90 seconds

That’s how long¹ I continuously balanced on the wobble board just now.

From barely managing 10 secs on the first few tries, to celebrating a 20+ seconds balance yesterday, to a minute-long balance earlier today, and 90 secs now—it’s been a surprisingly quick improvement.

The law of diminishing returns will strike sometime. Then I’ll have to find a way of turning that plateau into a local maxima, rather than a global one. Till then, I’m enjoying the successes :)

Learning to balance on the wobble board reminds me of when I started focusing on single leg balancing a few years ago. Initially I used to continuously wobble, constantly trying to correct every little twitch. Yesterday’s wobble board video reminded me of that.

Then came the phase where I started focusing on one fixed point on the ground, while controlling my breathing with longer, deeper breaths. This is the phase I entered today with the wobble board. I stare at a mark on the floor while breathing deeply—increasing stability by reducing need for balance correction, rather than becoming faster/stronger at balance correction.

My current single leg balance is good enough that I brush my teeth while standing on a single let, occasionally get knocked by R or Chewie, look around at what’s happening, and still manage to keep the balance without a wobble. When I get to a similar level with the wobble board, it’ll be time to graduate to level 2 or 3.