The Law of Averages

300 level cat-pass precisions. That'll do! It sounded like a fair challenge for later that day. It had been a while since I'd focused on this technique so I felt I should pay it a little more attention tonight.

Throughout the day, the thought of the upcoming training session often crossed my mind but my attention was more often found wandering to what someone had said to me earlier in the week, as I had landed a precision. "You're going to fall and hurt yourself one of these days!" she had said with a smile, and I couldn't help wondering... was she right? Was I a victim to a law of averages that stated some day, somewhere, I was going to mess up a basic technique and seriously hurt myself? Was this an inevitability that was beyond my control? It wasn't a pleasant thought.

It's often told that the most dangerous moments in your training occur whilst you are executing the simplest of techniques and just not paying enough attention. I've rarely heard of anyone being badly injured or missing a big jump where they were fully focused and concentrating, so what could I do to prove to myself that I was not a victim? That I was in fact in control of this situation? The answer came quickly, tonight I would not miss!

So 300, became 300 in a row. If I missed the landing wall, if I overshot, undershot, missed with my hands or if both feet did not land on the second wall and remain there, I would start again from the beginning. Call it quality control or madness - it was probably a bit of both.

When I arrived at the spot where I planned to begin this experiment, I wasn't too happy to find the walls were soaked. Wet, dark and slippery with moss sprouting from between the cracks, the sharp-edged walls greeted me with a slick shine and were menacing to the touch. Great.

30 minutes later, after loosening off and warming up, an inner pressure I couldn't quite locate began to grow inside of me with each successful repetition. 3 became 20, 20 became 50, and the thought of having to start all over again began to haunt me, making each repetition a little more daunting than the last.
The only way to counter this building distraction was to force myself to treat each jump as if it was the first of the evening.
I would focus my full attention on connecting with the first wall cleanly, push just enough and land on the second, and remain there. For a while I felt things were going well, but as my confidence grew, so did my chances of complacency.

If there was indeed some unwritten law of averages, then how many times should I fall in 300 attempts at this, given wet and dark conditions?

Two hours had passed as I reached the half-way point. It was 9:30pm and I had managed 150 level cat-pass precisions and my forearms felt like lead. I hadn't even considered the physical toll this challenge would take. Shaking them off, I thought about the technique and realised it was like being in the pushup position and rocking on to your fingers with enough force to leave the ground temporarily, over and over again. I was tired, I was sore and I knew that although I might be able to reach the elusive 300, it would be a royal pain in the backside to have to start again any time soon.

Ten minutes later I restarted the process and the 151st repetition loomed. I wasn't sure how much I had recovered during the brief rest and the technique itself seemed suddenly unfamiliar in my head. Stop over thinking, this is just another simple technique.

I. can. not. miss. now.

200 reps. At this rate I should be finished by 11pm... 3 and a half hours after I started. If I miss now then I may well be watching the sunrise over my shoulder later today. I managed a quick smile as I thought that might dry the walls a little, if nothing else.

280 reps. My brain had switched off. There was no longer any pressure. The process was automatic and although my forearms begged for relief from the constant punishment, I had fallen in to a rhythm. I would pass over the first wall, land on the second, turn around, hop back, drop down to the floor and line myself up for another, repeating the phrase, "stay straight, medium power." in my head each time. That had become my curse, it had started twenty minutes earlier and I couldn't stop now, what if that was my lucky charm, my key to finishing this?

I honestly don't know if I would have started again had I missed then. Physically, I don't think I could have managed another 300. I'd learned my lesson already though...

There is no law that states one day we will miss. With enough concentration, enough focus, due care and attention, we can repeat a simple technique hundreds of times, for hours and not make a mistake. Accidents do happen and some things are beyond our control but we can greatly reduce our chances of messing up if we treat each and every movement as something important, something to be careful with.

I didn't do 300 level cat-pass precisions in the end.


The 301st was for the nice lady who had inspired my evening's activities.

-Blane