Planning Your Flow
“The Balance of Calculation and Serendipity”
Every Rope Flow enthusiast faces the same temptation: rushing toward complex tricks before mastering the fundamentals. But what if the secret to unlocking true flow lies in stepping backward, not forward?
You are excited to learn and develop, increase the complexity of your flows and up level your tricks and skills. And that is fantastic, but my sincere advice is to not get too technical too soon, and prioritise smooth flows and really feeling the rope to maximise enjoyment. If its true that slow is smooth and smooth is fast - then this applies not only to each individual skill and the way you interact with the rope, but also to the way your practice develops over time.
One of the biggest unlockers of flow for me on the rope in my first manic rope flow sprint (which most can relate to i think) was a regression session. I put away all the YouTube tutorials, and all the skills and tricks that i was desperate to master. I think at the time the OverHand sneak was my nemesis… And I did an entire session - a 53 minute Ali Faka Toure album (shout out to Matthew McConnaghey for the signpost in Greenlights) - on transitions. Simply OH-UH, drilling both sides, and playing and experimenting.
I played with different paces, where was the sweet spot for that second beat or to keep momentum through the turn, and most of all the balance point and timing of weight transfer. I think of sessions like these as deep work on the rope, an opportunity to practice the beginner’s mind. The most helpful way to think of the beginners’ mind for me is not the attempting a skill that’s above your current level (though of course this is a righteous flow trigger in and of itself) - but going back to a skill you have already conquered, and see what juice there is left to squeeze. What other hidden gems can you find in something that you breezed by because of the skill’s supposed simplicity?
So why the title of this piece (taken from a very powerful chapter in Clayton M. Christensen’s book ‘How will you measure your life?’) A couple of years ago I was talking about free throws with a buddy of mine, and after the conversation I sent him a section from Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Chef about the technical breakdown of the perfect free throw. To my friend, this made no sense - the answer can’t be in a book he said, you have to get out there and feel it. The same friend looked at me like I had two heads when in a climbing session I mentioned that I was thinking about getting an instructor - ‘The whole point is to figure it out’ he said, ‘why would you want to outsource that joy to someone who already solved it?’
So, please leave room for serendipity in your flow practice. The accidental discovery of a pattern, skill or trick I promise you will bring you joy. And someone can tell you what it’s called later, if it really matters to you to know. Perhaps you just moved Rope Flow 1 step further by discovering something new…
This week, choose one skill you've 'mastered' and spend an entire session rediscovering it. What will you find in the spaces between the movements?
