Retain the lesson

... needing to be told over and over again is not learning. Take the lessons of life and apply them!

I teach many people yoga. Some people pick up the poses and essential actions really well. Some hear verbal cues and apply them in their bodies with great ease. Others need to see an action to emulate it, but verbal cues are gibberish to them. Some learn better when given a hands-on assist to help direct or align their body and they respond to the physical sensation of touch better than to words or demonstrations. This is just a fact of different methods of learning.

Right now I am interested in the question of retention. Some students who attend my classes have received all methods of instruction (verbal cues, demonstrations, hands-on assists) show up and generate the same misalignments time after time. They shift when given guidance but do not retain the new way for the next time.

Not applying the lesson:

Many yoga poses are asymmetrical - we do one side of the pose and then we do the other side of the pose. There are students who need re-aligning on one side. They make the adjustment on one side then, when the other side of the pose is called, they perform the same misalignment they did before correction on the first side.

In yoga class we often do several repetitions of the same pose. Some students get guidance on the first set and make the adjustment but revert to the misaligned way for second and subsequent sets. What might it take for the lesson to stick?

What other lessons have these people not learned? Do they touch hot stove tops? Do they leave leave milk and chicken out on the kitchen bench rather than putting them away in the refrigerator? Do they fail to thoroughly check both ways before they attempt to cross the road?

Driving too fast:

Statistics relating to motor vehicle accidents reveal that, the more serious the crash, the more likely it is that speed was a contributing factor. Road signage and television advertisements continually remind people that speed on the roads leads to accidents. Yet, the message does not get through. When I drive at the posted speed limit, other cars accumulate behind me and take the earliest opportunity to overtake me.

I knew a guy some years ago who asserted that New Zealand should have no speed restrictions on the open road. He asserted that it was ridiculous that Denny Hulme, a former Formula 1 motor racing champion, should be restricted to a 100 km/h limit. I suggested that the issue was not whether Denny Hulme needed a speed limit but whether every 18-year old idiot who thought he was Denny Hulme should have the speed limit imposed upon them.

A friend of mine was nearly killed in a motor vehicle accident. He was a passenger being driven by a friend on the open road. The speed his friend was driving at caused my friend to send a text message to his wife saying that the driver was going very fast. A few moments later, the driver lost control on a bend. The car rolled down a bank with my friend being very seriously injured. No other factors were at play - just speed.

Everyone who drives has heard the message and has seen the notices warning against excessive speed. However, there is an obtuseness at play that means they do not retain and apply the message. What does it take for people to retain a lesson that has been taught to them?

Can we change our behaviour patterns?

I have recently been working with someone on improving their management of pressures in their life, their communication and their ability to balance work life and home life. I have offered some ideas to this person and they have been very receptive and say they have applied them with some immediate good results. They asked me at one of our meetings whether changes in behaviour patterns are possible and how long it takes.

I said I believed changes in behaviour patterns were eminently possible. How long changes might take would vary but the key, I believe, is awareness. Be present, aware, and, in that state, make good choices with respect to how you act, communicate and bring yourself into the world.

Yes, with awareness…

The issue is one of making every act a conscious act, rather than an unconscious accident. It starts with breath. Breath is an involuntary action run, in the ordinary course of events, by ones autonomic nervous system. Breath is, however, susceptible of being managed and directed by conscious thought. This is what the ancient yogis called pranayama. In yoga practice, we encourage students to breathe consciously and create particular forms of breath either as the foundation for the whole class or to create a specific effect at certain points in a class.

When students get present to and consciously create their breath, their whole practice levels up. Their energy grows. The awareness of the one point of their breath allows them to be aware of all points in their bodies. Rather than struggling in poses or wishing for the end of poses they stay with and relax into poses. To relax does not necessarily mean to disengage muscularly. More, it means to be more composed and content, even in a state of challenge. The relaxation required is an unclenching of the mind.

Side plank is life on a small scale:

There is a common power yoga pose called side plank in which the student rests on the outer edge of one foot and the palm of one hand while facing the side of the room. The student holds their legs and torso up off the floor and they reach their free hand for the sky. I have seen many very strong people attempt this pose and their approach is to tense, to strain, to screw up their faces and make a big fuss over the pose. The experienced yoga student puts in place the necessary contractions and then relaxes with the posture such that they have a serene outer aspect.

The lesson of relaxing with what is, is a lesson that some are slow to learn. Like adopting a new alignment in a pose, adopting a new attitude or bringing a calmer perspective to strong sensation are skills that some students are slow to learn. The more a student becomes aware of and skilled at breathing steadily through the challenges of their poses, the sooner they learn that they do not have to tense and fight or run away from what they are feeling.

The more a person pauses and becomes aware of their breath, the more they can free themselves from pre-programmed response and patterned thought and behaviour. In a present state, rather than a state of absence of mind, the person will learn and adapt their thoughts and behaviours to better effect.

The same applies on the road. When a driver gets behind the wheel they can either behave automatically out of habit or they can be aware and present. They can press the accelerator and drive up to any car in front of them or they can be conscious of the posted speed limit, their following distance from vehicles in front and drive responsibly in the circumstances. To learn the lesson takes presence. For some drivers, regrettably, the only thing that shakes them into presence is a disaster - and even then some don’t learn.

Breaking the pattern of habitual thought and behaviour:

It is said that something like ninety percent of the tens of thousands of thoughts we each have every day are the same as the day before. Humans like patterns and habits of behaviour. When thought and behaviour patterns become harmful but are repeated day after day, there is a problem. When the automatic response to feeling under pressure is to eat or to reach for alcohol or nicotine there may be a perceived lessening of the stress but at a different cost.

The person who gets present to how they are being triggered and what they go to by default, earns for themselves the ability to make different choices. Someone who binges on ice cream when upset, for instance, may very well regret what they have done after the binge but, unless they are present to what they are feeling and what their default settings are, they will not learn the lesson to make different choices.

The yoga students who fail to retain the lesson are suffering from a lack of presence. They are operating on default settings and their awareness needs to be awakened. The person who binges on ice cream when upset is the same. The person who snaps irritably at colleagues when under pressure at work is the same.

In the song “Put Another Log on the Fire” the singer recounts all the unenviable tasks he burdens upon his partner and then asks her to”come and tell me why you’re leaving me”. The comedy of the song reflects an all too real situation where one person is not aware of how their behaviour adversely affects those around them but they keep repeating the same behaviour with the same adverse effects.

Disrupt the drift:

To learn and retain the lesson, one must be present. Baron Baptiste uses the expression “disrupt the drift”. I have done much of my yoga training with Baron Baptiste and his influence is strong in my life. “Disrupt the drift” encapsulates the need to be awake, aware and conscious of ones patterns of thought and behaviour. Instead of repeating the same life misalignments, like repeating the same postural misalignments in yoga class, shake up business as usual. Be aware and make a choice not just for a momentary shift but for a long term transformation of your perspective, your thought patterns and the way of being that you bring to the world.

The momentary shift may be apologising for being discourteous to someone else. Transformation is managing your reactions to situations so that you are not discourteous in the first place. The momentary shift may be a correction where you take back something you said. The transformation lies in being aware, choosing your behaviour intentionally so there is nothing to take back.

Observe where you just are not retaining life’s lessons. In these areas you are not your best. You are being reactive and heedless of others’ feelings. You are being careless and disrespectful of others’ wellbeing. You are being obtuse, a frustration to yourself and an irritation to the people you live and work with and who you encounter in your daily life. Wake up and be aware of each lesson and take the lesson to heart. Learn as you live. Grow and progress and be better day by day through your life.

In truth, you are not stupid, you are not incapable of learning. More, you just are not present. Be more aware and awake and retain what life teaches you. Retention is the key of a lesson. If you need to be told the same thing over and over again you are not learning and growing. Listen, look about you, observe the relationship between what you do and what you say and what happens in your life. Be present to retain and apply the lessons.