The pole vault symbolises a skilled task requiring experience, as encountered in their daily work by performers, employees, athletes, students and artists. Coaching can bring Improvement. Self-coaching is a revolution that replaces trusting in others’ advice, with empirical analysis. 

Megan is a pole vaulter directed by her lived experience, with feedback from her performances, following Heidegger’s method of phenomenological analysis. Educators know that there can be a wide gulf between the mind of a coach or tutor and his or her student. The student’s observation, intuition and self-analysis is most important.

Turkeys Not Bees is a story about a performer who relies on self-coaching and excels. Her input is complemented by her boyfriend Chance’s biomechanical digital modelling, creating a type of virtual reality for her to explore. Her solitary achievement is a microcosm of turkey-like human endurance, contrasting with bee-like colonisation by territorial aggression.

The book has philosophy, science, psychology, Debord’s spectacle and a romance, in an exciting story, including non-violent disobedience, protesting of overreach by a nanny state and Covid restrictions.

Book available on Amazon. Reviews see martinknox.com