# Unlocking a new skill

By [The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman](https://paragraph.com/@nickgrossman) · 2019-01-23

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Over the long weekend, I spent a bunch of time with my kids doing outdoor cold weather activities. I love the winter, and I love winter sports -- there is something about being outside on a cold, sunny day that gets my blood moving and makes me feel great.

Those who have read this blog for a while may know that a few years ago I got the [ice skating bug](https://ngis.lndo.site/2014/pond-hockey/) and have been [working on my skating](https://ngis.lndo.site/2016/learning-to-skate/) and learning to play ice hockey.

This past weekend, while skating with my kids, I had a breakthrough moment -- the elusive "[backwards crossovers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew22URwQAKg)" that I wrote about back in 2016 finally made sense, both to my brain and to my body. It's like that moment in [Night School](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6781982/) where Kevin Hart finally manages to make sense of the jumble of mathematical symbols:

![](blob:https://ngis.lndo.site/067f89fb-ff2a-42d3-b371-5acee3f1da82)

It was amazing: somehow I managed to slow things down, connect my brain and my body in the right way, and the move that I just couldn't master for so long suddenly made sense.  It was absolutely a combination of body and mind -- understanding it the way as well as feeling it the right way.  

This is not a post about ice skating.  But rather about the magic that happens when you finally unlock a new skill.  It is an amazing feeling, and not something we get to feel every day. 

I think there is something particularly important about _doing_ _it_ to get it -- it's one thing to read about something, or watch videos, etc -- but nothing substitutes for getting out there and trying it (and falling a few times along the way).  This is a lesson I keep reminding myself of whenever I'm trying to learn something new.

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*Originally published on [The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman](https://paragraph.com/@nickgrossman/unlocking-a-new-skill)*