In The Name Of Variations
I love attending Robert Nadeau Sensei's classes because he does not only teach us Aikido techniques, but he also teaches us how to become a better student.
During my last visit to his dojo, he stopped class at one point and urged everybody to stick to the basic form he was teaching us to do.
"People like to do variations. Sometimes we try to work on a particular thing. Many people, after a short period of time, cannot wait to try to do variations. There is nothing wrong with variations, but if you always drift off to do variations, you never really spend time to dig deeper on anything. That means you can at most get to a certain level on pretty much everything and no more."
Sensei's comment struck a cord in me. Indeed, in a class, it can be difficult to have students work on the same thing for more than five minutes. Once people think they "got it", repetitions become "too boring". So, they decide to take the liberty to switch to doing something else on their own. Our good friend and former student, Jolie, is an accomplished pianist. She used to give piano lessons at various levels. Even she once lamented, "Americans just do not have a strong practice culture." "I have tried it" is often confused with "I got it". The eagerness to jump to another level, ironically, becomes an obstacle to progress. It ends up keeping one at the same level forever.
I have observed, however, that sometimes students turn to variations for a different reason.
I know someone who almost never does what is shown at the demo. Every time the instructor corrects him, he would justify it by saying things like: "Yeah, I know. I am just trying to do this thing I saw last week', or "Oh, but I know how to do the same technique this other way." With time, as I observe him some more, I have reasons to believe he actually has learning disabilities. He has a hard time telling left from right. He has trouble synchronizing his movements. And, he cannot remember the sequence of movements. His basic tai-sabaki (body movement) is very shaky. His most severe weakness yet, is that he has a huge but fragile ego. As such, he spends more time defending his mistakes than working on strengthening his basics. Just as Nadeau Sensei predicts, the learning curve of this person is a plateau.
This student is not alone. As a matter of fact, even some supposedly higher ranked, more experienced students exhibit the same behavior. When they encounter moves that they are not good at, instead of slowing down to get things right, they choose to speed up and "slur" through the sequence so as to cover up the parts they do not get. Self affirmation takes precedence over self improvement every time.
Recently, I shared this lesson from Nadeau Sensei with a group of students. I told them honestly that, as their instructor, I am more interested in what they do not know yet than what they already know. It is my job to help them learn and improve. While I am proud of them as individuals, if all they want is to have someone clap them on what they already know, they can do that at home by themselves. Coming to the dojo to do only that is a waste of their time and my time.
In Aikido and in life, we are much better off recognizing our shortcomings and do some real work to help ourselves become better and stronger. All talk, no walk does not take you anywhere.
During my last visit to his dojo, he stopped class at one point and urged everybody to stick to the basic form he was teaching us to do.
"People like to do variations. Sometimes we try to work on a particular thing. Many people, after a short period of time, cannot wait to try to do variations. There is nothing wrong with variations, but if you always drift off to do variations, you never really spend time to dig deeper on anything. That means you can at most get to a certain level on pretty much everything and no more."
Sensei's comment struck a cord in me. Indeed, in a class, it can be difficult to have students work on the same thing for more than five minutes. Once people think they "got it", repetitions become "too boring". So, they decide to take the liberty to switch to doing something else on their own. Our good friend and former student, Jolie, is an accomplished pianist. She used to give piano lessons at various levels. Even she once lamented, "Americans just do not have a strong practice culture." "I have tried it" is often confused with "I got it". The eagerness to jump to another level, ironically, becomes an obstacle to progress. It ends up keeping one at the same level forever.
I have observed, however, that sometimes students turn to variations for a different reason.
I know someone who almost never does what is shown at the demo. Every time the instructor corrects him, he would justify it by saying things like: "Yeah, I know. I am just trying to do this thing I saw last week', or "Oh, but I know how to do the same technique this other way." With time, as I observe him some more, I have reasons to believe he actually has learning disabilities. He has a hard time telling left from right. He has trouble synchronizing his movements. And, he cannot remember the sequence of movements. His basic tai-sabaki (body movement) is very shaky. His most severe weakness yet, is that he has a huge but fragile ego. As such, he spends more time defending his mistakes than working on strengthening his basics. Just as Nadeau Sensei predicts, the learning curve of this person is a plateau.
This student is not alone. As a matter of fact, even some supposedly higher ranked, more experienced students exhibit the same behavior. When they encounter moves that they are not good at, instead of slowing down to get things right, they choose to speed up and "slur" through the sequence so as to cover up the parts they do not get. Self affirmation takes precedence over self improvement every time.
Recently, I shared this lesson from Nadeau Sensei with a group of students. I told them honestly that, as their instructor, I am more interested in what they do not know yet than what they already know. It is my job to help them learn and improve. While I am proud of them as individuals, if all they want is to have someone clap them on what they already know, they can do that at home by themselves. Coming to the dojo to do only that is a waste of their time and my time.
In Aikido and in life, we are much better off recognizing our shortcomings and do some real work to help ourselves become better and stronger. All talk, no walk does not take you anywhere.
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