What I Learned in My Week at the Ranch
I owe it all to Manuel, the salsa instructor, and Lena, the handwriting analyst.
Last week I was teaching fiction writing at Rancho La Puerta spa on Mexico's Baja Peninsula. And I attended other teachers' classes and talks– yoga, dance, weight training, graphology, etc.
In the course of these, I had a medium-sized epiphany about how I learn and how I can do it more easily.
The salsa class, taught by Manuel Velasquez, was a cardio workout that combined steps from rhumba, mambo, cumbia, chacha, and tango. Complicated! and I had a hard time getting my feet to do right. So much so that I gave up and decided to concentrate on shoulder and hip instructions and save feet until some other time.
The result: when I wasn't thinking about my feet, they did the right thing. This astonished me.
Now, people have always told me to "just stop thinking" about , for example, what my knees are supposed to do while skiing. I've never understood how one goes about stopping thinking.
Now I know. One distracts oneself from "the hard part" by concentrating on something else. Sort of learning with the peripheral awareness.
The lesson was reinforced when graphologist/visual artist Lena Rivkin analyzed my handwriting in her talk on handwriting of writers and artists. First thing she said: you should rely on your gut more; but you like to overanalyze things….
No more. Now I'm all mindless mambo. Should be interesting.
Categories: enhancing creativity
Tags: boldness, celebration, Lena Rivkin, Manuel Velasquez, Rancho la Puerta