learning stuff

(this was an excerpt taken from my journal, minimally edited)

. . .

I think with learning a skill of any kind there are two states:

1. improvised free flow with chaotic abandon and present moment fun
2. deliberate and determined focus on improvement

Both are necessary for a healthy learning experience — I find for me it is easy to get lost in improvised free flow fun (in avoidance of deliberate improvement), and it's also easy to focus only on improving that you forget to let go and relax.

Regarding improvised free flow: you are making use of the skills you have already learned and staying in the neural pathways already created in your mind. This is your muse. It's familiar, and you can dance with it easily. It's also just downright fun.

But there will be the natural desire for you to add a new technique to your dance, which you can't do in that free flow state — a new technique is something unfamiliar, and your first attempt at it will be janky, weird, and awkward.

Though, with enough deliberate practice, the unfamiliar technique soon becomes familiar, and it is now part of the toolset that is natural to you; you can then use it to create your art, back into that free flow state of fun :D

...And so, the cycle repeats itself.