Tales from Rural Maine: Practice

Last night, it was bitterly, freezing cold, I was exhausted, and I'd had a long day. I wanted to take a bath and read a novel. But I start at the Fire Academy on Saturday, so instead of a hot bath and a good book, I drove to the FD to practice donning my turnout gear.

Most especially, I knew I needed practice getting my regulator into my mask and back off again, and into and out of the thing it goes into on your pack when it's not in your mask because you have to do this left-handed and without looking; you can't see the darn thing. (I can also never remember the name of that thing, either...). In other words, I really struggle with the regulator. It doesn't come naturally to me. I fumble around a lot. Same with getting my pack on. For some reason, I always seem to get tangled and twisted. This doesn't seem to happen to anyone else, even the other beginners I've seen. It makes me feel dumb and clumsy and incompetent that I can't just throw that pack on and pop the regulator into my mask.

The only remedy I can think of is...practice. So. I went out into the cold and the dark and I got into my turnout gear and put on a pack and sure enough, it was all tangled up. Sigh. But I just kept at it. I took off the pack I always use and looked at the straps and it turns out, some of them were twisted in their buckles--that wasn't my fault, and it was fixable. Baby steps.

Then I worked on the regulator. First I practiced looking in a mirror, so I could see what I was doing. When I could do five in a row without messing up, I tried without the mirror; then with gloves on. Then, it occurred to me that I should try with my eyes closed. If I could do it with my eyes closed, then I'd have it.

I left feeling like I need more practice, but that I'm getting better. I also felt like I'm kind of a loser that I need so much practice because I'm not as naturally good at this work as the people around me seem to be.

And then today, when I was studying, I came across this in my Fire Fighter Skills textbook, it was a tip for Fire Fighter II's, so not just beginners or even Fire Fighter I's: "Do not stop practicing until your basic skills become muscle memories. If you can do your job with your eyes closed, then you will be able to observe much more when they are open!"

And then I remembered that my captain, who has been coaching me, saying once, "You know who needs practice? Everybody." And he's a *really* excellent fire fighter. If he says something, you can trust it.

So. Maybe it takes me *more* practice to make these skills muscle memories, but needing to practice a lot doesn't mean I'm a loser, right? It just means I'm a fire fighter.