#mindful52 Week 6: Practice

This post about "Practice" has been sitting here waiting for me to hit the "publish" button for about two weeks now. 

There is so much else to write about but this rambling, and possibly incoherent post will have to do instead.

This quote arrived in my inbox this morning: 

“Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.”

~ Harry Truman

It fits with my ponderings about Practice so maybe I'll hit that button today.

Was I practicing or experimenting last weekend, when taking these photographs with my new camera?

In week 6 of  #mindful52  , Heather prompted us to think about Practice:

Have you ever given practice that much thought? Our Year of Mindfulness is just that. The mundane-ness of practice, day in and day out, reminding ourselves over and over to stay with and sit in WHAT IS.

If we look at practice as something we have to do, we miss the point. While practice helps us get better at whatever we are practicing, it also makes up the majority of our days. In many instances, we practice to get ready for an event of some sort – a minute, hour, day in our life for which we are preparing.

We practice the instrument to make lovely melodies in the concert.

We practice running to finish – or win – the race.

We practice softball to beat the other team.

Which is more important . . . the practice, or the event?

Look back on your past to recall the concerts, races and games in which you participated. How many can you recall? Now think about practicing for those events. Any moments, lessons, thoughts come to mind?

Why is it that I feel more comfortable with experimentation than I do with practice? After giving the question some thought and doing a little bit of reading, I came to the conclusion that although there is something of both in each, as children "Practice" can often have negative connotations. "Practice makes perfect" implies that we are aiming for perfection. It implies that we are not yet good enough. On the other hand it also tells us that we can achieve something more if we put the effort in. What a child needs is that encouragement to keep at it, whilst still celebrating where they are right now. What a balancing act it all is.

Of course I have practiced for many things, over the years. Teaching Practice. Training to get my body ready so I could conquer the challenge of the wall. Piano Practice, which I gave up after the initial excitement of learning something new. Rehearsing for a play. Learning to drive. At fifteen, I spent much of my time reading a tennis coaching book, and hitting a ball against a brick wall in our side yard. I practiced changing my hand grip for forehand and backhand strokes.

It appears that for me at first, practice, like experimentation, can be filled with excitement and appeal. It feels spontaneous, fun. Or there maybe is an end goal in mind - this might simply be a half formed dream or a far away hope. It may be driven by external or internal forces.

A second question occurs to me, about myself and my relationship to practice; do I have the staying power to keep at it day after day? What keeps us/me going? With the walking training that's easy, I had a goal. I knew that I would find the trek itself a challenge physically and I wanted to be as fit as possible so I would be able to enjoy the experience. Each time I set off on another walk to prepare myself, I enjoyed the practice as much as the trek itself. Somedays it was hard to keep going and getting myself out there wasn't always easy, I was tired after work, or it was raining and a four or five hour walk in the rain just didn't appeal! I continued though. It was a commitment I had made to myself and to others.

Practice, often has such a serious side for me, one that I've often resisted. There are too many rules. It's all too disciplined. It is associated with "shoulds". Experimentation feels more creative, free and exciting. More like Play. On reflection however, practice does have elements of experimentation and discovery, it is also about the repetition and mastery of the basic and essential skills. When it all becomes too serious or needs me to make more of a commitment to myself then that's when I can often run scared. There is a saying isn't there about Play being the work of childhood.

I've never looked on my everyday life as Practice before. However I have often said that I unconsciously or consciously put myself in what are for me, challenging situations in everyday life, in order for me to learn or to get better at something. What I've identified earlier in the life of this blog, is that I in doing this I have not been compassionate with myself in this and I have hurt myself in the process. It appears I either push myself too hard or not hard enough. I need to bring more of a playful approach to everything in my life. It's all been so serious! My boundaries have been very blurred. Lately everyday I'm practicing defining them and I'm practicing being compassionate to myself. 

The truth is that we are all different. One child will loathe handwriting practice and see it as a chore, another will love it and work at it even when they don't "have to". Some children go willingly to sports practice while others (like me as a teenager sadly) will do anything to avoid this. Having a compassionate teacher/role model who helps with motivation levels and boundaries is often crucial to how a child feels about practicing something that is hard for them. Children learn best when they are enjoying themselves and when the emotional connection with the learning, however hard the learning might be, is safe for them. It's all about freeing ourselves up, banishing that "fear of failure" and recognising that the ups and the downs are common to us all.

Along with our particular feelings about whatever it is we are practicing, is the view that some things we need to practice, others perhaps are "natural talents" or "natural abilities". We all have our strengths and preferences. Can we really squeeze a round peg into a square hole by practice? So many children are discouraged by adults who hold this view. As adults we can continue to discourage ourselves by comparing ourselves for other more "talented" bloggers, writers or work colleagues. Julia talks about this view in relation to writing practice on her wonderful blog  Painted Path. I also found this quote about writers:

"Once you master riding, what you have learned will stay with you for the rest of your life. You may abandon the bicycle for an automobile, then ten years later take it up for exercise and find that in moments, you are rolling ahead, fully coordinated, your brain responding to what you learned in your practice sessions long ago. It is the same with writing. Except that writers provide themselves with a monumental obstacle to achieving skill. Ballet dancers practice technique. Pianists wear down their black and white keys with hours of daily practice. Actors rehearse, practice obtaining the best perspectives, experiment with color and texture, do sketches in preparations for oil. By practice one learns to use what one has understood. Only writers, it sees, expect to achieve some level of mastery without practice. "Sol Stein.

It seems to me that all this "Practice" is a little like life itself. Every day of life is about pushing our boundaries, learning, developing, growing, expanding and blossoming. Sometimes we do this with joy and sometimes it feels less joyous. It is a choice. Letting go of the comparisons with others, the seriousness of it all. Making a joyous commitment to ourselves to explore and experiment with all of the fabulous possibilities.

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes alive, it makes us human in all our joyful imperfections, failures and successes, shadow and light.