Jump Rope

This post will take you about 2 minutes to read.

How do you get good at jumping rope?

No one is born knowing how to jump rope.

So, how do you get good at it?

Knowing how to do something and doing it are two different things.

Not to go all Yoda, but there is so much truth in that quote. Whenever learning something new, you have to do and not just know or say.

In the past several months, I’ve built a tiny web application using the statistical programming language R. Using the Shiny package, I built an app with data complied of every North Carolina men’s basketball box score since the 2003-04 season.

You can find the app here: app.dadgumboxscores.com

This was the most challenging technical exercise I’ve ever done. I knew almost nothing about R.

I signed up for courses, watched YouTube videos, read blogs, tried reading a book too.

I’m so green when it comes to this language, I don’t even know what to search for to try to get help at times. The terminology was foreign. It’s a brand new language.

So, I kept trying things. This resulted in silly mistakes. Frustration. Four letter words.

And a whole lot of progress.

The app is hosted using Amazon Web Services on its own server. I know what that means, but the fact I was able to somehow set that up on my own is bonkers.

It’s rewarding when you’re able to build something or surprise yourself.

The app is far from perfect. It works. And that’s all that matters.

Fuck around with it a bit.

That’s what our exercise coach said when asked about how to get good at jumping rope.

Practice.

Try things.

Because there is a difference between knowing how to do something and doing it.