Something I’ve seen in various martial arts training: people who have a strong kinesthetic sense of how to achieve things and avoid mistakes can be surprisingly bad at articulating what it is they are doing. There’s probably an analogic phenomenon in reasoning and discourse. People who find that they are persuasive, or have the ability to get good grasp on a topic in a short time, may not be able to convey the techniques they are using to achieve these effects. As this sort of problem doesn’t stop people from giving advice, I think it’s a useful pre-filter to put on when reading or hearing advice: Ask yourself if you can restate what they’re saying or pay attention to what they’re physically doing to gain a concrete, object level sense of what they mean.
Often becoming an expert at something just means that activity is now handled mostly by system-1, but we are only aware of the processes that are taking place in system-2, so becoming expert at something can lead to one having less access to the process they’re utilizing than a beginner or intermediate practitioner has. This is unfortunate for those of us who would like to learn from such experts.
Ask yourself if you can restate what they’re saying or pay attention to what they’re physically doing to gain a concrete, object level sense of what they mean.
I doubt that a beginner without much body awareness who goes into that dojo would be able to notice the difference between what the sensei is saying and what he’s doing.
If it would be easy to see, someone would have already told him. Val spend a lot of time developing awareness and is using it in that example.
Something I’ve seen in various martial arts training: people who have a strong kinesthetic sense of how to achieve things and avoid mistakes can be surprisingly bad at articulating what it is they are doing. There’s probably an analogic phenomenon in reasoning and discourse. People who find that they are persuasive, or have the ability to get good grasp on a topic in a short time, may not be able to convey the techniques they are using to achieve these effects. As this sort of problem doesn’t stop people from giving advice, I think it’s a useful pre-filter to put on when reading or hearing advice: Ask yourself if you can restate what they’re saying or pay attention to what they’re physically doing to gain a concrete, object level sense of what they mean.
Often becoming an expert at something just means that activity is now handled mostly by system-1, but we are only aware of the processes that are taking place in system-2, so becoming expert at something can lead to one having less access to the process they’re utilizing than a beginner or intermediate practitioner has. This is unfortunate for those of us who would like to learn from such experts.
I doubt that a beginner without much body awareness who goes into that dojo would be able to notice the difference between what the sensei is saying and what he’s doing. If it would be easy to see, someone would have already told him. Val spend a lot of time developing awareness and is using it in that example.