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This weeks. Life note, the slippery slope.

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Sometimes of learning a new skill from a friend versus a professional.

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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,

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a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,

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wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey,

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post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.

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As well as those of special guests, contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,

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gained experiences, had and inspirations shared.

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Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe,

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so you never miss an episode. Now enjoy this week's episode.

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All righty. Welcome back in friends to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.

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I'm your host, Ch and I thank you once again for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.

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I always like to start off. Thanking our returning C 17 ers for your continued support and tuning in each week that includes our new growing group of international C Seven.

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Thank you so much for your support.

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But if you happen to be tuning in for the first time,

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maybe you've just found us on one of the podcast platforms or via our website out on life notes from Chair 17 podcast.com.

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A warm welcome in to you.

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Thank you for wanting to check us out. Certainly hope you like what you hear and you will want to continue to tune in.

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So this episode,

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uh the trailer might have given it away,

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probably did as perhaps the title of the episode.

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It is really for anyone who has ever wanted to take up something and has had their friend,

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their partner, whomever go.

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Oh, I can teach you that. Speaking from experience,

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my recommendation, nod,

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smile politely. Thank them kindly,

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then go find a school, a class,

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a clinic or something else in order to take a proper lesson or introductory approach to learning whatever it is,

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seriously, it will save your friendship,

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it will save your relationship, your anything ship.

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And this episode is inspired actually by a recent stand up paddle board outing on Lake Washington here in the Seattle area.

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I often try to get out in the water as much as I can.

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It is a place of great clarity for me and a major source of calm and just good energy.

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And for whatever reason on this particular day,

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I was remembering when a friend of mine asked me for some paddling advice.

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Now, sidebar, I have been a stand up paddle boarder for about 13 years or so,

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which followed uh about seven years or so as a surfer and about the same as a body border because I grew up in Southern California.

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So I did happen to grow up near the ocean and spent a lot of time in the ocean as a kid.

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So you could say that I became a water woman definitely from a younger age.

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And I remember when I moved up here to the Pacific Northwest at the time I did so paddle boarding had not really made it up here in the same way.

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It was starting to really emerge in Southern California,

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which it obviously then it was picked up from Hawaii,

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which for anyone who isn't sort of a board sports person,

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oftentimes the trend and the approach to a new board like sport can oftentimes start in Hawaii and then kind of move west um and hit the,

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the surfing communities of California and so on and then kind of go out beyond that and make their way across the East coast.

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I'm not saying it always starts there, but there tends to be a connection oftentimes where Hawaii sort of sets the bar and then we pick it up from,

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from them, which makes sense considering that is the central place of all things surfing.

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So it was funny moving up here because I did sometimes feel like I was the only paddle boarder out on Lake Washington,

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particularly in the southern part near what we call Seward Park.

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And I even used to have lake boaters uh actually pull up alongside me and go,

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hey, so we've seen those around.

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Do you like doing that? Which I think about it now.

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And even at the time, it always used to make me laugh because obviously I,

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I must like doing it. Otherwise I wouldn't be out here,

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would I? Of course I didn't respond that way.

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And I was very like, yeah, I do. And, you know,

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I've been doing it for a bit but it, it did cross my mind how funny the question seemed and still does in reflecting on it now as I sit down to,

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to talk about this. But if we cut to 13 years later,

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there are now tons of paddle boarders everywhere on Lake Washington and really everywhere.

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It's, it's not just here. It definitely has become as much of a water sport as kayaking or canoeing or anything.

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And so one might be inclined to think so,

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hey, ch you were a body boarder and a surfer.

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You must have taught yourself, right. No,

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I actually did not. Back in the day,

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I went to an introductory paddle board clinic and I learned the basics,

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the safety and the everything.

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And my first response to anyone who usually tries to ask me,

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hey, can you teach me is to thank them.

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Appreciate it. Happy to go out with you once you've maybe taken a lesson,

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but I'm not the one to teach you. And in my opinion,

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I feel this is true for nearly,

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let's call it every sporting thing anyone has ever asked me.

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Because in addition to water sports,

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I like to consider myself sort of an outdoors woman in general,

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but I'm not an instructor. Right.

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And I joke,

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I'm not an instructor because A, I value the friendship of whomever is asking me to instruct them.

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And b I really do want to make sure that someone is truly set up for success.

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Should they want to take on something new?

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Especially if it is any kind of sport or physical activity.

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Now, some of you out there might be going,

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you know what my brother taught me XYZ and I loved it or my best friend was one of the people who helped me learn ABC and it was the best thing ever.

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And I want to acknowledge that it is totally OK.

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If you happen to have really good,

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I'll help teach you folks in your inner circle.

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That is a, a gift, but it's also they probably have an inordinate amount of patience and understanding,

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but particularly patience.

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And this is the one thing that I feel is very different when you have someone who is,

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let's call it licensed to teach a given thing versus someone that you know,

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it is that level of patience.

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And you know,

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all we have to do is look at any given,

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let's say tiktok or Instagram reel of say snowboarders learning for the first time with a group of friends only to take their boards off and walk down the hill because they didn't get it in the 1st 30 minutes or the first couple of hours or even the first half day or,

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you know, I have observed friends trying to teach each other how to paddle board of which the friend who is learning ends up in the water over and over and over and over again,

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which is part of the learning curve.

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But it is also very exhausting for that learning person to just try to jump on the board and be equal to where the friend is at in the skill.

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Or I don't know if anyone has ever watched a non instructor,

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kind of friend tried to teach someone golf because that is for sure if they are in any kind of relationship,

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it will end or if it's in a,

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a loving relationship, it might,

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you know, end up in divorce or something to this effect.

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And sidebar, I cannot tell you how many times my own mom who learned golf and took it up in her later years was approached by random strangers when she was on the driving range practicing,

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who wanted to give her pointers and advice on her swing and her form,

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even though she was taking lessons from an instructor and out there practicing what that instructor had taught her that week.

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And I will say in some of these instances,

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it was a little bit of a mansplaining incident,

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which to me is a pet peeve of mine because I really do wish that men would understand that women can and do have the ability to learn on their own.

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And they don't necessarily need to be what I would call armchair instructed.

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And this is particularly true in sports.

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It is great to have that encouragement and it's great to have somebody to be able to go out and share in the joy of the sport together if that happens to be your thing.

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But it really is a whole different deal being on the receiving end of armchair instruction,

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no matter what the sport, no matter what the gender,

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no matter who you are. Because 15 minutes of talking or a quick demo does not equate to a lesson learned and it doesn't help,

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in my opinion, those trying to learn what the friend or the partner is trying to teach them,

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it doesn't help them learn if that person who's teaching gets impatient or starts to say,

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you know, what come on. It's not that hard actually,

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you know what it might be. Everybody learns differently.

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Everybody has different physical abilities and I feel that the really good instructors out there for whatever they're instructing are going to be trained to teach to those abilities,

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regardless of ego. Now, I will say I have had bad experiences with so called instructors and I have had friends who have had really bad experiences with so called instructors.

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In fact, our very good friend,

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Nathan actually shared with me a really,

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I would just call it despicable experience with a dive instructor from many years back.

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Like bad enough that he felt compelled to write into the company and ask the company to fire the instructor.

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Given that instructor seemed to disregard some key elements of making people feel safe doing the instruction.

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And this included Nathan. So I want to acknowledge that it's not always a perfect science and sometimes it really is like I would say,

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trying to find a doctor, right?

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You sometimes have to ask around,

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you might see what people could recommend for you or you might have to try a few out before you find one in and then you,

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you, you get to one where it clicks and you make the decision and this is the one that you're going to go with.

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And I think if you do that eight out of maybe eight out of 10 times or nine out of 10 times,

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at least for me in my experience is that taking some sort of instructor led course or clinic or class that is not from someone you are personally close to friendship or relationship wise is really the best way to set yourself up for success,

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to learn. The thing you want to learn again.

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It could be a sport, could be a new,

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some kind of hobby skill. It could be an instrument.

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And for all the ladies out there,

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if there happens to be an offering for a women's only class,

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I oftentimes feel this can help women feel much more confident and comfortable,

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especially when they're starting out. And I would say this is particularly true when it is some sort of thing that you want to learn that might require physical activity or some exertion,

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right? You know, men can oftentimes be physically stronger.

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perhaps they grew up being more sporty,

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more athletic, maybe more physical in their day to day.

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This could lead them to be able to pick up things quicker.

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There could be a litany of reasons and this is not meant to be a man versus woman episode.

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It's just the style in which sometimes people can approach a physical activity.

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It can be very different between the genders and sometimes when you are having women who are trying something for the first time and men trying something for the first time that learning curve can be very different and sometimes it can be more discouraging to women or even men who didn't grow up necessarily as physical.

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You know, there can be an intimidation factor if,

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if the, if these folks in the class aren't learning as quickly.

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So regardless of if it's women or if it's co ed or anything or anyone,

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whenever you go to sign up for something,

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you can always ask about the instructor or the teacher,

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you can see what their background is.

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Maybe their level of experience, you can maybe even ask about the approach to the class and then gauge whether that feels like the right fit.

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And if it's not keep looking, there's no harm in doing that.

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And for any of the good classes,

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I think, and it doesn't matter.

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You oftentimes see this with outdoor classes,

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you know, there's a difficulty rating or a skill level rating.

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But really, I think if, if the class or the clinic or something is doing a good job on advertising it,

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they're going to indicate somewhere in the description or something about,

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hey, all skill levels, welcome or hey,

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you know, all age ranges, welcome.

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There will be some sort of indication or ranking of how much experience you need in order to gauge whether you would feel comfortable in that class.

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And if there isn't just contact the organization or the instructor or whomever would be the contact and just ask,

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there's no harm in that because if it's really something that's a passion and you want to learn,

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you really want to feel good about signing up and going,

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you don't want to feel scared or intimidated and it never hurts to ask the question pun intended.

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So at the end of the day,

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really, if you have recently discovered this new,

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let's say XYZ thing that you want to do and you do have a friend who's going,

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hey, I can teach you that just take a pause for a moment and think about whether it's a long term thing and if it is,

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do you want to approach learning it, let's say,

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with proper technique and so on,

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so that you can carry on for years and years or do you wanna be the person?

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Maybe that ends up throwing the equipment away because that one and only outing,

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which happened to maybe be with a well intentioned friend who offered to teach.

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You really ended up with a whole lot more of chaos and disillusionment.

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Again, this is not meant to sound like there is a one size fits all and there are gonna be really good friends who end up being really good teachers.

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But speaking from my experience as someone who has had a rough go in my younger years with parental sport teaching,

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I do really hate to see people get discouraged from learning something simply because they weren't set up in the right environment to learn it in the way that really made them feel successful.

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And if you've got those great patient teachers in your inner circle,

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you're very lucky. But if it's not,

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that is not your vibe, that's not your circle.

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It is OK to look for the right school,

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the right class, the right instructor and take a lesson.

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And with that, I will ask you as always to be kind to yourself,

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take it one hour at a time, one day at a time and I will see you next time.

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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of life Notes from chair 17.

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Remember to follow and subscribe. So you never miss an episode.

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We'll see you next time.