Miguel de Maria -> Are you resistant to change? (Apr. 14 2006 17:19:27)
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It's interesting that most people believe they aren't resistant to change--and they resist changing their mind on that subject with great ferocity! I have recently realized, with heroic effort, that in many ways I, too, am resistant to change. For example, in speaking about the guitar when people challenge my ideas, I tend to rise to their defence, often not giving the challenge enough thought to actually debate its merits. One time, I had come to the thought that the left hand was a vise--well, good ol Jon corrected me and said that the proper use of the LH was more arm weight, that the thumb was not to be used as a vise at all. I fought it! Well, I have since realized that the key to LH use, at least for me, really is weight--Jon was right. And when I started out playing lots of Paco scales, Ron told me that it's better to play a simple thing really well, with aire, than a complex thing badly. I fought that, too! Well, I have since realized that not only is it better to do as he said, it may actually be essential to actually reaching the ability to play complex things well. Ron was right, I was wrong. A lot of us, maybe most of us, have a lot invested in being "right." My wife seems to find it astounding that if we disagree upon a word, I will look it up in the dictionary. If we disagree about some actor, I may Google him to find out if he was in a particular movie. I guess it's just a component of my personality, and other people's as well. To swing this discussion to guitar, I think we can agree that to some degree, the virtuoso player is "right." We may not like what he says, his communication skills may be poor or twisted, but at least we can agree that it works for him. The question is, how "right" can a non-expert player be about playing? My point is this: it is a tendency of most of us, myself included, to think our ideas are right--about basically anything. We think our ideas about politics are right, our ideas about religion are right, our ideas about how to make barre chords are right. But if we were so right, we would be much better players, wouldn't we? In my case, by changing my mind, I became able to play barres with absolute ease, where before they were torture. By changing my mind--acknowledging my mistake--I improved my performances a huge amount. I am starting to believe that this is a component of learning--the ability to change--to resist our inherent resistance to it. Studies consistently show that people make up their mind, then find reasons to back it up. This is certainly not the "scientific method," and it is not the way people would describe their decision making processes. Yet it is how the human brain operates--not like a computer, but more mysteriously, more quickly and efficiently and sometimes fraught with unpredictable twists. This somewhat unsavory fact must be overcome if we are to make great strides. We have to change the way we think--and change is hard. When I listened to Paco play picado, my whole forearm would tense, my hands would become an immobile claw. This was my reaction, my way of mimicking him. Yet it should seem obvious that this kind of muscular tension is not the way to achieve speed! Our instincts sometimes fail us. As I move forward in this thing, I wonder how to overcome the bias of thinking I am right, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. It would seem that everytime I find something I am sure of, that I hold with unquestioning faith, I should attack it and see if it holds up to reason. Doing this systematically might be the key to improving as a player! It may actually be that each time I am wrong, I actually win.
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