Just send her to the club house, she will take up with the towel boy ...
soon you will be done with her.

Then you can go sailing with "men" ... big blond men, men with muscles, men
that wear little bathing suits that show their things ,,,,

A jolly ho ho and a bottle or rum ... pass the bree Bruce.


================================================
"DSK" wrote in message
...
wrote:
OK, I admit I am unable to teach someone. Sometimes you explain it
several times and they dont get it. What do you do?

Very very very standard teaching discipline:
1- tell the student what you're going to teach him

check: ask the student to describe in his own words the goal of the lesson

2- teach the student the info & skills needed

check: ask the student to list the necessary info, equipment, & skills
necessary for the task

3- Demonstrate each component skill of the task

check: have the student practice each component skill

4- Demonstrate the entire task under the students direction

5- supervise the student demonstrating the entire task.

It may be desirable or necessary to review any or all steps. Most people
intuitively skip step 1 which is a huge mistake, because the student has
no idea what to focus on.


.... Years ago, I
taught College Physics and my students seemed to think I was good but
that is all abstractions. Teaching a skill is different. I have never
been able to teach my wife to steer a canoe either. I cannot explain
how to do it, I just do it.

I am not saying this to be insulting, but if you can't explain it, then
you don't understand it yourself all that well.


.... Its like explaining how to ride a bike.

Easy to explain, difficult to take the first steps of practice.


Some people really want personal instruction and others just want to be
pointed in the right direction and let them go.

Yep. Different people have different ways of learning.... who'd have thunk
it?!?


Tacking in the channel was like that. How do I tell her "Steer up when
you feel power coming on from the wind and then down a little when it
goes away".

Don't start by letting the student steer. Start by letting the student
hold (not allowed to use the cleat) the mainsheet. Have the student watch
the wind angle and boat's heeling angle, and explain the necessary steps
to keep the boat moving and not heeling too much, until they can do it
with no instruction.

Then let them steer while you trim the sails.

What you're expecting is for your wife to learn about 7 complex
interactions at once. Did you start your physics students on
electrodynamics, and shock them when they made mistakes?

I'd recommend taking a big step backwards... get her to feel relaxed &
comfortable around the water. Just go to a shallow sandy beach for a day
of splashing & fun with some floating toys. Push her along while she's
reclining on an inflatable raft, for example. *Don't* take her out on the
boat and don't even breathe a hint that your goal is to get her to like
sailing. Take as long with this step as necessary, it may be a year of
beach trips, or maybe some canoing! Once she is OK with being on the
water, then sailing might start to seem like fun. Another possibility is
to go out with other people on their boats. That really takes the pressure
off.

That said, the best answer is really to let somebody else teach your wife
to sail. My wife already knew how to sail when we met, the only thing I
have taught her is how to handle a spinnaker. That was over a decade ago,
at one point she was good enough to be recruited as crew for more serious
racers (which she declined politely) and now she thinks she always knew
how to sail with a spinnaker & I never taught her... in fact last time we
sailed together she was telling me how. Doesn't bother me a bit... a long
long time ago I learned to not demand credit, just results!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King