Violinist and Basketball, Astronaut and Bicycle

An astronaut and a friend of mine shared a similar experience about twenty years apart...

When you're a budding violinist getting ready for an important recital you practice, then practice and then practice some more. To achieve the level of perfection that is needed to play the violin, knowing the notes by heart is not enough. Your muscles, ligaments, fingers and soul have to become one with the piece you play, so you invest a lot of time towards those crucial few minutes of performance. At some point, especially close to the big day, you may want to take a break from practicing and do something else to take the edge off the tension and jitters, for example play basketball. You think nothing of it. Just for an hour, you rationalize it to yourself; it's better to take a break than to fall prey to the concern you're not ready. Relaxing is just what you need. So you go out and play ball.

Being an astronaut is hard work. When you're an astronaut you train for years for a single mission. Like a violin player, dedication and repetition are necessary so that all possible mistakes happen on Earth - in the simulator, classroom and at the pool (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory) rather than in space or on the way to and from. After all, when you're in space, there is very little room for error, which would cost time and money if not life. As a mission draws near (or gets delayed multiple times), you may need to clear your mind. Riding a bicycle fits the bill - exercise and nature combined, feeling the wind you won't feel in space, cutting through real air, not a crafted mixture coming out of compressed tanks. So you hop on.

It sure seems like a good idea all the way to the fraction of a second of absentmindedness or lapse of focus in that relaxing, change-of-pace activity, which ends up cannibalizing what you took a break from doing.

Albert, I think his name was, ended up not playing at the recital he practiced for months before, as during his basketball game he broke two fingers on his left hand. Even Paganini, who according to the legend played a whole piece on one string because all others broke, couldn't have pulled that one off - broken strings is one thing, broken fingers another.

As for the astronaut - Tim Kopra is his name - he won't get to be on the final flight of space shuttle Discovery since his bicycle ride ended up with a crash landing. He was replaced by Steve Bowen who flew last year on Atlantis, which I got to see with my own eyes.

Both have made and will make a full recovery. But fickle time, as linear (at least the way we experience it) as it may be, doesn't come with a pause button.

I guess sometimes reading a book might be the better or at least safer way to take a break...