Week 4: Knees, Chest, Chin
I love learning. However, I have not always enjoyed all learning environments. As an adult, I walked away from learning to read music when I was told I had to learn the notes and could not use different colored highlighters for help. Practicing and performing bells with the small intimate group at the church I attended was fun. I liked the people, and I enjoyed the little nervous pressure to do well during church services. But when I took a week of my summer vacation to learn, practice, and perform at a more prestigious church and with other people who were musically talented, a fun activity turned into an intense pressured responsibility without fun. Also as an adult, I walked away from learning hula on the first day because of feeling uncomfortable and insulted. I thought it would be fun to try learning hula, but I did not appreciate the teaching style of the teacher. So I removed myself from the class. In my youth, I walked away from learning to sail at a week long summer camp when I accidentally started to sail under a pier. Even though I love the ocean, it is challenging to learn when feeling stupid, and I’m sure I felt stupid for almost breaking the little sailboat.
Each of the three experiences teaches me something about myself. First, having fun is important to me. I believe learning and fun can go together. Second, having confidence and a positive mindset about the self is important because mistakes happen. Being open to learn from mistakes can increase personal growth which can increase the mental and physical ability to learn. Last, when learning something of interest, even if it’s a new topic, there is a greater inner desire to focus and persevere through circumstances that arise.
I am fully committed to improving my knowledge of yoga poses. Therefore, when I discovered I was not doing the knee, chest, chin pose completely correct, I excitedly and happily corrected my mistake. I am willing to focus and persevere through the circumstances that arise with learning yoga poses.
I encourage you to have purposeful daily learning.