Circling in Psychological Sink

Soaring Contest Corner

John Cochrane

“I guess I just can’t fly anymore,” = the pilot lamented as we were sitting on the grid. He had landed out the day be= fore – hardly unusual in the Midwest, b= ut disappointing nonetheless. He grumbled some more, banged things around, kic= ked the dirt a bit, yelled at his crew (an unpardonable offense to those of us whose spouses don’t come to contests) and then it occurred to me: this guy’s going to land out aga= in today. And so he did.

The whole affair was ridiculous. This was a very skill= ed pilot, with at least 20 years of experience. One landout, one bad contest, = even a bad season objectively give no real information about how good a pilot on= e is. And if you’re flying badly, grousing about it isn’t going to do= any good anyway – you have to isolate problems, strategize on the ground = how to fix them, and then go up and practice, all with a positive attitude.

Over the last season at two nationals, I saw this over= and over again. “I’m having a terrible contest”, one said; “it all went downhill when we= had that fight back at my club,” said another, “my flying skills ju= st seem to have evaporated,” “Chris and DJ have pulled so far away noone can catch them now.” Comments like these are usually not followed by spectacular flying. =

None of these pilots would think of taking circles in = sink, or flying the task with the gear out. These guys have perfect gliders, thei= r raw flying skills, knowledge and strategic understan= ding are honed to a fine point. But leaving the ground with this attitude is a begin= ner mistake, just like circling in sink – and with the same predictable effect on results.

I’ve also noticed a very few very top pilots who= seem always to be in a good mood, no ma= tter how badly the contest may be going for them. They have become my heroes.

Here’s the second insight I got that day: You can choose how you feel. So choose the emotions that make you = most likely to achieve your goal. This isn’t necessarily easy to do. You h= ave to think about common situations ahead of time, practice what might be good thoughts and “antidotes” to the inevitable bad ones.

Let’s start by banning self-pity. Self-pity is probably the most common and most useless emotion at a glider contest. Why = do we do it? I think that outwardly feeling worse about an event lets us somehow secretly feel better about it. In some sense, since “I can’t fly anymore” is so patently ridiculous, we give ourselves a pat on the ba= ck of “oh, it’s not that bad.” Perhaps we secretly want our friends to do that for us. We might as well be honest, the respect of our p= eers is one of the main reasons any of us fly. Perhaps by this complaining, we wan= t them to think “he’s really a good pilot, he’s just having a bad string.”

But whatever drives us to it, it is totally useless &#= 8211; it is not an emotion you would choo= se now, reading this over the winter, to head out on course with. We want to g= et ourselves every day into that relaxed, confident, highly aware state of mind that produces great flying.

Some “antidotes” might help. Here’s = one: Never evaluate your overall skill as a= pilot at a contest, and especially certainly not in the air. (Of course, you = can and should try to spot technical details and things you can improve, and put those into practice.)

Here’s another: Set a short-term forward-looking goal. After a contest-ending landout, or realizing that I’m way behind, I like to consciously set a goal of winning the day, and focus on that. Think how impressed they’ll be wh= en you win the last three days!

You can practice how you will feel in certain hard par= ts of the flight, as well as countering overall bad moods. Sooner or later you wi= ll be down low scratching to avoid a landout. It’s easy to feel a wave of self-pity: “Why me? Again? There they are = all zooming overhead while the contest evaporates for me down here.” Obvi= ously, feeling this way you’re not likely to do a very good job with that one knot thermal. Practice some better thoughts: “Everyone gets stuck. Re= al champions know how to work that 1 knot thermal and avoid a landout.” = “Focus on the task at hand – everything else is unimportant.” I find talking to myself with these pre-practiced thoug= hts helps a lot.

I try hard to follow: Don’t think about the race in the air. Others may disagree, and find it inspi= ring to think about who is ahead and who is behind. I find it incredibly distrac= ting. I either lose focus by congratulating myself, or push too hard by focusing = on others.

Safety needs a good attitude too. For example, who is = going to do a better job of landing out, the pilot who is thinking “Oh ****, here we go again. Now the contest is over. Why can’t I **** fly an= ymore?” or the pilot who is thinking “Oh well, even the best pilots land out sometimes. Now, let’s show the world how a first class pilot does a b= y-the-book off field landing?” You can c= hoose to be the second pilot.

Long ago, I came home in a terrible mood after a lando= ut. My very understanding wife pointed out that she was home all day with the kids while I was out goofing off with my flying buddies, and she didn’t wa= nt to hear any of what a terrible time I had. That really woke me up. She̵= 7;s given me a lot of good practice of saying “well, I landed out again, = but what a beautiful day it was.” And the next day, I’ll fly better. Now, if I could only stop practicing that one so often!