Owning the Zone

Robin Hood, as everyone knows, was a legendary figure from medieval England who did pretty much what he felt like doing, and that's the kind of person young boys like to hear about, so the story is about six, seven, maybe even eight centuries old and going strong.

I read about him when I was a kid, and I loved how good he was at things. In the version I read, he came in disguise one day to an archery contest. It came down to him and another archer, whose next shot hit the exact middle of the target. Then Robin shot, and split his rival's arrow. This happens in real life—you'd be amazed how accurate you can be with a bow—but to a young boy who wasn't allowed to throw things in the house this was an intoxicating example of deadly mastery.

So here we are a few decades later, and I'm going on a fishing trip to a faraway tropic isle in a matter of days. Yesterday I went out to the park for two separate sessions to practice casting my fly rod. That sounds like sloth but isn't. These trips cost a lot of money that I worked hard to get, and if you can't cast a fly with consistent accuracy at least 40 feet or so through wind strong enough to ruffle your shirt while following the movement of a faint, ghostly shadow in the water, you've wasted your money. You can't be thinking about the cast at all; it has to be ingrained.

Let us forswear false modesty: the friends I'm going with are that good, and so am I. Not a master, but quite a bit better than average. Study and practice over time, that's the only thing. Take heed, my young friends! But I've gotten rusty, and I found I had trouble keeping my form at its peak when I focused on a tuft of grass as a target and didn't watch the rod going back and forth. This has troubled me in previous practice sessions, and yesterday morning it was so bad I gave up and went home to work. I had other things on my mind, so practicing wasn't going to help and I knew it.

But I got back on that horse, went out again in the afternoon, and applied some critical thinking to the problem. I took the muscle memory of the usual good-form cast and concentrated on reproducing that while I watched the target. And bingo—that was it. Cast after cast arrowed out straight and clean. Problem solved.

So I'm walking back toward the car, the rod balanced lightly in my left hand. A well-made chef's knife or shotgun feels lighter than its weight because of the way they balance, and so do good fly rods, When relaxed, confident anglers walk along a bank, they carry their rods with a certain lightness and grace, the way lovers hold hands, utterly naturally. I thought about that, and about old Robin Hood, strolling away from the contest, holding that bow lightly, like it was part of him.

One is never a total master at anything, of course—the greatest masters feel frustration at their shortcomings far more than any duffer. And partial mastery in one realm, a fine thing in itself, is no bulwark against abject failure in others. But once in a while you do achieve a certain mastery over yourself, don't you? Insight, work, discipline, self-control, concentration, and suddenly you're like a magnifying glass, setting things on fire. Once in a while, it all comes together, and you outdo yourself, splitting your own arrow. And even just once in a while, that's an awfully good feeling. I went home, did some good work for a client, and when I poured myself a drink at cocktail hour, I felt like I'd earned it.