What is modeling and why bother?

I was wedged in between a bunch of people in a crowded club. The crowd was going crazy with applause and chanting for my buddy Mike's band to come back on for an encore. Mike walked out alone and started to sing while playing his guitar solo. Within a few minutes he had the crowd erupting again. As he walked off the stage, the crowd yelled for more. Mike returned to the mic and with a smile on his face said 'I have no more to give.'

Growing up, this type of experience made no sense to me. I also played music, but suffered from tremendous stage fright. I hated performing. What didn't make sense to me was that Mike looked like he was actually having fun. One day I asked Mike how he got himself to play in front of people and how he dealt with the fear. He looked confused and asked me 'What fear?' Mike explained that he loved performing and that he felt most like himself when he was in front of a crowd.

The fact that two people can have such a different experience of the world has always fascinated me. Modeling is a process that helps you discover what these differences are. Modeling is the process of learning how people do and experience the things they do. There are many different ways to model and as a result, there are many different types of models. One way to think about a model is as a description of how someone gets a particular result. A map is a model of the structure of roads. A recipe describes the steps to take to cook a particular dish. A good model will show you how to get a particular result or how to access a skill or behavior. 

Be Like Miles

There I was again.  I was attempting to learn how to play a Miles Davis solo on my guitar and it happened.  Everything was moving along nicely and then he played a line that I just couldn't figure out, let alone play. This happened just about every time a tried to transcribe someone's solo. Miles was in fact pretty good learn from because he tended to play very few notes and he played them slowly. I found this incredibly frustrating. I was beginning to think that I wasn't cut out for this type of activity or that I had a 'bad ear.'

I must have played that particular line in the solo 100 times. I'd hit rewind endlessly to no avail. I started from the beginning of the solo and reviewed the pieces I knew and then a new idea hit me. I thought that I should go through as many solos of miles that I could find and just learn the easy bits. If I could only get a few notes from each that was fine. I started doing this and within a few weeks I was astounded by the results. Suddenly I could hear all kinds of things that I hadn't been able to decipher a few weeks earlier. My ears had seemingly grown.

Here are a few ideas that make this work.

Slow down:
Whether you're learning a piece of music or practicing a martial art, from time to time, slowing down the tempo at which you take in information, or practice something will help you learn more smoothly than stumbling at a quick tempo.

Practice small, easy pieces:
Focus your efforts on very short discreet pieces that are very easy for you. Practicing something that is too difficult can prove to be counterproductive. Furthermore, it's an indication that you haven't really mastered the skill that lead up to that.

Practice pieces that you like:
Practicing pieces that you like will build greater and greater motivation to keep practicing versus building frustration.

By applying these guidelines, I've found that  I'm able to make progress at a good pace in places where I had previously been stuck. Although you may not end up sounding like Miles or your favorite musician, I think you'll be pleased with the results.

Plan To Fail!!

It's the start of the new year and many people set off with resolutions in hand ready to take on the world. For many people, a few weeks into January is when cracks in the well laid plans begin to show up. Perhaps it's not following through and going to the gym, or not eating just a little bit more sensibly.

Although you may not have done exactly what you set out to do, this isn't the end of the world unless you decide that's the case. Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP mentioned something really interesting years ago. To paraphrase, he said that people should incorporate some failing along the way to reaching their goals. Most people can count on falling off their plans at some point, so you may as well plan on it. If you do, you can also plan to get back on track.

When people fall off of their plan, many define this as failure and stop. Instead, if you define it as a setback, or part of the overall process, you can pick it up again the next day and get moving again.

I love this shot of Andy Murray. Andy had come unbeliveably close to winning a major in tennis again and again. He had 4 runner ups before finally winning his first major. He was the first playing from the UK to win a major in 76 years. Not bad.

Learning to Model

Here are a few videos that are taken from David Gordon and Graham Dawes' book and DVD on Modeling titled 'Expanding Your World.'






Here's a link to their site with more videos on their site:

Expanding Your World Site

'Now just memorize that list...'

I can still remember my french teacher asking us to memorize our vocabulary every day. I can remember what she looked like, and exactly what her voice sounded like. Unfortunately I can't remember the vocabulary. I can also remember just how frustrated I was that I had no idea 'how' to memorize the vocabulary. I'd usually get about 70% out of good luck, but I was clueless about how to intentionally get that number any higher. There are many aspects to learning and memorization. One factor is when you study something and when you do subsequent review sessions. Here's a fascinating article about some of the research that's been done over the years on timed reviews and some software that's been developed to help this process called Supermemo.

Enjoy!

Article Link-Supermemo/Wazniak

Awareness Test

This is a fascinating awareness test that someone pointed out to me. Love to hear how people do with it. (It's a good one during the NBA playoffs!)

Charlie Badenhop-Seishindo

Whenever I visit Japan I have the privilege of visiting with my good friend Charlie Badenhop. Charlie has a background in NLP, Hypnosis and years of studying and being an instructor of Aikido. Charlie is one of the most skilled change work practitioners I know. His work, Seishindo is a wonderful combination and expansion of these various modalities. What I've observed in seeing Charlie work with individuals and working with me is that he interacts with the person both verbally with great skill and by responding to and working with the person's physical presence. One thing that I've taken from my experience of Charlie's work is the belief that centering the body and the thinking mind has a tremendous capacity to heal the overall system and bring new solutions and insights to whatever challenges a person is facing.

I highly recommend visiting Charlie's site http://seishindo.org/ which is also in my link list. The site has pages of wonderful material and many practices that you can try out for yourself. Charlie also has a great newsletter where he shares insights and exercises on a regular basis.

Stephen Gilligan

This is a video of Stephen Gilligan being interviewed from YouTube. Steve's work is incredibly rich. I highly recommend going to a training with him if you have the opportunity. Although this video is a bit of a promotion, it's a treat to get to see him. Steve has developed a way of working with people that moves well beyond his background in NLP and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy.