Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Ongoing learning
No matter how good we are at something, be it professionally, in a vocation, hobby or sport we still need ongoing training, and that's just to maintain our current situation. If we wish to move forward then help from others is more obviously required but we still need objective third-party criticism and coaching to remain at our existing level.
Naturally there are advancements in almost every field of study or practice and to keep abreast of the latest developments or technology requires ongoing learning. We just can't stop. But even in situations where we may be considered at the 'top of our game' or we do not really wish to progress, further ongoing coaching is required to help keep us on form.
As humans we are much better at seeing ourselves in relative terms. We can compare ourselves to others or how we were performing last week or last month fairly easily however that can be argued if we consider that self-perception is rarely accurate or how others would see us. Naturally our 'feelings' are subjective and affected by habit, personal emotion, age, experience and we have great difficulty in being absolutely objective. But we have further difficulty in seeing ourselves or our performance in any more than relative terms because of our limited memory.
Without external third-party comment on our situation we may compare our performance, conduct, appearance or whatever on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. But the bigger and more objective, longer-term view escapes us. For instance in playing the violin I may gradually get into the habit of leaning forwards to read the music, changing the hold of my bow, bowing at a squint angle or any one of a thousand little things. Such tendencies just creep up on us. In business or politics someone may accept the occasional lunch from a client, then a trip abroad to a factory or conference (with a day free for excursions), which may lead to other favours and the next thing we have is whole-scale corruption. Am I exaggerating or are examples of such situations in the press sufficient to qualify my suggestion? In golf we may develop a slight twist so we slice the ball, but we cannot see it. Where did that little habit come from? Change happens gradually and we may be tolerant or ignorant of the subtle shift that is taking place. In relative terms today's performance may be little different from last week's. But in comparison to how we were performing, behaving in conduct or expertise a year ago, we may be quite different.
As humans we are so flawed, it is prudent to allow for our inadequacies and even plan to deal with them on an ongoing basis. Learning needs to be constant, particularly when we think there is nothing more for us to learn!
