Seeing the Wind
by George Dinwiddie, 4 July 2011 | Agile Adoption
This post is from George Dinwiddie's blog by George Dinwiddie. Click here to see the original post in full.
I’ve just spent the past week at Junior Sailing Camp, helping kids circa age 10 become better sailors. At this age, they’ve learned many of the basic concepts: that pushing the tiller to starboard turns the boat to port, that they need to pull the sail in when going upwind, and let it out when going down. Yet they often struggle to get the boat going in varied conditions. They steer too vigorously in light air or choppy waters, killing the delicate momentum they’ve achieved. They position the sail inefficiently–sufficient for a moderate breeze, but insufficient for zephyrs. And in heavier air, the wrong sail trim may result in an impromptu capsize drill.Much of my coaching depends on helping them observe these varied conditions and how the results of their actions are affected by them. Their current skills work fine when the conditions match the way they practice them. When conditions change, the same actions fail. Without keen observation, the cause of that failure is a puzzle.
I’m teaching them to see the wind. It’s invisible. It’s vital for sailing. And it’s constantly changing, both in velocity, direction, and turbulence. But it’s so hard for them to see.
I show them the cat’s paws on the water, and the wind line where the water darkens. I show them how to ease the sail out until it starts to luff and then harden. I point out the trees, and the nearby sailboats, that disturb the...read more
Why are you just repeating other peoples stuff all the time?
Hi Clarke. I decided to aggregate lots of interesting content about agile from other people who write good quality educational blog posts or author books.
My feeling was that this would be good for people interested in this kind of content, because it would give them one place to come for a lot of relevant content. Also, I don’t re-publish everything from the included blogs, only the posts that I think will be of most interest and of an educational nature, as that’s really what this site is all about. I hope that this method of curated, quality content helps people find the good stuff.
I think it’s also good for the people whose content I am re-publishing. I got in touch with everyone I have included on the site, so I am not stealing it by the way! This site is pretty big compared to most blogs about agile, so I think it’s useful for other bloggers to help people find their content and discover their sites.
I do also write blog posts by the way. Not quite so many lately, because I’ve been especially busy (in the process of relocating from UK to Australia), but I have been blogging now for over 4 years and have posted hundreds of original articles here.
I hope that makes sense and shows there is a little method in my madness, even if it doesn’t work for everyone…
Kelly.
Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t. I think you’re drowning your own voice. Why not have a blog roll instead? Or, maybe, you could write a blog about blogs you read. You’re not an aggregator – you’re a talent.
Clarke
Thanks Clarke, that’s nice of you to say that. You can still access what I write by clicking on the ‘My Blog’ link in my nav. But I take your point.
Out of interest, how do you keep up with what I publish – is it by email, RSS or by coming back to the home page?
Kelly.