The next day was so boring for Damian, he agonized in bed without his phone, wondering what important posts he was missing out on and what was happening, while he wasn’t on Tiktok and Instagram. He lay there, thinking about all of the crazy things that had happened recently, from when his dad died, till now. He tried to find something positive to think about. At least he didn’t have to go to school for a couple of weeks, but knowing the school he’ll probably have to do it at home or at hospital anyway, and he was already behind a week.

Finally Jackson came in, “How are you feeling little man?” He asked.

Damian replied, “Bored, really bored”.

Jackson chuckled and help up a book, “lets change that shall we?”

“With books?” Damian said.

“It works,”

“Look I’m so bored that I could read, so pass me the book.”

Jackson handed it to him and said, “so did you want to learn how to read faster?”

“Why not,” said Damian, “its not like I have anything better to do.”

Jackson, agreed, and he quickly showed him that reason that most people read slow. They pronounce the words in their head, which slows down their reading drastically. So there is a simple way to increase your reading speed. Start by placing your finger under the word your reading and then run it across the page line after line. Once you’ve done this keep speeding your finger up till you can barely catch up, and that will force your brain to speed up how fast you can process information.

“Sounds interesting,” said Damian, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Jackson ignored his tone, “Yeah, it really pushes the limits of your brain, but it takes some time to get.”

Wait does that mean if I train my brain, I’ll be able to get way smarter than a normal person. This might be worth learning.

Jackson continued, “that means that you’ll be able to drastically increase how fast your brain processes things, and if you were to work on your memory as well, then that would make it even better, because you’d remember more of what you read. Both of those are skills that anyone can develop with practice, some may find it easier in the beginning, but in the end, whoever consistently puts in the work wins.”

They chatted for an hour, and Jackson said that he had some work to do and that he’d leave Damian to his reading. Damian looked at the book that was handed to him, Pound the Stone.

It doesn’t sound very interesting, but I’ve got nothing better to do.

From the first page, Damian was captivated in a way that no other book had captivated him before, the things the book talked about were so true. It was well past lunch when Damian finished the book, having read from cover to cover without stopping. He had never thought of things like that before, but it made sense. Focus on the process, not the outcome. Focus on who you become, not on what you achieve.

He stopped to let the book sink in and then it dawned on him that Jackson had shown him how to speed read, so he focused on that for a bit. He could definitely tell that he was reading much faster than previously, when he used his finger to run across the page as fast as he possibly could.

Wow, I guess that was pretty cool.

His mum came in to visit him in the afternoon, and he found out that his acro coach and his school had gotten in contact with her. They told her they were going to email the work that he needed to do to his school email, so he could do it from wherever he was staying. His acro coach had said that Jackson was going to come in and talk about how training was going to work. Damian asked his mum if she could get him a new phone, so he wasn’t bored and she said she’d already ordered it, but that it would take a week. Damian groaned and lay down on his bed.

The next day Jackson came in again, and asked how did the reading go. Damian was actually excited about it.

“The book was awesome!” He said.

“That’s great,” replied Jackson. “Here’s another one.”

Damian read the cover, “The Slight Edge, sounds interesting. Jackson, what’s happening for training right now.”

“So while you can’t physically move without pain, there’s really only one thing you can do to get better at gymnastics.” Said Jackson.

“Whats’ that” asked Damian.

“Visualize,” said Jackson and then he saw Damian’s confused face. Jackson explained, “I mean to close your eyes and imagine what you feel when you do the skill. Imagine even doing skills that you can’t even do yet, what that feels like, and how your body moves.”

“Really? That sounds useless.”

Jackson laughed and then replied, “They did an experiment with professional pianists. They were recruited to learn and perform a musical piece, but half of the pianists trained by imagining playing the music, and the other half trained by actually playing it. The group who imagined playing the piece not only improved their performance so that they were almost indistinguishable from those who actually played it, but they improved in all of the same ways as the actual players. So right now that’s the best thing that you can do that will maintain your skill level. Also it’s not like there is anything else you can do anyway.”

“How long should I do it for, “asked Damian.

“As long as you want,” said Jackson, “but I would go for at least half an hour a day. It’s not like you’ve really got anything else to do.”

The days flowed by as Damian, visualized, read, and chatted with Jackson or his mum.

Jackson eventually started bringing in a couple of books a day. Jackson showed Damian how to memorize things easily and effectively by turning words into pictures to file then properly in your brain. Soon two weeks were up and Damian’s body had healed to the point where he could move around with crutches without slowing down his recovery. Even though it left him in considerable pain.

So his mother came to pick him up and then dropped him at home as she had work straight away.