As I have said before, I took up tai chi some months back. I still have tons and tons to learn, which made me think about learning styles.
We all have them. Some of us like to be told how to do something. Others like to be shown. Some of us need to move our bodies to imprint the ideas in our brains. Yet others like to talk themselves through things. And, of course, most of us are some combination of all those different ways of learning.
As I try to learn the sequences of movement in tai chi, I find that I need both brain engagement and body engagement. I want to know how many repetitions there are of a particular sequence. I need to hook movements to images in my mind (much to the horror of my tai chi instructor when I described one motion as “pie to the face.” This does not capture the warrior nature of tai chi, apparently.). And I need to do the sequences over and over and over so that my body knows what to do all by itself.
Remaining a learner helps me when I am on the other side of the equation, teaching clients new exercises or helping them refine their performance of familiar ones. I need to stay awake and aware that one client may need to know what something is for, another may want to know what muscles are working, another may just need to see the movement a few more times.
We can all learn.
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