Practice creates winning habits
By WILLIAM HODGES
Habits are created by continual practice, and those habits allow us to function automatically when faced with the stress of having to perform to our utmost capability. I’m not a person who likes to practice. But over the years, I’ve been blessed with instructors and mentors who have forced me to practice critical skills that have helped develop some winning habits.
My flight instructor was a fanatic when it came to practicing flying “under-the-hood.” For those of you who are not aviation minded, to fly under the hood means that the instructor requires the student to wear a hood that allows the student to see only the instrument panel of the aircraft. The instructor then puts the aircraft in an unusual attitude, which is generally either a turn down or a hard upward maneuver. The student’s job is to bring the plane back to straight and level flight—by using the instruments only. Day after day, we would go out into the practice field. It seemed to me that he took a great deal of delight in trying to position the aircraft in strange ways, but I soon began to pay attention to the sound of the engine. Eventually, I could tell almost immediately whether we were in a climb or descending. I learned to trust the instruments, and my immediate reaction in time of emergency became to rely on the instrument panel—not to look outside the aircraft.
About a year after I completed my flight training, I found myself completely surrounded by clouds. I was peering out the window—feeling as though I was flying straight and level—when I heard the engine begin to whine. All that training immediately took control of my mind and forced me to realize I wasn’t flying straight and level. The engine was racing because I was in a dive. If I hoped to survive, I had better pay attention to the instruments. An automatic reflex took over from all the under-the-hood practice. Within seconds, I brought the airplane to straight and level flight and was able to work my way out of the overcast. Score one for practice.
When I was learning to sail, my instructor decided I should learn to control the direction of my boat with the sails and without the use of the rudder. He tied the rudder down midship, and forced me to sail a specified course by manipulating the sails. At first it was fun, but I have to admit that hour after hour of this practice became tedious. Tedious or not, practice bailed me out again when I was sailing a 33-foot Morgan in the Gulf of Mexico and the helm failed to respond. The hydraulic system had sprung a leak and the rudder became inoperative. We were only about a mile and a half offshore with an onshore wind. We were being rapidly blown toward the beach, and there was a serious chance we could go aground.
The owner of the boat started forward to put out an anchor, but before he could do it, I had instinctively begun to manipulate the sails in such a manner as to put us back on course without the use of the rudder. As a result, we were able to sail for a half hour in that manner—on course and on time—while the owner fixed the hydraulic system. Score another one for practice.
Flying an airplane or sailing a boat on the Gulf of Mexico may be the extreme of what practice can do for you, but practicing things right at home may be wise. It may seem silly to have a home fire drill, but think about it. When that house is full of smoke, might those practice drills save lives? Are there other things in your life that you need to practice but have put them off because they are tedious or boring? What we practice—if we practice it long enough—becomes habit. Those habits allow us to respond in a winning manner, no matter what crisis we are confronting.