An Argument For Failure

This weekend, I moved up my regular volleyball training session from Sunday at 2 (Saints conflict, obviously) to Saturday at noon.  It was hot, but the worst of the heat was coming from my coach.

Coach: I'm not going to gift wrap things for you any more, Rebekah.

Okay, he says that every week.  But this week, he was particularly hard on me.

Coach: You've got to put in the time.  You've got to make these things instinctual. What are you doing?  Move your feet.

I almost cried today (twice).  I'm no good at being yelled at.  Nobody ever really yelled at me as a kid, and if they did, I teared up and then never did that thing again.  Things haven't changed that much in the last twenty years.  Harsh criticism continues to make me want to cry.  The worst part about being yelled at in volleyball, though, isn't even the yelling; it's the frustration of not being able to easily correct what I'm doing.

I know that I need to move my feet more.  I know that I need to check the other side of the net two or three times before I put the ball over.  I know that I'm too slow sometimes and too fast other times.  But it's not easy.  I still feel stuck in the sand, and I'm still confused by my mistiming.  I ask questions to try and correct these gaps from a mental standpoint, but that rubbed him the wrong way today.

Coach: I'm not going to be there to remind you which shot to take or when you need to jump.  The ball's not going to be predictable every time.  You have to be the one to know what to do.  You have to make the decision.  You were asking if you should swing at that ball more?  That's like saying, 'Should I not have hit that ball at her so hard?'  You should already know the answer to that question.  I'm giving you too much.  I'm not going to gift wrap things for you any more.  You've got to stop being so timid.  Be aggressive.  Show some effort.

Thank God for sunglasses.

I don't respond to tough love well, which is probably why I haven't made it in sports thus far.  Today, I just nodded and looked in his general direction or at my feet.  I tried to speak at one point, but my voice almost cracked, so I just uttered a few "yeahs" and moved to retrieve all of the balls I had mishit.  Silently and sadly.

Coach: I know it's hard.  Learning new things isn't easy.  It's a challenge.  But if I can introduce something new to you every week...

I didn't want to talk about it any more.  "Please stop," I wanted to say.  There's no crying in volleyball, but if you push me, I'll weep like the pansy that I am.

This isn't a criticism of my coach or of his methods.  I bet today's approach works for a lot of people, and most of the time, he doesn't yell.  Most of the time, he's good at both pushing and motivating me.  But today, it just stung.  I'm not used to not being good at things, and when I find myself in that position, I usually peace out early enough to save face.

I wish that I had failed more as a kid.  I always took the safe route, intent upon making sure that I had good grades, pleased my parents/teachers, and did the right thing.  The problem is that life is not always safe.  Sometimes it forces you down paths significantly more dangerous or unpredictable than you expected, and the only way to make it through is by experience.

I'm an not an experienced failer, but I wish I was.  I wish that I had sucked at something important as a kid, and that somebody had given me tough love and made me suffer through it.  That sounds a little masochistic, but I think I'd be a stronger, more resilient person if I had.

As a teacher, I hope for failure for my students, especially my best and brightest.  I hope they crash and burn, and learn that it's not so bad, that they can come back from anything if they try.  I hope that they experience big failures when it doesn't count so much, so that they don't sweat the smaller stuff when it does.

This afternoon, I played a pick up game on the bayou with friends.  I blocked, I hit, I made shots, I passed the ball well.  I was killing it, and I knew I wouldn't be if I wasn't constantly being pushed at training.  You don't get better by staying the same.

There might be a few more tears before I make it to my "aha" moment, until I finally get it.  Until then, I'll keep my sunglasses on and channel Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going."