The Errol Flynn Skill Set

// October 29th, 2009 // Featured, Me, Relationships

Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard are curating A Perfect Gift For A Man — a book about manhood arising from the blogosphere’s contributions to Reach Out and Triple J’s Man Week project. There’s #manweek on Twitter too.

UPDATE: there’s now an ebook and a printed book (AUD$44.95) available through Blurb. The following contribution didn’t make the book but that’s because the stories in the book are even better. Go buy it now (and by “now” I mean as soon as you’ve read the following…

They’re calling for submissions, so here’s mine…

I’ve been in manhood training all my life, though I was never really conscious of it until my wife gave birth to our son, who remains our only child.
When my son was born, I was no longer just the son of my father. I was now a point on a line that ran from my son, through me, through my dad, and on, in a chain of fathers and sons stretching back into time. A lot of important stuff had travelled down that line to me — stuff about how to be a good son, a good man, a good father, a good friend and a good partner. Such an incredible legacy, and I’d just been dabbling in it, never really thinking about how important it had been, how it had broadened and moulded me and influenced the life I lead.
It was my weighty responsibility to pass on as much of this as I could, so my son could grow to be a good and happy man. I also felt the need to make sure these skills survived a few more generations intact.

Dads only rarely teach you these things actively and explicitly. Most of these lessons are given in a kind of passive radiative way, as a son watches his father and a father tries to be a good role model for his son. Much of the time I’d been a half-hearted student at best. I wasn’t paying attention in my teens, and there was a big chunk of my early twenties when I just couldn’t stand my father’s easy competence with so many things I found hard to master.
So I haven’t learned how to weld and cut with an oxy-acetylene torch, how to lay tiles, or repair a diesel engine. Some of those opportunities are gone forever. I’m certainly not about to try any electrical stuff again, not after the incident with the DIY guitar amplifier, when I ended up half way across the room with my hair smouldering and my arm feeling like it had been pulled out of its socket by an angry bull elephant.
I needed a strategy.
I decided the best way forward was to begin listing the important manhood skills, then continue adding-to and whittling-back my list, deciding which are essential and which are merely nice-to-haves. I also decided to name the list after that most famous of Australian men, Errol Flynn, rather than my father, who was my original inspiration, and who can do all the things on the list and more. He’s just turned 70 and could still whip me at most of them.
However the “Things My Dad Taught Me That I Need To Pass On To My Son List” doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, whereas when I invoke the name of Errol Flynn, everybody understands this is about manhood skills.
The Errol Flynn skill set is a list-in-progress — it’s been both longer and shorter than it is now. My dad knows how to do all these things and many more, but some of them are no longer relevant for the world my son will live in when he’s a man. As he’s only seven as I write this, I haven’t taught him everything on the list yet, but we’re already making progress.
I’ve sought feedback from mates over a beer before, but this is the first public debut for the Errol Flynn Skill Set so I’m interested in your input: what am I missing? What should I leave out?
The Errol Flynn Skill Set
  • How to shake hands.
  • How to ride a bicycle and maintain it because it will be a long time before you can afford a car.
  • How to walk with purpose and confidence. How to run faster than you thought you could, for longer than you thought you could.
  • How to swim, how to dive and how to swim underwater.
  • How to throw, kick, catch, bowl, bat, volley and serve.
  • How to tie some basic knots: the granny, the reef, the figure eight, the hitch and half hitch, the bowline and the trucker’s hitch.
  • How to light and maintain a cooking fire and how to find and prepare firewood and kindling. How to fight a fire.
  • How to try your hardest, lose gracefully, and try your hardest again. How to recognise that losing can be good for you sometimes.
  • Basic navigation by the sun, the stars and by compass. How to ask for directions (theoretically).
  • How to paddle a kayak, row a dinghy, sail a dinghy, and pilot a tinny.
  • How to change a light bulb. How to change a fuse. How and when to light candles.
  • How to ride a horse, how to control a dog, how to make friends with a cat, how to talk to girls.
  • How to catch, kill, skin, gut and still feel OK enough to cook and eat a fish.
  • How to use a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver and a wrench without injuring you or anyone else.
  • How to tell a joke so that everybody laughs at the joke and not at you.
  • How to pitch a tent. How to pitch it in the dark. How to pitch it in the rain. How to know when to give up and get a motel room.
  • Basic car maintenance: tires, oil, water and washing the damn thing.
  • Basic car driving skills. How to do an emergency stop. How to reverse with a trailer on the back. How to overtake a caravan safely.
  • How to drink and use drugs without harming yourself, without looking like a dick, and without it being a means of rebellion because hey, guess what? grownups drink, smoke and take drugs too, so how could it possibly make you look any cooler?).
  • How to pour a beer, open and pour a glass of wine, mix a few essential cocktails, but more importantly, how to listen actively and make conversation without pretending you’re somebody else.
  • How to argue your case while respecting the opinion of others. How to admit you were wrong with grace and charm.
  • How to hold a woman. How to let a woman go. How to be a whole person if she doesn’t come back.
  • How to defuse a violent situation, and when and how to run.
  • How to be a mate. How to be a best mate. How to be a whole person without a best mate. How to say hello to another man whose name you’ve forgotten by addressing them as “mate”.
  • How to let your anger, your fear, your sorrow and your love out, constructively, at a time of your choosing and in the company of others.
  • Sword fighting. Not fencing. Proper sword fighting with jumping on tables, swinging from boarding grapples and diving from staircases into a mob of henchmen. Seriously. Why doesn’t anybody do that anymore?
Me and my Dad. Like Errol Flynn, without the woman trouble.

Me and my Dad. Like Errol Flynn, without the woman trouble.