Comments on: Does Experience Count For Anything?

By: Vera Jiji

Vera Jiji — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:05:41 +0000

Adam,

You might enjoy looking at my web site and book, Cello Playing for Music Lovers. It talks about a state of alert relaxation, akin to your mental states.

Vera Jiji

By: Adam Eason

Adam Eason — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:29:30 +0000

Thank you very much Gordon and Dan for the fabulous contribution to this thread… In my members area, in response to this thread, one member is talking about his girlfriend who is a professional cellist and he is an NLP practitioner convinced any musician should be able to model the skills of another and replicate… She naturally disagrees… Opting for experience and natural talent as far better serving…

Thanks again 🙂

By: Dan Elliott

Dan Elliott — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:30:26 +0000

The ability to perform certain tasks, artistically, physically or mentally is more often than not a learned process, what we would call a “learned pattern of behaviour”. We often see this in our clients, some of whom have learned negative ways of “being”. Other abilities though seem to come from out of nowhere, and only surface when we need them. They can be used for many purposes, but are usually reactive patterns that we came into this world with. We were “hardwired” with them pre-birth so to speak.

Allow me to give you a real life example. I have played sport in my life, school and college rugby, but those years are far behind me now and that iron-man athleticism is more in mind than body! However, a little while ago, mother nature forced me to become what I can only term superhuman, if only for a matter of seconds!

My eldest son has spent quite a lot of his working life in the Australian Outback. It’s a wonderful place with odd sights, sounds and creatures, some very foreign to the city dweller. We were walking a paddock together one day, and as we past a gnarled old lemon scented gum tree, my son said, as he pointed to a mound on the body of the trunk …. “you don’t see those…………..”, but didn’t have time to finish his sentence! We were suddenly surrounded, and being stung, viciously by thousands of wasps. Painful, and potentially dangerous. In a flash, my son was off! He’s young, and very fit and fast. To his everlasting surprise, he was overtaken by his father, head back and flying á la “Chariots of Fire” beach scene.

I didn’t crack the 10 second 100 yards, but after all, the terrain was uneven!

So, did experience create my sudden ability to move like the wind? Did I learn to run so rapidly from rampaging wasps? No, I believe it was necessity, and that innate human trait that helps us to survive that drove me on that afternoon. My point? If we absolutely must do something, be it playing a cello, knocking out a Hendrix riff on a Fender Strat, escaping a rampaging Cassowary, leaping sideways six feet from a hissing venomous snake (another story!) and we allow that other part of our mind to guide us, then we shall do it.

By: Gordon Mullan

Gordon Mullan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:00:11 +0000

Experience (i.e. hard work) can make the best of what talent someone has, but there are naturally talented people who exceed the limits of someone who merely has an aptitude for something.

Keeping the musical theme, there are genuine ‘virtuosos’ in all fields, but they are relatively rare by definition. Unfortunately, virtuosos often can’t explain or teach someone else how they achieve the ultimate heights of ability – it’s just something they do, like breathing.