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Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

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Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#101

Post by lemming »

tjbiddle wrote: post #24

This is something I've found true in my own personal experimentation over the past few years. Any time I've been training something, if I take a break from it, I come back and I have more skill than I had previously. Recently this occurred with my handstand practice. It's something that I've been working on the past year or two on and off, but more heavily recently. I've made some great strides, but the past week or…

I've also been working on handstands a lot recently, and I've found this very hit and miss. Sometimes I will come back and be much better than previously, and sometimes I will totally suck after a break. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground there.

I've found handbalancing in general to be very frustrating in that sometimes it will go really well, and other times I will totally suck, and there's no obvious reason why. i.e. I slept ok, I ate breakfast, I'm not particularly stressed or unfocused, but it just won't work at all. And then the next day will be fine.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#102

Post by piva00 »

zeropnc wrote: post #100
pkghost wrote: post #97

A couple of anecdotes: I went to a group rhythm workshop in San Francisco called TaKeTiNa wherein a group of 50 of us learned, over the course of a few hours, to perform a stomp/clap polyrhythm (that is, a sequence that is really the combination of two sequences with different time signatures) that I wouldn't have guessed we could learn in a single session. The facilitator guided us through by starting with an approa…

San Francisco really is a different planet

I'd say that something similar would be possible in any city with a big artsy kind of people. Berlin came to mind immediately when I read what the workshop was about, for example.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#104

Post by pletnes »

p1esk wrote: post #89
Iv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I noticed a few years ago when I decided to bring myself up to date again on machine learning after a ten years break (and what ten years that was for the domain!) I read a ton and watched several online classes. I realized that the pace was very different from the classes I had been during my student years: classes were boring, so I had time to think about stuff. The rhythm that I found worked really well for s…

I thought the point of the breaks was not to “think about it”.

Also getting time to reflect without bombardment of new information.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#105

Post by pletnes »

lemming wrote: post #101
tjbiddle wrote: post #24

This is something I've found true in my own personal experimentation over the past few years. Any time I've been training something, if I take a break from it, I come back and I have more skill than I had previously. Recently this occurred with my handstand practice. It's something that I've been working on the past year or two on and off, but more heavily recently. I've made some great strides, but the past week or…

I've also been working on handstands a lot recently, and I've found this very hit and miss. Sometimes I will come back and be much better than previously, and sometimes I will totally suck after a break. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground there. I've found handbalancing in general to be very frustrating in that sometimes it will go really well, and other times I will totally suck, and there's no obvious reas…

I have small kids and have noticed that they can consistently screw up a task when you’re teaching them something. A few days later, they can suddenly do the task without thinking. I suspect learning happens partly after the fact, analogous to physical exercise.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#107

Post by arendtio »

p1esk wrote: post #89
Iv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I noticed a few years ago when I decided to bring myself up to date again on machine learning after a ten years break (and what ten years that was for the domain!) I read a ton and watched several online classes. I realized that the pace was very different from the classes I had been during my student years: classes were boring, so I had time to think about stuff. The rhythm that I found worked really well for s…

I thought the point of the breaks was not to “think about it”.

My assumption is that there is a difference between actively pushing yourself to think about it by adding new stuff to your brain as opposed to simply digesting the already added.

But it is pure speculation.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#108

Post by motohagiography »

dalbasal wrote: post #84
ramblerman wrote: post #66

The best piano teacher I ever had, left me with a little trick like this. When I was working through a song, getting the next few bars in my fingers lets say. If I got it right without mistake I had to stop immediately. lift my hands of the keyboard, and reward myself with a little breath - and tell my subconscious that was it. Before that I would just practice the loop over and over.

Sounds curiously like dog/animal training. The training session ends on completion of a task (eg fetch), followed by some sort of reward (food, play...). Part of the art is recognizing when the animal isn't into it anymore. If that happens, and you go into another repetition, the last rep is frustrating and/or unsuccessful and it's hard to end on a satisfying success... which is counterproductive. Much better to skip…

Horsemanship is like this as well. Short lessons, end on high note. Get off and praise.

I use compounding as a model, where I evaluate the risk of pushing past comfort level based on whether I have the ability to return to a calm high note ending if my gambit goes sideways.

Regular small improvement yields a higher and more reliable trajectory than grinding toward inconsistent leaps that exhaust a lot of wasted effort. I'm learning there is a cargo cult around work and effort in that it is a substitute for the tact and intelligence you get with a lighter approach.

Like managers who think they are getting results by having staff work through suffering, and point to how hard people are working as an indicator of their ability to lead. Whether it's horses or people, it's always a disgusting spectacle.

My trainer likes to say, "go slow, I'm in a hurry."

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#109

Post by jamesb93 »

p1esk wrote: post #89
Iv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I noticed a few years ago when I decided to bring myself up to date again on machine learning after a ten years break (and what ten years that was for the domain!) I read a ton and watched several online classes. I realized that the pace was very different from the classes I had been during my student years: classes were boring, so I had time to think about stuff. The rhythm that I found worked really well for s…

I thought the point of the breaks was not to “think about it”.

It's the difference between focused and diffused thinking.

https://youtu.be/WTr12dK2Se0

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#110

Post by aiisjustanif »

rexpop wrote: post #30
arkades wrote: post #2

The “rest periods” were ten seconds long. This doesn’t generalize into anything meaningful; when was the last time you focused on a new skill so intensely that you didn’t have ten second pauses?

Basically every time I practice my horn. 10 seconds is a long time when I'm trying to crank through an exercise book. The thought of holding off, even closing my eyes for 10 seconds, is pretty alien to my practice style.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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