Ordering up the Day
I had a brief discussion a few days ago with IronGall about preparing for and taking tests. It reminded me of an essay which I promised to dig up (turns out this was a really good thing as the essay in question had managed to disappear completely from my hard drive and all I had was a single hard copy left). Thanks to the modern magic of touch typing I have recreated it in electronic form for your entertainment.
Ordering up the Day is about testing and preparation and living and dogs and tracking:
According to Bruce Fogle in his book, The Dog’s Mind, a dog’s ability to smell and particularly to distinguish origin and direction of a particular scent is so far beyond our human ability as to render meaningless any comparison. It is not ‘better’ than ours, this ability. It is, if anything, completely different in a way that we can’t even imagine. Riley has successfully followed a track across a softball field. The track had been laid an hour earlier. A softball game finished seconds before she began the track. Imagine if someone walked across that softball field wearing sneakers with blue paint on the soles. Then, fifteen other people came along and ran and jumped and played softball on that field. They also had blue paint on the soles of their shoes, but it was a shade lighter than the original paint. Imagine trying to follow the original path. That’s what Riley can do with her nose.
The full essay is here.
Comments
Crossposting reply from my place:
All the things that go through one's head when one's under under pressure, especially for a long period, have so much to do with the test I have coming up and with performance in general. The whole way the mind works, on its own track, as it were, while you're engaged in difficult pressured action. It's fascinating how the kind of performance you were engaged in--sport, physical, tandem--is similar to artistic performance in that respect. The whole mental sphere.
You write, "At moments like this I start thinking well, at least I won’t make a total fool of myself, then I think, don’t think like that, it’s bad luck, then I think, pay attention, watch your dog, you’re a long way from done yet. But it’s one of the things about tracking that there’s lots of time to think and some of it’s useful so you can’t just shut off your brain and go." And later you write, "My world at that moment, as we were almost finished, comes down to my fears. I swear that I will not trip over my shoelaces. I will not drop the articles."
Great stuff! I also love the portrait of how you learn your dog's particular way of working the trail and work with that and help her, and how you learn to read the judges' movements, too.
Plus, the whole thing is just a riveting account. Thanks so much for putting it up!
Posted by: TM(tm) | September 21, 2002 07:09 AM
Glad you enjoyed it!
And I'm really glad I went looking for it. It's an essay I've had around for awhile and I have thought off and on that I would try to publish it someplace, but better it be here being read (one hopes) than sitting on my laptop doing nothing.
I like what you say above about this resembling an artistic performance. I haven't done much in the way of performance, especially with others like a musical performance, but I see where trust and timing and learning to read each other would be very important.
Posted by: debco | September 21, 2002 09:32 PM
What I love is the portrayal of how your mind works on several levels even when you're intensely focused on something important you're doing under pressure.
I also like how one of those levels, in your tracking performance, was you deciding to let your mind continue to work on those levels rather than shut it off, because sometimes the stuff it comes up with can help.
It's such a fine line between being obliviously in the flow and retaining enough awareness to check yourself or prompt yourself if need be.
If I'm performing musically under a lot of pressure and I start thinking about whether I'm looking at the audience too much or not enough, it messes me up. But if I also think (in that unarticulated way) *You're not making enough eye contact with the other musicians, you're forgetting the most basic thing, make eye contact to be sure when the tune's going to change!*, that's useful.
Of course, if the next time I'm under pressure I start thinking about how I had this conversation at iknowiknow.org about how people think about stuff under pressure and how here I am right now under pressure thinking about stuff but it's not the right stuff aieee where am I...
Well, I'll hope I retain enough higher-level awareness to check the infinite meta-regression. {g}
Posted by: IronGall | September 23, 2002 11:27 PM
The amazing thing to me about the long term process of learning to track (and this is probably true of other things as well) is how you gradually become more aware of things. Starting out, the most you know is keeping the line from getting tangled and not tripping (neither of which you can actually _do_ at that point). Then you start to notice the wind and that your dog has its nose down. Eventually, you can see the judges and remember the markers and feed the line out and watch your dog's nose and head and tail and if you'd even _tried_ to do all that at the beginning, you'd have been so overwhelmed you'd have fallen flat on your face.
Posted by: debco | September 24, 2002 03:49 PM
Yes! That is so true. I understand that it happens in fencing, too. At first it's all you can do to try to keep your body in the correct stance and make the correct motions with the foil. When I finished, after ten classes in two weeks, I could just about manage to be aware enough of my opponent's actions to react with parry-riposte. As I understand it, if you fence for about four years, the skills become so unthinking/automatic/reflexive that you can start to play "chess with swords," which is the true art of the form. Your mind becomes free enough to consider strategy--to be aware on a higher level.
I'm noticing the same thing in Krav Maga.
It's a very cool process.
Posted by: TM(tm) | October 4, 2002 09:39 AM