Life lessons from the dojo
Aug. 25th, 2008 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassI have a personal goal for myself that every time I go to the dojo, I'll take away some lesson. Sometimes it's karate-specific, but often it's something that can be applied to life in general, not just martial arts. I thought I'd share.
Today's lesson: It's easy to forget (but easier to learn the second time 'round)
I was gone from the dojo for slightly over a month, and -- bad Julie! -- I haven't been practising at home. Consequently, when I got back to the dojo today, I wasn't in peak form. In fact, I realized that I'd forgotten a whole lot in just a month! Some things that I'd learned a few times before my hiatus had slipped my mind completely, others were just in the dusty trunks of unused memories. It takes a whole lot of repetition to put something into long-term memory, and without that repetition, it's really easy to forget.
The good news is that it's easier to relearn something than to learn it for the first time. The first time I learn a new series of movements, it might take two or three classes just to see them all, and then I'm in danger of forgetting them very quickly. Once I've learned them and forgotten them, though, it might take only a half-hour to bring it back into active memory. Certainly I won't be as good as I would have been if I'd been practising the whole time, but at least I don't have to take the same amount of time to re-learn as I did to learn.
Today's takeaway: don't worry too much if you've forgotten something. It's easy to forget, but the relearning process will probably go faster than you think.
Today's lesson: It's easy to forget (but easier to learn the second time 'round)
I was gone from the dojo for slightly over a month, and -- bad Julie! -- I haven't been practising at home. Consequently, when I got back to the dojo today, I wasn't in peak form. In fact, I realized that I'd forgotten a whole lot in just a month! Some things that I'd learned a few times before my hiatus had slipped my mind completely, others were just in the dusty trunks of unused memories. It takes a whole lot of repetition to put something into long-term memory, and without that repetition, it's really easy to forget.
The good news is that it's easier to relearn something than to learn it for the first time. The first time I learn a new series of movements, it might take two or three classes just to see them all, and then I'm in danger of forgetting them very quickly. Once I've learned them and forgotten them, though, it might take only a half-hour to bring it back into active memory. Certainly I won't be as good as I would have been if I'd been practising the whole time, but at least I don't have to take the same amount of time to re-learn as I did to learn.
Today's takeaway: don't worry too much if you've forgotten something. It's easy to forget, but the relearning process will probably go faster than you think.
