Originally Posted by
sam vimes
I can see both points. However, if I was a junior competing against the coached lad without the benefit of my own coaching I suspect I'd be pretty annoyed. There's a time and place for coaching and encouragement. I don't believe that full blown competition is one of them.
Yes...and no. But to explain my thinking on this I'd have to try and articulate to myself as much as anyone exactly what 'full-blown competition' is. What does it mean in HFT? What is really at stake? Not a great deal in practical terms, is there? I think father/son coaching is completely in the best spirit of what HFT seems to be about - an egalitarian, level-playing-field kind of sport...although if I was the father in the scenario you describe, I'd just as willingly 'coach' the lone junior as my own sprog. But then again (and here I go tying myself into knots), then I'd be 'coaching' two competitors in a 'full blown competition', and as dispiriting as it seems I could picture some people taking exception to that.
Maybe it's just me, but this seems a very interesting topic, more for the views that people have on the ethos and motivation for what is essentially an organised hobby, not a sport.
...Here's another one along the same lines, from Newbury on Sunday. While I was cradling my really big ego as I got a 58 (me, me, look at me!), I saw what looked like a heated - or perhaps more appropriately frank - discussion on one of the pegs where 'the-peg-was-touching-the-tree-therefore-the-tree-was-the-peg'. It seemed straightforward, but someone was adamant that that wasn't the case. I didn't catch it all, but I did wonder in passing; "does it really matter that much?" "is it really that important?"
As I said, I find this one interesting, as much to give a context to my own shooting as to explore other peoples'.
Cheers,
Navybloke
"A worm on one end, a fool on the other"