thefonz
Master Don Juan
So I just finished the reading the Book "Mastery: The Secrets to Success" by George Leonard and as a thanks to this site I thought I would post the notes I took while reading it. It was on DD's reading list for DYD and I can understand why.
So here we go. This isn't everything, just the stuff i found to be important. If you want to know everything go out and read the book you cheapass
The author is an Aikido master who discusses the importance of mastery.
The American culture tends to work against those who seek mastery. It mostly calls for immediate gratification in the form of commercials and glamour.
There are 3 types of people who enter mastery
1) The Dabbler – The dabbler is the person who loves to enter into new things. He enjoys that “new car smell”. He will go into activities with a roaring passion, discussing it with his friends and family. As soon as he hits a plateau he gets immediately discouraged and quits looking for the next best thing to jump into. He does not like plateaus and is the type of person who bounces from relationship to relationship not realizing it is he himself that needs to change.
2) The Obsessive – The obsessive is concerned only with results and won’t except plateaus and failure. He will lean into the instructor, stay after class, ask for outside class work and seek perfection on his first try. He doesn’t quit as easily as the dabbler but tries to keep it going while going through stormy separations and passionate breakups in relationships. He makes upwards spurts of improvement followed by sharp declines until eventually he falls hard.
3) The Hacker – This is the person who is willing to stay on the plateau indefinitely once he reaches it. He is comfortable learning a powerful serve but with a weak backswing in tennis. He likes to skip steps. He prefers monogamous relationships without grow and routine, as well as jobs where he does the bare minimum to get by and wonders where his job promotion is.
In commercials there is a tendency and focus on the climactic aspect of events and things. The runner wins the race and drinks a diet coke, men working at jobs and taking a break for miller light, or the 3-year-old blows out birthday candles while the happy family looks on. They always focus towards climactic moments. There is never a plateau but a steady rhythm of constant climax.
If our life is to be a good one, a life of mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau. If not, a large part of it will be spent in restless, ultimately self-destructive, and distracted attempted to escape the plateau.
There are 5 keys to mastery
1. Instruction
It’s particularly challenging for a world class performer to become a top-notch instructor. Being an instructor requires a great deal of humility. The teacher must take some delight in seeing a student surpass himself.
When choosing an instructor focus on the abilities of the students. Also, watch the interaction between the students and the teacher. A teacher must make his praise very rare, not to be given out lightly and considered highly rewarding. However, scorn, humiliation, and exoneration should not be tools of use despite conventional macho attitudes. A 50/50 ratio between enthusiastic reinforcement and correction is ideal.
It is said that that best masters are often the slow and untalented students. The smart and quick learners tend to gloss over details and have difficulty when they finally experience hardship. The ones who have a difficult time are used to that difficulty and can persevere and remember details better….make sure your instructor is paying exquisite attention to the slowest student.
Learning eventually involves interaction between the learner and the learning environment. Audio and video are useful for cognitive learning.
2. Practice
Most of the masters who practice do not practice to reach a goal; they practice because they love the activity they are doing. At first, practicing regularly when you seem to be getting nowhere, but the time eventually comes when practicing becomes a treasured part of your life.
Larry Bird was said to spend 2 hours every day shooting baskets in the OFFseason simply because he loves taking shots.
“How long will it take me to master _____” –the question, “How long do you expect to live?” – the answer. Master is nothing more than staying on a path of practice. If you stay on it long enough you’ll reach states of disappointment, unconditional joy, bumps and bruises, surprises, challenges and comforts.
3. Surrender
The courage of a master is measured by his willingness to surrender to the teachings and demands of his discipline. At first you will be clumsy and have many literal and figurative pitfalls. Your first few dives will be bellyflops and you’ll draw the attention of everyone at the pool.
The essence of boredom is found to be the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes.
There are times in every master’s lives where they must give up the old hard won competence and completely dissect themselves in order to move to the next level. Sometimes it takes weeks of failures and plateaus before becoming convinced that you must change your old way of doing things.
So here we go. This isn't everything, just the stuff i found to be important. If you want to know everything go out and read the book you cheapass
The author is an Aikido master who discusses the importance of mastery.
The American culture tends to work against those who seek mastery. It mostly calls for immediate gratification in the form of commercials and glamour.
There are 3 types of people who enter mastery
1) The Dabbler – The dabbler is the person who loves to enter into new things. He enjoys that “new car smell”. He will go into activities with a roaring passion, discussing it with his friends and family. As soon as he hits a plateau he gets immediately discouraged and quits looking for the next best thing to jump into. He does not like plateaus and is the type of person who bounces from relationship to relationship not realizing it is he himself that needs to change.
2) The Obsessive – The obsessive is concerned only with results and won’t except plateaus and failure. He will lean into the instructor, stay after class, ask for outside class work and seek perfection on his first try. He doesn’t quit as easily as the dabbler but tries to keep it going while going through stormy separations and passionate breakups in relationships. He makes upwards spurts of improvement followed by sharp declines until eventually he falls hard.
3) The Hacker – This is the person who is willing to stay on the plateau indefinitely once he reaches it. He is comfortable learning a powerful serve but with a weak backswing in tennis. He likes to skip steps. He prefers monogamous relationships without grow and routine, as well as jobs where he does the bare minimum to get by and wonders where his job promotion is.
In commercials there is a tendency and focus on the climactic aspect of events and things. The runner wins the race and drinks a diet coke, men working at jobs and taking a break for miller light, or the 3-year-old blows out birthday candles while the happy family looks on. They always focus towards climactic moments. There is never a plateau but a steady rhythm of constant climax.
If our life is to be a good one, a life of mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau. If not, a large part of it will be spent in restless, ultimately self-destructive, and distracted attempted to escape the plateau.
There are 5 keys to mastery
1. Instruction
It’s particularly challenging for a world class performer to become a top-notch instructor. Being an instructor requires a great deal of humility. The teacher must take some delight in seeing a student surpass himself.
When choosing an instructor focus on the abilities of the students. Also, watch the interaction between the students and the teacher. A teacher must make his praise very rare, not to be given out lightly and considered highly rewarding. However, scorn, humiliation, and exoneration should not be tools of use despite conventional macho attitudes. A 50/50 ratio between enthusiastic reinforcement and correction is ideal.
It is said that that best masters are often the slow and untalented students. The smart and quick learners tend to gloss over details and have difficulty when they finally experience hardship. The ones who have a difficult time are used to that difficulty and can persevere and remember details better….make sure your instructor is paying exquisite attention to the slowest student.
Learning eventually involves interaction between the learner and the learning environment. Audio and video are useful for cognitive learning.
2. Practice
Most of the masters who practice do not practice to reach a goal; they practice because they love the activity they are doing. At first, practicing regularly when you seem to be getting nowhere, but the time eventually comes when practicing becomes a treasured part of your life.
Larry Bird was said to spend 2 hours every day shooting baskets in the OFFseason simply because he loves taking shots.
“How long will it take me to master _____” –the question, “How long do you expect to live?” – the answer. Master is nothing more than staying on a path of practice. If you stay on it long enough you’ll reach states of disappointment, unconditional joy, bumps and bruises, surprises, challenges and comforts.
3. Surrender
The courage of a master is measured by his willingness to surrender to the teachings and demands of his discipline. At first you will be clumsy and have many literal and figurative pitfalls. Your first few dives will be bellyflops and you’ll draw the attention of everyone at the pool.
The essence of boredom is found to be the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes.
There are times in every master’s lives where they must give up the old hard won competence and completely dissect themselves in order to move to the next level. Sometimes it takes weeks of failures and plateaus before becoming convinced that you must change your old way of doing things.
