Here's a thought that might relate. For the past year I have been learning to play acoustic guitar after 50 years + of wanting to but not finding time.
So at first it was all about your concentrated explosive energy on the task of getting your fingers in the right place at the right time.
That's total concentrated energy, concentrating and trying to control what is happening.
But gradually with each new exercise or tune you get to the point where you can widen your awareness while still concentrating but in a whole-istic (holistic) way.
The more you get into that state the easier it becomes and maybe eventually the music starts to flow through you rather than being totally (badly) controlled by you.
Seems to me this is a bit like what you are talking about with your physical exercise examples.
I'm not "there" yet, not all the time but I can glimpse the way.
Specifically with learning, my guess is that it can help to let yourself lose awareness in bursts. That's about how the left and right hemispheres of the brain work, rather than about how the two branches of the autonomic nervous system trade off of one another. You want to have that microscopic thing happen so that you really get the details right.
But once you get some degree of automaticity, you want to switch back to vast awareness. When PLAYING, even when playing intensely, it tends to work better to have that intensity come from a welling up of lifeforce rather than from squeezing the energy.
It MIGHT be that learning happens better with vast awareness too. I'm less sure about what's true there. I know that learning new whole-body physical skills tends to go better with living relaxation rather than the microscopic thing. I'm less sure what's true for learning to play music though.
I've committed to writing regularly on substack and I can feel when this commitment pushes the limits for what I have capacity for. And I notice that when pushing it all the way throws things off balance - all non-writing related aspects of life, but then also the writing part.
At the same time, I can recall an article I had read a while back about being able to navigate two specific extremes - complete rest and complete intensity. It was about a boxer who used to sleep between bouts, so much so that he had to be physically dragged to the ring. But once "on", he was on 100 - intense and focused. That is also a way of navigating life, I guess. I can't find the article, unfortunately.
Here's a thought that might relate. For the past year I have been learning to play acoustic guitar after 50 years + of wanting to but not finding time.
So at first it was all about your concentrated explosive energy on the task of getting your fingers in the right place at the right time.
That's total concentrated energy, concentrating and trying to control what is happening.
But gradually with each new exercise or tune you get to the point where you can widen your awareness while still concentrating but in a whole-istic (holistic) way.
The more you get into that state the easier it becomes and maybe eventually the music starts to flow through you rather than being totally (badly) controlled by you.
Seems to me this is a bit like what you are talking about with your physical exercise examples.
I'm not "there" yet, not all the time but I can glimpse the way.
Yep, I think this is super related!
Specifically with learning, my guess is that it can help to let yourself lose awareness in bursts. That's about how the left and right hemispheres of the brain work, rather than about how the two branches of the autonomic nervous system trade off of one another. You want to have that microscopic thing happen so that you really get the details right.
But once you get some degree of automaticity, you want to switch back to vast awareness. When PLAYING, even when playing intensely, it tends to work better to have that intensity come from a welling up of lifeforce rather than from squeezing the energy.
It MIGHT be that learning happens better with vast awareness too. I'm less sure about what's true there. I know that learning new whole-body physical skills tends to go better with living relaxation rather than the microscopic thing. I'm less sure what's true for learning to play music though.
Hi Michael. Thanks for writing this.
I've committed to writing regularly on substack and I can feel when this commitment pushes the limits for what I have capacity for. And I notice that when pushing it all the way throws things off balance - all non-writing related aspects of life, but then also the writing part.
At the same time, I can recall an article I had read a while back about being able to navigate two specific extremes - complete rest and complete intensity. It was about a boxer who used to sleep between bouts, so much so that he had to be physically dragged to the ring. But once "on", he was on 100 - intense and focused. That is also a way of navigating life, I guess. I can't find the article, unfortunately.