As we dive into summer, which for many dinghy sailors means traveling to different types of regattas than what are normally on the high school or college scene, I've been reflecting on some basic methods I use when I find myself under pressure in the boat. Some of the more specific techniques won’t apply to everyone, but I still think it’s a useful process for each person to figure out what types of things are more likely to stress them out or not. The one thing I’ve noticed most sailors do is to have a set a routine of some sort. I think the redundancy helps make things feel comfortable no matter where you are or what’s going on around you while also establishing a system that works. I still remember my first Junior Olympics where I was sailing CFJ’s. My skipper’s dad pulled me aside and said, “This what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to come up with a routine that you guys do before every single race. Something lucky, like when I was sailing we used split a Twix bar, and it was just the right sugar-boost before the last race of the day. It was great!” At the time my focus was still on learning basic boat handling, but what he said that day has proven to be true time and time again through my sailing career. What’s listed here is my routine of thoughts or motions that I have become comfortable with through junior, high school, and college sailing.
Think ahead. If you feel at all unsettled a day or two before a big regatta, don’t automatically dismiss it but try to be aware of what’s on your mind. Pinpointing what thought triggered that feeling, (is there going to be someone watching? Are you sailing with someone you don’t know well? Is there a boat/rival in the equation? Etc.) I’ve found that if I’m putting thought into a regatta before it even happens, the same thoughts recur later on the water. My next step is to balance it out with a new idea that erases the first thoughts and makes me feel excited about being on the water. Having a new train of thought prepared helps if you get stressed on the water because you automatically know how turn it around. This is really more of an intuitive process that falls into place with experience no matter what, but sometimes thinking of it consciously can speed up the process and be useful. Or be at least interesting.
Before traveling to any regatta that’s far away, I always try to spend some time outdoors or in the gym. Its something I started in high school, but in college it became a habit. For college sailing, exercising on the Friday of a race weekend helps just to shed any tension from the school week but it’s also a great way to prepare for any event. It gets the mind focused on something physical that’s not necessarily sailing. It would seem like sometimes getting rested would be more beneficial, but I’ve found the right type of exercise is way more energizing. For college sailors it’s also a great way to detox from any Thursday night shenanigans and makes it a lot easier to nap on long van rides.
The key thing is to find a routine that gets the mind engaged but isn’t fatiguing. Doing exercises that involve 2 or more different movements at once (that use coordination skills) are good because a lot of sailing is mentally and physically multi-tasking. Usually I don’t like using an iPod to run or work out to stay focused on the exercises.
Staying physically active before and between races helps keep any jitters down and gives a little energy-boost. I’ve found that a lot of choke-ups (with me and many skippers) happen in the morning or after postponements. My routine typically is to do little stretches on land or in the boat to get the blood flowing (especially in cold weather!) It might be embarrassing for some to take time to stretch before sailing, but it’s easy to get warmed up without anyone even noticing:
On Land: Stretch quads and hip flexors. Stand on one leg while holding the ankle of the other foot behind you.
On The Water: In a postponement, being pent up in one position can make you feel jarred up when you start racing, so I try to remember to switch positions and spread out. The rail of the boat is great to stretch and support the back. Stretch hamstrings and glutes. An easy stretch is to just cross your legs (ankle resting on top of opposite knee.) To increase the stretch, lean forward or pull the knee toward the chest. This is also good to do on planes or van.
Anywhere: Touch your toes. Sitting or standing. This is usually great to get the blood circulating. To get the optimal stretch, be careful to keep your head down while reaching and not to let your shoulders shrug up. If sitting, flexing your feet back will give an additional stretch in the calves, which is good if you’ve been hiking a lot. Letting the knees bend will give you a really relaxing backstretch and take away stress. It’s also good to gently stretch the neck frequently, which will loosen up the shoulders.
On the way out to the course or before a race, obvious reminders are the most helpful. As the saying goes, “the body follows the mind”, so picturing how you want the boat to move is the first step towards making it happen. Visualizing the easy stuff makes the movements more natural and frees up the mind to focus on more complicated things during the race. Little phrases like “tacking strap to strap” or “don’t flatten” are the best.
Don’t get fixated. Although it’s important to have everything set “just right,” on occasion over-checking details can make people more insecure than they were before. When anxious before and during a race, it’s easy to over-focus on one thing to the point of paranoia. A classic example of this is the boat that gets a bad start because they were too busy checking the line. It’s a trap where you think you’re being very careful and precise, but every time you change your mind it wears down confidence. A red flag usually goes up in my head after doing or changing something three or more times in a short period of time. I’ve never directly told a skipper to move on, but I have told some white lies from time to time…
The biggest reason I think this is bad is because it puts you in a mental rut once the race starts. There are a lot of adjustments that are constantly in flux, so zoning in on one thing too much makes you lose perspective on the other parts of a race. A big part of it is remembering to prioritize.
Find a way to work with nervousness rather than against it. Everybody always hears that a little bit of nervousness is a good thing, and I think it’s very true. If you feel yourself getting a little jumpy, you can transfer that energy into being really collected and energized.
I’ve noticed I sail best when I get a little nervous during sequence, but then drown it out by the time the gun goes off. Even if I’m not nervous, sometimes I can psych myself out a little while in sequence because it’s a little adrenaline rush at just the right time. It’s sort of like a light-switch that you can turn on or off.
Sail your own race. Watching what other boats are doing tactically or in boat handling is usually helpful but it can become unsettling if you start comparing yourself to them. I think this gets at its worst when there’s a focus on what you’re not doing, rather than simply observing what they are doing. This sometimes leads to a feeling that you have to be everywhere at once. I think the phrase “sail your own race” means to just focus on what you can control and not get caught up in the factors (like other boats) that you can’t change. In a broad interpretation I also think of it as being similar to “being comfortable your own skin.” Racing is a very intuitive process and a lot of the time you just need to trust yourself.
Let go of mistakes. A lot of the real race is more about who can recover the fastest rather than who can sail the fastest. The main thing is to be able to move on no matter what happens. In the boat, saying that someone recovered really fast is just as good as saying they executed something very well. In general, it’s good to always to think about how another boat would have done if they were you. Ideally, you want to come out of any situation knowing that you landed on your feet better than any competitor would have in the same circumstances.
A common thing for sailors to say is “do one thing at a time.” This is especially important in sailing because so much of the sport is multitasking, but psychologically it’s not too different from the more common sports term “keep your eye on the ball”. When your hand starts fumbling over something you’ve done a million times before, it helps to just zone out everything except that one thing, and once its done everything else tends to fall into place.
Know what to do when things just feel “off.” When one or both people in the boat are a little nervous, things don’t click the way they normally do. As a crew I usually go into the first race expecting things to be a bit quirky compared to how practices felt, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing unless it gets to your head. The cause of off-phases is often when someone is over-thinking the race, so my first reaction is to take a time-out and focus on regaining an intuitive feel of the boat… then worry about everything else later.
And lastly, the biggest thing I’ve found with stress or nerves, is that it happens unpredictably. I wrote this geared towards thinking about big regattas, but sometimes (and ideally) an intense practice can be more nerve-wracking than the event you’re practicing for. Most of it boils down to how comfortable, prepared, and confident you feel rather than what’s happening around you. It's a mental process more than anything else, which is why I think having a set routine is important for so many sailors- whether it's a Twix bar or doing some stretches before a race.
