from green to black

i rest my case

2 times in a row, and there he was crying in a corner.
and i felt like shit, and i wanted to go sit around
and comfort him. but i had no words to say. so i gave
the "chao bin" and carried on preparing my boat for
the next race. their 1 set was over, i had to focus
on the future instead of what i couldnt undo in the
past. i went on to prepare the battle plan for my boat.

i hate it to be proven right on all counts based on
my predictions yesterday. boat a who always are so
quiet couldnt recover in time when there was a
cockup in the call because they went in without a
desire to fight at all costs. and i think there will
be some who will be very defensive right now.

they will be thinking, "the cockup never happen on
your boat what", "what to do cockup", trying to lay
blame or putting something else responsible. well
that's their first failure after the race. we take
responsibility for our results.

you see, boat a didnt do a bad set. they improved,
they set a good timing for themselves and they
performed well if the race against the clock was
all that we set out to do. it isnt.

the problem with boat a is that they went in with
a chicken mentality (and people will get defensive
here). and why do i say that? because people as a
whole were not willing to do everything in their
power to command the race. even if it was impossible
a different race strategy would produce a different
result. so by being dependent on the last charge,
they didnt hit hardest where it counted. the
mentality of the other teams.

i would say this fear is exhibited by the
unwillingness to initiate commanding the race early.
had this been done, the damage of a late call would
have been reduced because there was momentum. but
on a deeper level, i believe this was not done due
to fear. i didnt think people believed that they
could do it earlier and thus they didnt do it.
although on the other hand, this choice was an
ultimatum given to boat b. we simply said that
if we didnt gamble everything, we'd lose for sure,
so we were going to take the chance. all that was
left was to follow and deliver. they did, kudos.

this fear stems from the unwillingness to face the
thought of loss even if all was given. this fear
stems from the lack of confidence that the other
will do more for one's sake. this fear led to
keeping some powder dry. conservation led to
elimination.

could it be argued otherwise that there was a
confidence, composure and unity on the other side?
i would say that it there was, there wasnt a
contingency plan or a race plan that would ensure
that the boat would capitalize on the situation.
and their backpack will argue against my case here
but it was precisely because they did not make
it a boat effort and just a pack effort that they
cannot achieve the best results that happen when
EVERYONE is in unity.

in my boat, these were the precautions and strategies
taken.

to prevent a wrong call, or no call. we forced boat
response and echoing. as a WHOLE boat. we also had
a pack commander and a backup to support the pack
commander. 2 people shouted the same command so that
the volume was louder.

to take the initiative, we forced the boat to call
at 200m, way earlier so that we can punch out. had
we failed here, we would have a significantly better
time anyway, so there would be nothing to lose, it
was a gamble we had to win and we believed that we
would hold on for each other.

to ensure that we were in synchrony and that we
gave in power in unison, echoing was important.
but to keep the idea that we were to give everything
the boat was expected to do a charge within a charge
so that there would be nothing left. after the call
for last charge, they were still prepared for 3
consecutive hard 10s. this would make them focus
on the task at hand by making them concentrate
on counting the 10 instead of zoning out in feeling
their fatigue and it would ensure that they are
giving together and we were leaving no one behind.

i believe that boat b came out the better boat
today. they had weaker and younger rowers. but they
came out fighters. and that is the point of this
analysis. to come out fighters one must be willing
to go and meet their pain and conquer it and that
is the difference.

boat a squandered their opportunities. they did not
do badly, but they wasted the chance to do better.
they could start to get defensive, but that just
means that they never learnt their lesson.

posted by green unseen @ 3:02 AM