Woodshedding
Posted by Pete Robbins on Sep 8th 2021
Jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins turned 91 this week, and while he does not perform in public anymore, his colossal sixty plus years of concerts and recordings are there for anyone to absorb. I’m not fully qualified to recount his many career highlights, but one that stands out for me occurred at the end of the 1950s, when he was arguably at the height of his musical peak and commercial success – he stepped away from it all.
He didn’t abandon music, he just stepped away from the limelight.
Nearly every day for over two years – sometimes up to 16 hours a day – he would leave his apartment and go to the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn to practice. No accompanying band, no one telling him what to play, just his horn, the overhead cars and the passing subway. Two decades later a stereo company immortalized his sabbatical in a television commercial.
While he already would have been a legend anyway, Rollins believed that his time away made him better, certainly technically, but also in terms of being more open to new ideas.
Which brings me back to the piscatorial focus of this blog:
Could a top angler, in the prime of his career, finances notwithstanding, step away from tournament competition and will himself to return better in a couple of years. It seems unlikely, given that most of the pros I know believe that competing is what gives them the edge to get better, but it’s not altogether impossible. If someone were to just focus on decision-making, techniques, and situational approaches, without the “noise” associated with life on the road, they could develop a curriculum that could lead to overall better performances.
Rick Clunn is the only angler I can think of who would think this far outside of the norm to even consider such an idea, and while he’s still occasionally able to win, he does not consistently seem to be at the peak of his competitiveness, as he was 20 or 30 years ago. That means, in all likelihood, that no one will step away from the game only to return stronger. Not many people do it successfully in any genre, including music, so why should fishing be any different. Still, I have to think that if you’re a mid-level pro, there might be a faster way to the top than just getting your head bashed in on a regular basis.
