In the Studio

One of the earliest lessons I ever learned was in high school. I played fast-pitch softball, and I could throw the ball really hard. I also threw it over the backstop, took out my mother (she never did agree to be my catcher again), lost count of how many batters I hit and I even disabled a few umpires. Even though I threw the ball very fast, I never did know if the batters were just a bit slow or just too afraid to actually swing at the ball, so if they didn’t get hit or walk because even the catcher couldn’t catch the ball, they struck out.  My softball coach wanted me to change how I threw the softball (slower) so that I would be more accurate and throw more strikes right away. You could have said that I was an abysmal failure as a pitcher. But my pitching coach Rick told me to forget about that, that once I learned the proper technique, accuracy would naturally follow. Receiving diametrically opposed directions from each coach forced me to make a tough decision: I decided to trust that the strikes would come with more practice without losing any speed? It did.  And almost 30 years later, I can still pick up a softball, and after a couple of warm-up throws, deliver a strike because my muscles still remember how to do it.