thought that one should never be where one is not needed or serves no purpose to those around them.
A person can stand out there on a bend in the cold windy weather and freeze for no reason at all. Serving no purpose to anyone contemplating why one waves a red flag other than the fact of having something to hold onto in a crisis
But I went anyway because you don’t measure every situation by one isolated moment in time. When I arrived some people were already preparing to ride the track and me I was there but I wasn’t there.
People were doing what they do and there was me wandering around like a ghost. The sky was dull and overcast but the weather didn’t provide any problems to contend with. The track looked in good condition with Richard Hall putting it to the test without a problem
The flags were already out there on the track so I found myself out on the third bend doing my thing. But with not as many riders there this week as there was last week the proceedings were more sedate. Riders obeyed the rules and things went along without a hitch. Some riders fell during their practice fortunately without serious consequences. Things were looking good.
I had the chance to speak with a number of people today. Each conversation rekindled the passion within me to be where I was. It was evident that people understood what I was writing about last week. It was evident that the post was read by some of those who take part in the practice sessions and they shared the concerns that were raised about safety on the track.
I am interested in the progress of every rider who uses the track to practice. Over the few weeks of practice you can see riders improving. Riders from little Reece to the more advanced riders all show improvement in the way they go about riding the Scunthorpe track. Chris Widman (I might have his surname wrong) I recall from a couple of years ago has recovered from setbacks and looked very good on the track today. I had an interesting chat with his father.
I try to speak to those who are with riders when the opportunity arises. Enquiring about how they think their rider is doing in their opinion. It is satisfying that these people are interested in the comments that are made about what I see from the centre green about their rider on the track.
This exchange of opinion leads to more detailed conversation with various people that at one point led me to making a few suggestions of my own as to how a rider can improve their skills. I suggested that writing down everything involved in what their rider was doing would be an aid to their progress.
As all those who have come to me in the past, for assistance, are now grown up and have lives of their own to live, I regard myself as being retired from all that and not particularly interested in doing all that stuff all over again.
But in contemplating these conversations, as I drove back home, I realised it might assist someone if I wrote down what I expected from those who, in the past, have come to me for help and advice in doing something they wish to do.
So what follows you could call A Mister Clemens Master class. You could call it a load of boll*x too but that’s entirely up to you.
It’s all about preparation How prepared are you prepared to be? What is the limit of your ambition? How far are you prepared to go to achieve that ambition? What price are you prepared to pay? What lengths are you prepared to go to? That’s four preparations already and we haven’t done a thing yet.
My boss’ son didn’t want to be a professional rider. He wanted to learn how to ride a bike for his own satisfaction. As a result, I taught him how to ride a bike and he was content with that because I wasn’t ‘driving’ him to do something he didn’t want to do.
Because if they don’t want to do it there is no purpose served by ‘making’ them do it.
The other boy we knew at Stoke wanted to be a professional rider so the advice I gave him was different to the advice I was giving the boy who was with me. It’s different levels of intensity applied to the person you are dealing with. Your intention is to enhance their spirit not to destroy it.
I always ask the person to do things. I never tell them to do it or that they have got to do what they are told. Of course when you ask them to do something they take it has read that they are being told to do something by other means. That’s the ‘message’ they receive but it’s not the message that’s being sent out.
The reason I ask them to do things is for a purpose. The purpose being to find out just exactly how much they ‘want’ what they say they want. Because if they really want to do what they say they want to do and they really want you to help them to do what they say they want to do. They will prepare themselves to do what has to be done and apply them-selves to the job in hand with the proper attitude. And if they don’t do what they are asked with the right attitude you know already how dedicated they are to what they say they want to do.
The drummer left the band because he knew the other three band members weren’t responding to what they were asked to do if they wished to be famous. In other words he realised they were playing at it.
Eventually, hopefully, they realise that you are asking them to be or do what they want to be or do and not telling them to be or do something because you have the ‘power over them’. Once they realise you are there to guide them and that the onus is on them to prove to themselves they want to achieve what they want to achieve the highway of progress opens up before them.
Because those who truly want to be will prepare themselves and apply themselves to the job in hand because they WANT to do it. There are those who have blossomed when they have realised what I am asking them to do and there are those who have walked away from it.
I have told them all ‘it doesn’t matter to me if you do it or you don’t’. They have told me that if it doesn’t matter to me if they do it or they don’t that it proves I am not interested if they do it or they don’t. My response has always been ‘the reason it doesn’t matter to me is because it doesn’t matter to you. For if it mattered to you, you would be applying yourself to the job in hand, instead of arguing the toss with me, about something and nothing.’ And so it goes.
But we prepare and how do we prepare? The very first thing of course is to be prepared in mind body and soul. What’s on your mind? If your mind is on any other thing than the job in hand then your mind isn’t on the job in hand. When you are riding a speedway bike your mind didn’t ought to be on anything other than the job in hand.
So you have to be physically fit, that should go without saying, but we will say it anyway because attention to every detail is everything. No matter what it is you are doing in life. You have to be mentally fit and your spirit has to be attuned to what you wish to achieve. For, as they say, if your heart’s not in it what are we doing here?
Your bike has to be prepared for what the rider wants it to do for them in the manner they want the machine to perform for them. I am not a mechanic but they say the speedway bike is the most basic racing machine there is. How many riders know, in detail, every aspect of the machine they ride. There you are assistants write out a test paper for them and see how many questions they can answer!!!
The bike the rider owns – does the rider mould themselves to the contours of the machine – or is the machine moulded to the form of the rider? It is for you to answer that question. The shape of the machine can be changed far easier than the body but either way rider and machine must be one with each other. That the machine trusts the rider and the rider trusts the machine
I used to talk to my truck’s engine as we drove down the road. Passengers were amazed to find the truck’s engine talked back to me. And when they asked my how or why the engine responded to me, I used to tell them because ‘we are at one with each other.’
I never blown an engine, or a gearbox, or have burned a clutch out in all my driving life. That’s because I don’t ask the engine to do something it can’t do or MAKE it do something it can’t do. My boss once told me that over the past five-year period my truck was the truck that had had the least money spent on repairs out of all the rest of the fleet.
Then we have to get out on the track. But how well do we know that track? Have we walked round the track? Have we taken a look at it? The big picture? The sweep of the track? How tight the bends are? How many cuts and crevices are there in the track? Which way does the track lean? Does it fall towards the fence? Does it fall towards the centre green? Which way does the wind blow?
Do we know the dimensions of the track? Do we know how long it is? Do we know how wide it is on the straights? Do we know how wide it is on the bends? Have we found out all these things? Have we keyed all these dimensions into a computer and created a virtual on screen track with us as the star of our very own speedway video pc game? And if we have done all these things and come to understand the nature of the track we are going to ride in real life. Are we prepared to ride the track we wish to ride?
Do we as a rider take to the track full of tension because none of these things are known to us? Do we as a rider take to the track relaxed because we are prepared for and have prepared for all of these things?
Have we taken pen to paper and written down all we have found out about our day at the practice track? Have we assembled all these notes and filed them so we can cross check all we have learned? Have we taken all these ‘pieces’ and assembled them as you would a jigsaw puzzle? Have we juggled with the pieces till they all fit naturally into place? Have we taken on board and digested all these things and become naturally at one with them? Do we see the ‘big picture?’ – or what – eh!!!!
And you can see their eyes glaze over and they tell you that you are being ‘hard on them’ and ‘asking (note now you are asking and not telling them you want ->) too much of them’ And as such they are telling you just exactly how much they are committed to what they are doing, to what they say they want to do and be.
An American youth in the poetry chatroom I used to go into posted his work there. I always used to give my opinion of his work and how he could improve it. He always used to tell me how much he didn’t appreciate me giving my opinion. One day, in a private chat, he told me he was going off line for a long time. But before he went he wanted to thank me for all I had ‘taught’ him over the previous time he was in the chatroom.
A few years later he reappeared and told me he had served in the US Army, being the reason he had left the chatroom. He told me that he regarded me as his mentor and when I died would I let him have just one of my books of poetry. I told him I’d think about it but not to expect one anytime soon!!!!
I have realised myself, there are those who take note of what is said to them and those who don’t. Sometimes those you don’t expect to take notice are the ones who do and those you do just think you will always be there if they listen or they don’t. But I have always been of the school of thought that one should never be where one is not needed or serves no purpose to those around them.
So it is gratifying when you write a post that suggest that certain people conduct themselves in a more professional manner than they have previously, that there are those who take time out to tell you they appreciate what is said because the safety of all the riders on the track matter to them. It is gratifying because it struck me that no one was really interested in what was posted and the reason I wasn’t really bothered about going to the practise session today. Because the attitude is ‘if they can’t be bothered neither can I.’
The point is already made about that and the point is made about how a person should respond regarding commitment by those who say they want to achieve what they want to achieve.
I have written these thoughts for those who are interested in what was discussed this afternoon. There maybe those who regard what is said here as boll*x
On occasion those who I have assisted and given advice have told me that other people have told them, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
I have told them if that’s the case then they should go and let those other people assist and advise them. Needless to say most of them have stayed and learned.
So this post is for those who are interested and for those who aren’t avert your eyes.
As my mother and father always told myself and my brothers and sisters, ‘if you are going to do something then do it right or don’t do it at all.’