Monday, September 04, 2006

Wanted: Sailing Coach

Thanks to everyone who responded to my Time for a Change post by asking me not to kill this blog. You gave me the encouragement I needed to reconsider this decision.

And special thanks to those of you who read my posts Commitment and Questions about why I felt that the blog needed to die or change, and then provided me with some excellent advice on how to move forward. Several of you suggested that I keep a private training journal but use the blog to keep you informed about my racing, training regimen, approaches to motivation etc. And Katinka supported my conclusion that it's OK for a blog to change when the writer changes his or her needs or intentions.

So, this may be good news or bad news -- or a bit of both depending on your point of view: I've decided to keep Proper Course alive but with a different focus. It will not be what it used to be: a random collection of thoughts on various aspects of sailing some of them desperately trying to be funny. Nor will it be my detailed training journal. What I'm currently thinking is that it will be an occasional progress report on my training and racing along with observations, musings and questions about how best to improve a sailor's racing performance.

I hope some of my former readers will find that of interest. If not, thanks for hanging around this far and bon voyage to you. Perhaps the new focus may attract some new readers too.

More importantly I hope that some of you will help me in the coming months with my training program as you helped me in the last couple of weeks to rethink what to do with this blog. I know that the regular readers of this blog include active sailors in a wide variety of boats. Many of you are racers. Some of you are former champions. Some of you are professional instructors or coaches. So as I struggle to work out how best to improve my own sailing performance I hope you will weigh in with comments, suggestions, disagreements, stories about what worked and didn't work for you, advice, encouragement, criticism...

In other words: please by my coach.

11 comments:

Tim Coleman said...

For what its worth (I'm no champion) I'll share with you any insights I might have and I hope to learn a thing or two from you too.

Anonymous said...

Tillerman-

Glad to see you've decided to keep the blog alive, in some form. Looking forward to hear about your progress in the quest for world Laser domination. :D

Fred said...

Good to have you back. And you have convinced me, by reading yours truly, to start with in a gym to raise my poor fitness level. I did so. Yesterday. Thanks.

Fuff said...

Welcome back Tillerman, hope you enjoyed your break.
I'll keep reading, good luck.

Zen said...

Return of the king, yeaaaa!

Pat said...

Hope the cruise was great and gave you lots of re-charge energy. We'll be glad to hear about your campaign and learn how it goes.

Willie Waw said...

Welcome back -- glad you'll keep blogging -- how was the Arabella?

Katinka said...

'On ya!', as we say Down Unda :) Long live Proper Course!

Carol Anne said...

Well, I don't know that I have what it takes to be your coach, but I'll certainly be your cheerleader, your loyal fan, your encouragement when times get tough.

You've done that for me; I owe it to you to do that for you.

Tillerman said...

Thanks everyone. The Arabella was excellent thank Willie - just as advertised.

Except it turned out to be a cool rainy weekend so not exactly ideal weather for enjoying the islands. And I got food poisoning at a lobster cookout on Cuttyhunk on the last night.

Fred said...

Another one regarding "coaching". I tried hard to convince my sailing friend Andreas John from Hamburg, GER (Laster Master WC in Newport RI some years ago. Right?) to start his own blog but he has not taken the bite yet. He shall pass on his experience to all of us but is not soo much into cyberspace. Very busy with coaching Olympic hopefuls and doing his own sailing on his Formula18 and RS700. Maybe a good idea later, when you are over in Europe to establish contact and book a few days. Just an idea Tillerman. We weekend warriors are not able to coach you much. Andreas has got the knowledge. He also worked as my business coach when I had a low.

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