Rowing Row in the rowboat

Do you ever get the feeling that you're too old to learn something new? Or at the very least, that you're no longer able to learn things in the same way you used to? I know it's the wrong attitude to have, and it's mostly inaccurate, but the universe is trying to tell me something here and I'm trying to listen.

EXAMPLE 1

This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to a summer cottage/palace for a few days of overeating, too much wine, and sloth. Between two hammock naps, I followed Row down to the water and we took the rowboat out for a spin. I had never rowed a boat before. In fact, I'm fairly certain my hands had never touched an oar.

Row got us across the lake to the small island where loons, mallards and even the occasional beaver paddle around (I felt like I was in a Hinterland Who's Who segment). At the halfway point, I took the oars. It was hard. And it required a lot of effort before I understood the principles of rowing backwards, of pointing the boat in the right direction, etc. I couldn't find the fluidity of the motion and most of my strokes were uneven.

At one point, pleased with the rhythm I was setting, I looked to both sides and noticed that the paddles were barely skimming the water. I was basically rowing oxygen. *Sigh*

By the time we took the boat out for a second time though, I was showing big improvement, but some things still weren't coming naturally to me.

EXAMPLE 2

The NDG Y gang tried to introduce me to tennis. 'How hard can it be,' I thought 'to hit a ball with a racket?' Plenty, apparently. I was a hot, hot mess, no matter what racket they placed in my hand, no matter how gently they lobbed the ball.

The tennis balls gaily sailed past my racket with the insouciance of a brattish child, bouncing towards the fence with a sound not unlike "nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah". I managed to return some serves, but I generally put too much power into the stroke and arced the (meanie) balls over the tall fence and into the adjacent play area.

Me: Where's my young and attractive tennis coach? Like in Caddyshack.

Some smarty-pants: I don't think there's a tennis coach in Caddyshack. Just caddies.

Me: Shut up and teach my racket to hit the fuzzy yellow things, ok?

CONCLUSION

I don't learn new skills as organically I used to. I have to learn to embrace research, coaches and diagrams with more gusto.