The 3 steps to learn anything
The act of learning - any learning that is not simply memorizing facts - is a creative, experiential, process, a process of changing the self. The self I am today, after learning a new skill, is a different self than I was yesterday. I feel a particular situation differently than I did before.
The purpose of learning is to widen and refine our range of choice in life. All learning can be categorized into one or more of these four areas:
Interactions with the physical world - for example, playing golf, singing, welding metal, etc.: skills to use our self to manipulate the material world. Improving such skills requires us to know our physical possibilities.
Interactions with the abstract - for example, writing a blog post, solving a math problem, etc.: skills to use our self to manipulate the world of thoughts. Improving such skills requires us to know our mental possibilities. Many experts consider mental possibilities to be another facet of physical possibilities. Our ability to think develops in the same way as our ability to move; thought is imagined movement. I include them here as separate categories for clarity.
Use of our self - for example, remaining calm under pressure, being able to focus on several things at once, dosing our effort in the things we do, etc.: skills to regulate how we use our self. Improving such skills requires us to know our emotional possibilities.
Interactions with others - for example, knowing what kind of self we present to others, how to vary that to suit the situation, etc.: skills to project our self to be in relationships. Improving such skills requires us to know both our physical and our emotional possibilities.
Like any creative process, learning should be approached in a spirit of exploration. Insights can be gained along the way and used to influence the direction of progress. There are essentially three steps to learning, and they apply whichever of the above categories we are addressing:
Become aware: know how you do what you do
Discover what limits exist to the way you do what you do
Find ways to widen those limits
The three steps apply roughly in order, although they do not necessarily happen sequentially. There is often overlap, and in practice we go back and forth between the three activities. I will address in a future post some of the learning strategies we can use.
We can apply the same process in any learning situation. Our brains are plastic enough to transfer the process of learning: the act of practicing learning in a specific situation makes us better able to learn in general. Hence practicing learning through movement (as we do in body-mind methods) - which offers a unique learning environment with immediate feedback from our senses - keeps us adaptable and quick to learn, even in areas of life that do not involve movement.
How do you experience the process of learning? How have body-mind methods helped you? Please leave a comment.