The Right Thing

The Right Thing is a fairly obvious concept. Something, whatever it is, is clearly correct despite the fact that no a priori correct answer is known to exist. It's not 2+2=4. That's of course right. But it's not The Right Thing. The Right Thing is more about an elegant or well executed solution to a (usually) non-trivial problem that has all the witnesses of the solution pretty much nodding in agreement, "Yup, that's The Right Thing". In the paddling world it might be the leg drop.

The leg drop, in case you're unaware, is (among other things) part of edging ones boat. I was at a lake once futzing about with some folks from my club and I mentioned the leg drop, which I'd just learned, and nobody had heard of the leg drop. So I explained and everyone tried it and nodded their head. The leg drop is an instance of The Right Thing.

One of the key components of an instance of The Right Thing is the oh yah moment. Blogs are a bad place to try to convey tonality but I'll try here. Oh yah, when it comes to The Right Thing, isn't uttered like "Aha", or "I see". The Right Thing "Oh Yah" is expressed more as "Excellent" or "Ahhh". Maybe like finding your number of a sleep number bed. Or having your first 18 year old Scotch after drinking 10 year olds for a long time.

The Right Thing is not always something particularly clever or insightful (The best instance of The Right Thing I know if is in fact both, but I'd have to talk about locking overhead versus time to create a mutex and that seems a little out of place here). But The Right Thing, whenever or where ever you run across it, is definitive. It establishes a bar, or a method of operation for whatever it is being considered.

I took (and passed) my BCU Level 1 Coach class with Body Boat Blade last week. It was I think The Right Thing. Let me show you four pictures to illustrate why I think so:

Some of the boats for the class

Paddles too

This is what we all came up with as having been discussed

Bill Lozano, from New York, on the left

What do all these mean? Essentially 3 things. First, a huge amount of effort went into obtaining use of the proper amount and type of equipment for the class. I don't think there was a single instance where anyone had to sit on shore or be in a boat, or use a paddle, that wasn't exactly appropriate for the task at hand. Second, the amount of information covered was large but, as one might infer from the acronyms (I'm a big fan of acronyms) and doodles and like that, it was presented in a form that can easily be remembered, is actionable and of course relevant (the word BLOG there is for BLOG, but I think that snuck in mistakenly somehow). Third, that's Bill Lozano there on the left in the last picture. Bill was flown in from New York, and took time away from his business, in large part to ensure that Level 1 Coaches are being taught (and assessed) as similarly as possible in this country. Note please that the fee for the class did not go up because Bill was there.

I take a fair number of classes (a couple a year) and so consider myself a reasonably well educated consumer with regard to paddle sport education. I mentioned that The Right Thing often times sets a bar or a standard for something. This class really set a bar for me. The obvious effort that went into the whole thing is, and probably will for some time remain, a standard that I'll aspire to in any class I run. The whole event was professionals doing a professional job. Nothing was dialed in, half wayed, or any less good as it reasonably could have been (I'm thinking in terms of more sunshine here).

There's a lot more to say about this class, and I will over time, but I think this was the most important.