Having just watched (36 hours after the fact) the SSA/Sebastian Kawa webinar
of the (U.S.) evening of Feb. 5, 2019 (link that worked for me below), am
"feeling the need" (ha ha!) to:

1) thank everyone involved - the (many) organizers; Sebastian Kawa; the
moderators; the "technologists"/technologies making it possible (with a
near-total-absence of half-way-around-the-globe
"interactional-verbal-stepping-on-one-another...IOW, "just like a face-to-face
conversation); the post-webinar-folks babysitting it "permanently to the WWW."
AWESOME job folks!!!

2) "do the electronic-community thing" and share some thoughts about
Sebastian's thoughts, from a non-competition/XC pilot's perspective (below,
below...).
- - - - - -

https://register.gotowebinar.com/rec...LRECORDINGLINK
- - - - - -

Man! Watching that was damn near just like sitting around a campfire with
everyone involved...GREAT STUFF!!! What's not to like about enjoying a
conversation with an intelligent, focused, non-ego-maniacal, normal human
being having a shared interest? Life should always be so good.

I found it easy to listen to Sebastian from the perspectives (say) of when I
was a somewhat-tyronic ('opefully, as distinct from MORonic!) XC pilot, *and*,
from a multi-decadal-XC nutcase, with pretty much zero interest in actually
*participating* in competition soaring (as distinct from enjoying just about
every aspect of "mentally/occasionally-crewly supporting").

Funnily enough, other than (perhaps, dry chuckle) the greater wisdom from
eventually-acquired-experience, I really don't think the more-experienced-me
actually learned anything he didn't already strongly suspect "way back when."
Non-comprehensively and in no particular order: MacCready theory's a great
place upon which to begin basing one's philosophical approach to inter-thermal
speed control; disciplined thought matters/benefits; understanding risks (and
having plans to "acceptably mitigate, beforehand") matters; tactics as you
think you understand them really don't change with increasing experience.

In short, soaring's "merely" a matter of personal refinement of really basic
skills, regardless of one's chosen path - competition (of any sort), XC, local
ride-giving/flagpole-sitting/landing safely, whatever...

So for any newbies/wannabes who may futurely read this, my broad-brush input
is - basic stick skills aside, of course - give some active thought to
formulating a coherent-to-you framework of "what XC soaring is all about",
bounce your thoughts off some more experienced XC pilots by way of identifying
where you may be way off base (or, somewhat-related, not yet be considering
something of fundamental importance), and continue to have at it! Oh, and if
you ever find yourself imagining you "know everything you need to know" (or
worse, "know it ALL!"), either find something else more forgiving of life-risk
to do, or - *much* better! - re-think that particular conclusion.

Fun, fun, fun!!!

Bob W.

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