Mastery

Mastery

When you find yourself passionate about a new activity and want to get better at it, but find yourself stuck at a certain point, you might
​find that more instruction in the specific activity often does not help you improve. Even more practice does not seem to help. Something is blocking you progress, but what is it?

When you have “tried everything”, moving to the next level of mastery often requires you to stop all the doing, to free up your body and clear your mind from unconscious habits of moving and thinking. 


In addition, clearing out the “baggage” or “clutter” left from self-criticism and frustrating experiences frees up energy for renewed creativity and improvement in sometimes amazing ways.

When stuck at a particular level of mastery, we often think that we only need more of something – more talent or more strength – when what we really need is less of something – less getting in our own way through old habits of thinking and moving. Learning to stop getting in our own way means clearing the path to the next level of mastery. 

The Alexander Technique is beautifully suited to help with that.

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Do you have the patience to wait
until your mud settles
and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?
If you realize that all things change 
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
Less and less will you need to force things.

~ Lao Tzu/Philosopher
Translation by Steven Mitchell

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