Thoughts on Thoughts While Practicing

BY PETER DAVISON

 

For jugglers, it's a perennial question: What is the most effective way to go

about learning new tricks?

 

Certainly there are times when we are not so concerned with learning a trick, for example when we are juggling with other people, playing, relaxing or inventing moves. What I'm thinking about here is the process of practicing alone in order to learn technique, and the following are some ideas that I have found to be useful in my own work.

 

First of all, let's assume that we have figured out exactly what the physical necessities of a new trick will be (the pattern, body positions, rotations and timing). Now we become involved in trying to get our body / mind to learn it, by developing reflexes that operate faster than our con­scious thoughts.

 

Concentration

As we begin to practice, we have the idea that we must concentrate. But what is concentration? Ultimately, concentration means placing our full attention on each attempt at a trick, doing and experiencing totally, without distraction. To the extent that we can do this, we allow our body/mind to learn most efficiently.

 

But this way of working is easier said than done, because of the variety of distractions that can affect us. I have noticed that the most powerful distractions are often in the mind, in the form of thoughts which stem from the desire to achieve a goal. These thoughts include large or small fantasies about what will happen af­ter a trick has been learned. In my case, I often see myself performing this new trick, and I envision the venue, the cheer­ing audience, the new respect I'll gain. Yes, these kinds of images provide a certain energy towards practicing, but they also block part of our attention from what is happening now in our attempts. Additionally, they increase our desire to already have mastered the trick. We jump ahead in our minds from the reality of this mo­ment, which makes us impatient with our cur­rent failures, and we can become frustrated, tense and angry, all of which are major distractions.

 

How can we reduce these distracting thoughts? How can we develop a clear mind that can see and feel what is happening now so we can learn most efficiently?

Perhaps we can employ a Zen-like paradox: By being unattached to success we will most easily achieve it.

 

Of course, the idea of success fuels our desire to practice in the first place. But what if we can leave the idea of success on the doorstep, and en­ter into practice without "needing to get better?"

 

We know that by practicing with concentration we will make progress, even without a particular goal in mind. So now, our attitude can be that this practice session will be our life at this time, and we will experience it fully in its own right. Any future success can be seen as a by-product of this experience of practicing. Our goals will be reached because of. our choices about what we will practice, and now we engage in the process of learning with full presence of mind and body.

 

For most of us, though, it would be realistic to say that our goals will remain with us, at some level, while practicing. But we can learn to move them from the forefront of our consciousness while we practice, and gain an increasingly clear view of what we are doing.

 

Motivation

As we do this, another question comes up: Where does the motivation to work come from when we reduce our conscious desire to reach a goal during practice?

 

In the past, I would practice only as work necessary to achieve a goal. Now, my attitude is more that practicing is the goal. Ultimately, why is throwing things in the air and trying to catch them a less worthwhile experience than anything else? In fact, it can be very interesting to experience our learning process - the various attempts by our body / mind in trying to find the correct action, not to mention often taken for granted effects such as gravity, momentum and mass. Many things are happening at a subconscious (hyper-conscious?) level, faster than we can realize in thoughts.

 

We can observe and appreciate all of this, placing greater value on the process of practicing itself. Simultaneously, we can place less value on our images of future success. After all, they are just images that have very little to do with what our experience actually will be after we've learned the trick.

 

Positive Failure

Traditionally, there has been a view of practicing that includes good and bad, for example, "I'm having a good practice," or "It's not going well today." Particularly challenging are those times when we are "worse" at a trick than we were yesterday. We feel that it is only when we are increas­ing the number of throws with a trick, or otherwise visibly succeeding, that we are making progress.

 

Actually, success and failures are both positive aspects of the process. While we are dropping things on the floor over and over, our body / mind is experimenting. It is progressively searching for the correct action, the right feeling. We can compare this process to weight lifting, in which the difficult (stress) of lifting stimulates strengthening of the muscles.

 

In juggling practice, it is our failed attempts that are strengthening our awareness. We need to accept difficulties, and then immerse ourselves in them for a while, to learn effectively from them. Later, as we begin to find the correct action, mis­takes continue to strengthen our abilities by introducing "bad habits" to be over­come and "saves" that have to be made, all of which give us a more profound knowl­edge of what we are doing.