My husband downloaded a speech by Malcom Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point". Mr. Gladwell spoke at the PopTech conference in Camden ME a week or so ago. If you'd like to hear this speech, you can go here:
http://www.itconversations.com/download.php?id=230&format=asx
or click today's blog title.
There were many wonderful observations in his speech, which previewed his book "Blink" (to be published in January 2005.) One of my favorites is how people make up stories to explain feelings and experiences they don't have words for. That is, if someone cannot really articulate what they are doing or feeling, they will invent an explanation--that, incidentally, might actually contradict what they're really doing.
The example he gave was someone who explored how tennis players hit a top-spin forehand. (I'm no tennis player, bear with me here...) He listened to professional tennis players and coaches across the country tell their students how to hit the ball. "You have to roll your wrist at just the right point in the stroke", they all stated. This guy filmed these same people hitting the ball, digitalized the film, and watched the ball being struck frame by frame. Not one person rolled their wrist. People who were obviously experts at this stroke could not actually say what it was they were doing. So they made up a story ("You have to roll your wrist.") that had nothing to do with how to produce a top-spin. In fact, the wrist roll IMPEDED the stroke.
He hastened to say that the instructors and experts were not deliberately misleading their students. But they obviously were not really sure WHAT they were doing that enabled them to produce such a powerful result. So they came up with a story they really believed to be true.
As a student of martial arts and a new student to yoga and horse riding, I am not surprised at this finding. I see it and hear it all the time. We're told to breathe into our backs. (You cannot breathe into your back.) We're told to lengthen the back of our leg without jamming our heels into the stirrup. (Try to lengthen the back of your leg without pushing your heel down. Go ahead, I'll wait.) We're told to throw a crescent kick by "circling the leg up and out from the knee." (I'm here to tell you, if your leg circles straight up and out past your knee cap, you are either in serious trouble, or missing a joint and some ligaments, or both.)
It used to frustrate me, til I understood what was going on. None of these moves can be broken down into discrete parts. No action can be taken apart and looked at separately from all the others. All of these activities are done in concert with a hundred other things going on with your body. All the while, the body is in motion, moving, balancing, shifting balance from one leg to another.
Beyond a few basic pointers, it's difficult to guide someone thoroughly through any of these maneuvers.
Some people have innate skill or a great "air" sense of what their body is doing and where all the parts are. They are able to watch and imitate quite well, or just know how their body should work to pull the thing off. They pick up the skills quickly. Then there are the people like me, who just don't get it. WE have to do the moves a jillion times, and it still ain't pretty.
But innate skill or innert skill, there is really only way way to do all of these arts well and competently.
Just do it.
It's the last thing I want to hear, and I'm sure it's the same for all of us. We'd like to think if we could just GET what's going on, if someone would just tell us the secret, we could do it just like that. But for all these disciplines, there is the doing and the practicing and the strengthening and the conditioning. And the showing up to do it, over and over again. Only then do things start to fall into place, and the successful action can be accomplished. And only with even more practice and effort can it be accomplished reliably over and over again.
What does that have to do with making art, or craft? And making a living selling it?
(Hint: It's the same process!)
There is usually no "secret wisdom" or "hidden information". No "right way" or "best way." There are, quite simply, a lot of different ways to make your art, create your product, grow your business, increase your sales and visibility. It's a matter of finding the information that fits your business model, your personal, financial and professional needs, and what you're ready to hear at any point along the way. But mostly, it's just trying stuff and seeing if it works. And if it works, keep doing it til you get really good at it. Or if you know it's the right thing, keep on doing it even if it doesn't work right away.
That's it. Practice. Show up. Focus. And doing the hard stuff.
