When is it too late to learn something new?

"Do you need instruction in head jump?"

A swarm of question marks hangs in the air, while the lady in the ticket box measures me with her eyes over her glasses.

They also advertise with one-hour lessons in the discipline on the swimming pool's website. But it is not so frequent that 30-year-old men demand them. She does not scare me from my business, I think.

It has in long time annoyed me that I can not figure out the jump head. It looks so delicious. Elegant. Powerful. But I've never tried it. So not such a successful one, where my body slipped through air and water like a dolphin in play. Preserved, a stomach pouch or two, it has grown into adulthood, bitter trials, which made me completely stay away from it.

And when I tell people that I can not figure it out, they usually react in the same way as ticket sales in the swimming pool. With disbelief. They usually imagine that I also can not swim. It does not matter. I love the water and bathe as often as I can get to it. Just without the frontal, self-saturated entrance to the waves.

I have made a research to become more aware of why it may seem so cross-border to learn something new. And they point out that some of the most vulnerable, whether it's a swimming pool, Spanish verb's bends or html coding you want to conceal in, is to put your shortcomings open. There are some barriers. If you admit that you can learn something, you also admit that you have not been good enough so far. The uncertainty can thus give people resistance to learning and that is a problem.
It gives a great inner satisfaction when you overcome yourself and learn something new. You'll be happy. And then you want to learn more.

Get a teacher.

It's not enough for your teacher to understand your situation, a skilled teacher must be able to look outside from you, see what you're doing wrong and be able to explain it to you. Therefore, I have now taken my learning one step further and stand here in swimming pool with a professional source teacher. The hall is crowded with people. Adults and children whipping the water to foam with their feet as they cling to cork discs. And then they are the most annoying: Boys on one third of my height, making backward salt transplants from the three meter in the same basin, where I'm going to throw myself on my head.

It feels both embarrassing and unsatisfactory. It is the feeling that I will never learn this. Even after the first few unsuccessful attempts, I am considering deserting in the sauna where no one can see me. On the other hand, it would also be too idiotic. I have paid my teacher for 45 minutes of teaching, I have involved other people in my business. So I can not give up now. I have set my back against the wall.

The actual breakthrough occurs when the teacher decides that now we will have to get their feet in the breath so the head will automatically come first in the water. Her handsome, but low-cost solution consists of holding a strap up in front of my shin, which I have to jump up and over. And the effect is out of order. I feel like a swordfish as I drill through the water crust with stretched arms and head first. "Okay!" I think. Also my teacher is smiling a restrained but encouraging smile.

In principle, it's never too late to learn anything new. If it's too far away from your abilities, it's difficult. But can you drive a car, you can also learn to drive a tractor. Have you learned French, you can also learn to speak Spanish.