Shantell Ching--In the Zone

Source: Sam Low (based on an interview with Shantell Ching on February 11th)


For the last week Shantell Ching, navigating Hokule'a home, has gone without appreciable sleep. "I catnap" she says, " and maybe get one and a half to two hours of sleep a day. Last night I was so tired that my head was bouncing. I like to sit in the navigator's seat but I was afraid I might go to sleep and fall overboard so I moved over to the platform and sat there".

What Shantell is going through is part of any navigators rite of passage-attaining the mental and physical stamina needed to constantly process a steady flow of information and make good decisions to ensure the safety of the canoe and her crew.

"It takes a lot at adjusting just to get in synch with the ocean after having been on land for so long, " Shantell explains, "and I need to get to the point where I can mentally see the canoe in the middle of the star compass in the middle of the ocean so that when I look around the canoe I can see the compass points on the horizon. I have to reorient myself to the southern stars, for example, to get to the point where I don't have to mentally think about where they will come up but I seem to know by instinct".

Most top athletes report attaining a similar " instinctual" sense when they are performing at their peak. Basketball players, for example, report a sense of having " eyes in the back of their heads", meaning they can sense what is happening in the court all around them-how the other players will move, where the ball will be. "I'm in the zone" they say. Sports psychologists say that entering the zone requires first mastering the basics of the game in the right hand rational side of our brain so well that we can switch over to employing the left side, the artistic and instinctual side of our brain and be truly creative. The process that Shantell Ching describes seems to be similar. She's entering her own version of "the zone".

"I am gradually getting the entire sky in my head, "Shantell explains, " and I am getting a good feel for how the waves that we use for telling direction make the canoe feel when we're steering different courses. I also need to get in complete synch with the canoe to feel in my own body when she is pinched too far in to the wind or when she is sailing too far off the wind- when she is struggling and when she is free."

"I don't think that lack of sleep is a problem anymore, " she continues. "I can be immersed in the navigation, for example, and when we encounter the beginning of a squall I snap right out of it and know exactly what to do. I am right there"."I have been learning about navigation now for six years and this is a chance to apply what I've learned. If I am successful the credit goes to my teachers--Nainoa and to Bruce and Chad. And really to all the teachers who inspired me. When I was in elementary school I was too young to understand how important math would be in my life but alot of navigation is basic math-addition, subtraction, simple trig. Now, when I solve a math problem in my head, I thank all those teachers who were strict with me".

"I can see Hawai'i in my mind and that's a good sign. Nainoa taught me that to find an island you first have to see it mentally and thats also what Mau taught him."

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