New Meditation of the Month is HERE
I’ve heard this quote in way too many yoga classes.
It’s actually an old alchemical proverb––although some pretty famous modern people have taken credit for it:
“With repetition the magic is forced to arise.”
Unfortunately, that’s totally not true.
In fact, a far truer quote (incorrectly attributed to Einstein) is:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Over a decade ago, when I was teaching lots of private yoga lessons, I somehow attracted several guy students who found themselves obsessed with Crow Pose, a challenging arm balance.
One––a very successful record producer––managed to nail it in a lesson or two, reportedly demonstrating it to a major recording star at a late night session.
(As a side note, his far more impressive accomplishment was when he was a guest at a small dinner party I hosted.
A rather bratty friend of mine launched into a long monologue around trending pop stars, most of whom I knew he’d worked with recently.
He didn’t identify himself.
He didn’t proclaim his firsthand counterintelligence.
Instead, he simply offered a few quiet comments like “She’s actually a really hard worker,” all the while displaying a perfect Mona Lisa smile.)
Anyway, back to my yoga story.
Another student, however, practiced Crow Pose for several months without any real success.
He wouldn’t give up, however, always rejecting my suggestion we just shelve the pose for a while.
And then one day…as if by magic…he succeeded.
His crow took (and held) flight.
The moment––which probably lasted 6 seconds––seemed truly miraculous.
Returning overjoyed back to earth, my student thanked me, saying:
“That thing you said today about the weight distribution really made all the difference.”
But here’s the thing…
I wasn’t withholding some secret information about the pose until that moment.
In fact, for the last six months, every single time I taught him twice a week, I’d said the exact same things.
That day was simply the first time he was able to hear them.
For the last few months by far the most helpful of all my spiritual / personal growth practices has no obvious mystical trappings.
No incense is involved.
There’s no chanting.
I don’t need to consult any astrologers about the placement of the moon.
Instead, every day I set my apple watch timer to exactly 13 minutes, sit down at my piano keyboard, look out at my terrace, and then practice.
Yet I do this differently than I ever have before.
You see, although very rusty, I play well enough to entertain myself.
I can sightread with some level of skill.
What that means, however, is that I never get any better.
I keep repeating the same mistakes.
That’s because when I operate life this way, I never learn anything.
One day a few months ago, I decided to actually differentiate between playing and practicing.
More accurately, using a term I learned only a week ago from Angela Duckworth’s book GRIT: I was now “deliberately practicing.”
What does this mean…?
I have to force myself to slow down.
Even when it’s easy, I must stay alert and focused.
More importantly,when it’s hard, I no longer allow myself to gloss over difficult passages.
I no longer zip merrily along and just fake my way through things when the going gets tough.
I don’t fast-forward through challenging passages, like commercials on my DVR.
And, taking this to a new level, I’ve forced myself to employ these concepts by actually doing something perhaps slightly bizarre.
Namely, I’ve started learning pieces…backwards.
I start at the end and work my way home to the beginning.
I learn the last four bars first.
And then the four bars before that, etc.
It’s painstaking and precise, the opposite of living your life as one grand improvisation.
And…it really, really works.
There are several reasons why this strategy is so effective.
Usually in classical pieces, the most difficult sections are at the end.
Thus, working this way you tackle the most challenging material first.
This forces you to slow down.
It takes you out of the state of flow, forcing you to really concentrate.
Rather than bluffing your way through the easier beginning, you’re immediately stuck in foreign territory.
Bottom line:
It takes a lot of the fun out of it.
And it’s astonishingly effective.
In fact, I’ve improved more in the last two months than in years of cruise control.
And although I set my timer for 13 minutes, invariably I turn it off and keep practicing for longer.
It brings an entirely new level of satisfaction, one that’s somehow much deeper.
Rather than merely repeating the past, I’m actually learning something.
I’ve shared some of these thoughts centered around GRIT in the Book Club for my Inner Circle membership with Stefan last week…
(And we liked this particular Book Club choice so much we might just do an “open to everyone” Facebook Live about it soon––I’ll keep you posted.)
What’s most interesting to me though, is how strong my initial resistance was toward Deliberate Practicing.
I can’t tell you how much I initially rebelled against a little discipline, preferring to just “let things flow” even though it meant never getting any better.
Unfortunately, just showing up, just repeating what’s happened before––the stuff that’s easy for us––doesn’t do much good.
Yes, repetition is an essential component of mastery.
But for the magic to truly rise, repetition requires adaptation.
And that’s why the theme of this month’s meditation is Reinvention HERE.
Last week I shared how my maple tree changed gender this spring.
Rather than merely giving us more of the same, He / She / They are dramatically evolving.
Beyond merely reawakening, He / She / They are reinventing.
Nature always does this.
Indeed, Heraclitus said it best 2500 years ago:
“No man ever steps in the same river twice”
It’s easy for us to see how the river is always changing.
Indeed, its very nature requires it to keep flowing, to keep transforming.
The question is…are we?
Are we––like the river or Madonna––always totally open to reinventing ourselves?
My wish for us all this spring is that we continue to reawaken and reinvent.
It’s only through that focused reinvention––along with some necessary repetition––that the magic will indeed arise.
Namaste for Now,
New Meditation of the Month (always FREE) is HERE.
(Please let me know what reinventions it inspires!)
