Tuesday, December 23, 2014

You must practice before you can master!



I have always heard that one must practice hard until they can do something better..or do it at all.

When my son was little we gave him at least 4 tricycles!
He could never ever get the hang of pedaling and riding them. He was very  good at other things like playing basketball and balancing on things and had very great coordination  and motor skills but not for riding.

He was running at 10 months old! He never crawled! He went from barely sitting at  8 months to standing  and walking at 9 months.

But pedaling and riding was not something he could do. He tried a few times. Could not do it. Got frustrated . It was not fun for him.
Dad and I are avid cyclists.

We gave him little bikes, then big bikes with big training wheels.
At 7 he could, with training wheels, ride straight ahead, no curves, but barely and not comfortably. So he did not do it.
Always hard and frustrating for him. We did not push it,

I got him a new bike at 8 ( on top of the brand new bike he got less than a year earlier. It sat there with training wheels for months. He tried a few times and that is it.

A couple months before he was 9  I was mowing the lawn and he  went into the garage, picked up his new bike with no training wheels and sat and proceeded to ride around in a circle , The boy who could not ever make a turn while riding a bike on training wheels.

No practice. No struggle. Not hard. He was ready. His body and brain were ready and he rode like he had been riding for years.

You don't believe me?
Remember that I was on my riding mower watching?. I stopped.  I picked up my phone and this is the video of that  moment.

No need to practice here in order to master. He mastered when it was the right time. Without us making him feel bad or frustrated or without it being hard work.



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