Narration and the Zen of Little league.

All of my sons are little league baseball players. My eldest has been playing for about 7 years now and baseball has been an instrumental way for him to grow in a lot of areas of his young life. He has learned to control his body and work to overcome his natural awkwardness through repetition and discipline. He has learned to work with a team and obey his coach, lessons he will take with him far beyond baseball. However, one of the most visible and physical lessons he has learned is good mechanics.

I don’t know why this is the case but it seems like every time I do anything my tendency is to over do it. I think my son has this tendency, he trains and works to get his body to swing correctly, and in practice he does great. However, when he steps up to the plate in a game, he always swings for the fences! He literally grits his teeth and swings as hard as possible and most often, when he tries to murder that ball, he whiffs or pops up. He only really hits well when he trusts his mechanics and doesn’t over do it. In fact, he hits the ball just has hard swinging properly as he does when he tries to muscle it over the fence.

This has been a very busy season and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing authors. The pace of work has forced me to learn to trust my mechanics. I am finding the adage true, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I am not afraid to read a little slower than I did before. There are narrators that I love that have a really fast pace. Simon Vance is amazing and can read like lightning. Will Wheaton is my sci-fi hero and he reads outlaid faster than I can read in my head. For a long time I tried to emulate these readers but over the last year I have discovered my own voice and my own pace. When I first started I was swinging for the fences, I felt the pressure that my son feels in the batters box when I would get behind the mic. I no longer have that. I am learning to trust my mechanics and slowing my pace. I have noticed a marked difference in the amount of mistakes I make and my pace of completion is really increasing.

Take a breath, relax and trust your mechanics. No pressure, it’s only reading.