Some friends and I have been trying to ring a peal of the standard 41 surprise minor methods spliced together, all the work. It\u2019s taking us quite a long time, and we\u2019ve lost lots of attempts. Although it\u2019s a reasonably difficult challenge, this post isn\u2019t about fancy ringing or peals, but it\u2019s made me think a lot about progress in ringing, and how we feel when things aren\u2019t going right.<\/p>\n
It feels like one step forward, two steps back at times, and losing peal after peal because we\u2019re just not quite good enough yet is dispiriting for all of us.<\/p>\n
When I lose peal attempt after peal attempt, it can feel like I\u2019m making no progress at all, when in fact every time we ring, we\u2019re getting little bit better, ironing out creases and becoming more familiar with the methods and composition. If I take a step back, I can see that month on month we\u2019re gradually getting through more of the task, and doing it better each time, even if it doesn\u2019t always feel like it.<\/p>\n
The reason I\u2019m writing this is that I\u2019ve been at this point many times in my ringing life. I don\u2019t remember much about learning to handle a bell (because I was a child and wasn\u2019t thinking about what I was doing). However, I clearly remember feeling just like this when I was learning plain hunt, and just.couldn\u2019t.work.it.out<\/em><\/strong>! Eventually I looked back and realised that I had worked it out, but for many months I felt trapped in a pit of plain hunt that I couldn\u2019t climb out of.<\/p>\n I remember it when I was learning to make bobs in plain bob doubles and bobs and singles in grandsire doubles, when I would go wrong again and again and again, having to be put right constantly by my helpful tower captain.<\/p>\n I think lots of ringers feel like this about their progress; namely, that they aren\u2019t making any, or that they should somehow be progressing faster. I\u2019m sure it can\u2019t be unique to me. With my learners, I encourage them to look back over a suitable interval to what they were ringing before (e.g. last year), and really unpick the improvement they\u2019ve made. Using checklists (like the ones from Learning the Ropes) can help draw these improvements into focus.<\/p>\n Having a distorted view of progress is not unique to learners either, as I hope I\u2019ve demonstrated with my account here \u2013 it\u2019s always a challenge to be aware of.<\/p>\n What we all need to remember (my peal band included) is DO NOT GIVE UP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Progress isn\u2019t something you can see easily from close up \u2013 you need to step back and gain perspective. We always get there in the end \u2013 sometimes it takes a bit longer than we\u2019d initially expected, but we always get there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some friends and I have been trying to ring a peal of the standard 41 surprise minor methods spliced together, all the work. It\u2019s taking us quite a long time, and we\u2019ve lost lots of attempts. Although it\u2019s a reasonably difficult challenge, this post isn\u2019t about fancy ringing or peals, but it\u2019s made me think … Continue reading “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress – Barack Obama”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eacr.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}