I'm walking around the block this morning, testing my sprained ankle that I just freshly reaggravated playing soccer.
It's kind of a bummer.
As I'm walking, I'm thinking of snowboarding. Not, like, "oh man I really want to go snowboarding right now" (though, it would be fun). What I'm thinking of is more like... trial and error?
There's this rock feature at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort that people love to jump off of, myself included, called Mikey Likes It. It's also great for benchmarking someone's ability level. As a student, it lets them feel what it's like to ride terrain like that in a relatively controlled environment without all that much consequence. And as an instructor, it tells me a lot about how the student actually operates. I watch their body language before it's their turn to drop. I listen to what questions they ask and the way they ask them—to the words they choose, and the ones they don't. And after coaching them where needed, I watch to see how much of it they implement.
As humans, fear pushes against us.
Biologically, it makes us hesitate, which is why scared snowboarders lean too far back and lose their balance when they land. But you can train yourself to respond to that fear differently over time. Mikey Likes It was always a helpful test in that regard.
Features like that are always how I measured my own readiness, too. Coming back from an injury? Lets hit Mikey's and see how I do. So while I'm shuffling my feet across the cracked sidewalks of my neighborhood, I'm wondering how long this sprained ankle will keep me from doing all the active stuff I've worked back into my life: running, soccer, basketball, mountain biking... And I'm trying to plot out some small tests that will let me know when I'm ready to crank it up a notch.
As I'm walking back up the hill from my journey around the block, I know if I can at least do that, I'm going to heal up faster than I initially thought. But after opening the door and making my way up the stairs, the jolt of pain shooting along the outside of my calf lets I know I'm still a ways out.
Do you benchmark your progress? How?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.