never forget what it's like to begin

i think i'm going to add this to my list of goals in life. probably it's little more than a corollary to "never stop learning," but i realized a subtile nuance in the latter last night that made me think, and ultimately inspired me to write this.

i went to the karate class yesterday evening. i almost didn't, since yannick wasn't coming (he'd been feeling ill the last couple of days) and i'm still a little scared of the people there (okay, so it's really just more that i feel like an idiot not knowing what i'm doing), but i forced myself, and managed to get there on my own.

the experience was somewhat frustrating, but probably educational, though perhaps not exactly in the way intended. in a way, yannick was right; the philosophy of karate is quite similar to yoga (particularly in that there are many things happening simultaneously, which must be concentrated on and done together), but the actual postures are significantly different. hence the "i don't know what i'm doing" feeling of helplessness that i'm currently experiencing.

probably today's thoughts are also influenced by the fact that i've been reading the book marcus sent me for christmas on behavior-based training ("don't shoot the dog" by karen pryor). in which she mentions (as is reasonably obvious when one thinks about it, and as i was reminded through firsthand experience last night) that it's really freaking hard to learn more than one new thing at a time. as a result of this, she advocates shaping each element of the behavior separately, and only later attempting to shape the combined final result. last night i found myself wishing that the instructors there had read the book, since every time i would try to concentrate on one thing, i would forget or become confused about something else, earning a frustrated look of disaproval from whoever i happened to be working with at the time. the more i think about it, the more it really seems like training environments such as this would make really excellent applications of the clicker stuff; somehow i doubt i'll have the wherewithall to suggest it, though.

anyway, back to my point, it seems like we (as humans) learn to be good at doing things, and gradually (perhaps inevitably) forget what it was like before we had learned it. case in point: i doubt anyone reading this can honestly remember what it was like not being able to read. sure, we can get a glimpse of that by looking at text in a foreign language, but even that's not really the same. or for me, i realized a couple of years ago that i have no recollection of the way i might have related to a piano before i learned to play; the pattern is so deeply ingrained that i look at the keyboard and see the notes instinctively, knowing which tones relate to each other in which ways.

and i'm starting to think that this might actually be a handicap, from a certain perspective. not merely because it makes it harder for us to teach others, having lost that ability to honestly empathize with the student, but also because we ourselves start to forget how to learn. we're human, we like doing things we're good at, and not so much for all the rest. if we let too much time pass just doing the things we've already mastered (or even nearly so), the "humbling" experience of learning can become so frustrating as to be even "humiliating" when we do finally try it again...

as i prefer the former to the latter, unpleasant though it may still be, i hope i don't let myself lapse too much ever again.