Re: RC: Re: Dance Line

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/24/00 8:08:17 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
fasterhorses@gilanet.com writes:

<<  When a person is 
 focusing on equipment, he/she tends to not relax and soften into feeling 
 the big picture.  Perhaps not the best explanation on my part, but it's 
 right along with what Tamara wrote.  Lif >>

Lif, I've always felt that novices have too much to figure out and they tend 
to fixate on the monitor rather than listen to the horse.  I like to see 
novices limit HRM use to specific purposes (such as perhaps charting time 
over a set course at a set HR once a week, or as an occasional pacing lesson 
to "check" themselves) until they are fairly proficient at the basics.  Once 
those basics are second nature, then they don't tend to fixate on the monitor 
and seem to be much more able to incorporate what they get from it into the 
overall performance to "fine-tune" what they are doing.  Rome wasn't built in 
a day, and neither are endurance horses or riders--green riders have PLENTY 
of time to get a solid foundation before worrying about the fine-tuning.  I 
liken it to learning to fly without a Loran or a GPS--if you learn to fly 
using charts and basic nav tools, you never forget that, and you later learn 
to use the high-tech precision stuff as an adjunct to that, instead of as the 
be-all and end-all.  If your instrumentation screws up for any reason, you 
have the experience to trust your gut when you see a mountain over on your 
left that is not supposed to be there according to the charts, and the skills 
to revert to the basics and survive.

Heidi  (who had to fly charts over the Rockies as a green pilot when the 
equipment failed and the VOR at Jackson Hole, Wyoming was out of commission, 
and who thanked her lucky stars for an old-fashioned instructor who had 
hammered on those basics!)