You Can't Push on a Rope

I spend a lot of my time just memorizing patterns. It occurs to me that (and though it may seem obvious, I think it bears mentioning . . . ) I’m not just memorizing a sequence of notes or key positions. Yes, I am doing that, but part of what I’m also memorizing is how it feels to be doing it correctly--in my hands, wrists, fingers, arms, back, money-maker, etc…

When Famoro is across from me, showing me something new, I can recognize patterns and decipher the code very quickly--possibly (owing to a lot of experience) quicker than most. But gosh it takes me a long time to get my hands doing what my mind is asking them to. I wonder if there isn’t some way I can speed that part of the process up, by say . . . relaxing more? developing my concentration (whatever that means)? or just not worrying so much about speeding it up?

Famoro assures me that stuff comes with practice. And yes, it does. I have to do “more more more more more practice” but still, I wonder if, for example, making skill acquisition less urgent might not actually speed it up. After all, you can’t push on a rope . . .

Practice-meme #2: "You can't push on a rope."

Keyword Checklist (Revisited)

I think the bottom-line highest-priority keyword categories are (a) generally staying relaxed and clear-minded and (b) softening and reorganizing my left hand movements.

Thus, as I practice now, I've begun to mentally cycle through the following series of keywords:

1. relax
2. breathe

and then for the left hand, thinking about "softness" (i.e. lack of tension), grip, and movement through space:

3. the Famoro pinch
4. back of hand
5. wrist
6. elbows, shoulders, & back
7. head & eyes

I bet behavioral psychology's work with professional-level athletes would have something to say about this list . . . Hey, Dad, what were the five categories of skill again? proprioceptive? level of excitation? . . . what else? In fact . . . I wonder what I might learn by taking a look at some of the keyword lists that the figure skaters have used (or indeed continue to use.)

Another (Partial) List

Approaches to Practicing/
Things to Think About While Practicing/
Phases of a Practice Session

a. memorization (step by step, slow); incl. play through the things you know to refresh familiarity
b. form (slow to fast); concentrate on Feldenkrais stuff, the "feel"
c. reactivity (different speeds);
d. flow/groove (different speeds);
e. concentration/focus

One of the points here is that, whereas yesterday I was feeling burdened by the reduction of my practicing to little more than memorization, today, I'm recognizing the importance of memorization in the total package of what makes an effective practice approach--whether the individual components of such a package are parsed out and dealt with individually (30 minutes of memorization, followed by 45 minutes of work on form, etc.) or whether as part of a kind of Gestalt approach.

A Blog?

I wonder if blogging really the best way to go about this . . . I think that some kind of "interactive, public document of my developing thoughts on skills acquisition, pedagogy, and practice" is a very good idea. (I might think it were a great idea if I had some readers and some people with whom to interact.) But the format of a blog (with its largely--if not entirely--chronological interface) just doesn't facilitate the kind of manipulation of data that I think would be most effective for stimulating discussion and innovative, problem-solving ideas.

As an example: from the last post until now (and I still have 30 min. left in the session for today), I've realized that one thing I want to do is develop a few lists from which, say, some keywords could be derived (cf. olympic skiers) so that I can get to where I am now in the session* faster, and so that I can generally waste less practice time. *(You see . . . despite what I wrote in the last post, I now feel very "warmed-up." I've stopped [or maybe, relaxed] concentrating so much on memorizing vocabulary and instead, am paying closer attention to form and generally just moving across the keyboard more slowly. As a result, I feel that the last hour and a half was more productive than the first two hours.) Two lists in particular I'd like to see (and have accessible, not chronologically, but in some other, more spatially interactive way) are:

1. Xylophone Skills

a. imagining a melody and choosing the keys that correspond (relative to position)
b. parallel octave jumping in singles, doubles, triples, etc.
c. rolls
d. 4s and 5s
e. left/right independence
f. on the fly cross rhythm and polymeter creation
g. recalling & reproducing memorized patterns

2. Keywords for Form (cf. Feldenkrais Awareness)

a. relaxed. no tension.
b. wrists straight. wrist snap.
c. thumb position. thumb snap.
d. middle finger second digit, pinch to thumb.
e. shape of bend of support fingers.
f. elbows.

These lists are obviously incomplete, and I'd like to continue to add to them, refine them, but again, because the format of the blog is chronological, what am I going to do, hunt through all the previous posts to find each time I mention new thought/idea "x" so that I can add it to category/configuation "y"?

I think some parts of the blog format are really good. (It IS useful to be able to access this information chronologically if that's what's called for in a given situation, and I like the idea of adding a video component, for example, but there need to be other options as well, as in the case of the specific situation I just described.) Or as in this other example:

I came up with the idea about a half an hour ago to follow a pattern of waking up early and beating the crowds to the practice rooms so that I can use the mirrors in the big room (and so, get visual feedback on some of the form keywords I just listed.) Well, good. Now I've blogged that idea. There it is. The idea is written down. Which is good because I'm so busy, I may not have a chance to implement that (or some other) idea for a few days. But how likely is it that I'll remember in a few days that I even had that idea? And what if a few days becomes a few months? Unless the blog allows me (and others) to access (and reorganize) such ideas in a convenient way, what's the point of writing them down at all?