This article identifies more obstacles experienced by course members and presents some solutions.
Continuing the series of articles aimed at helping BASI members to accelerate their progress though the BASI system, this article identifies more major obstacles experienced by course members and presents some solutions. You can use them as your golden opportunities for success.
The previous article, published in the last edition of BASI News, presented 4 of these Golden opportunities:
- Develop a resourceful body,
Use well tuned, well fitted equipment that leaves you free and agile,
Attend to rest, nutrition and hydration on the course,
Improve your arousal levels for mind, body and spirit.
This article deals with how to be a more effective learner, so that you achieve maximum results.
Learning how to learn
This is the key skill. If you make progress with this, everything else will change.
A key issue here is how people can obstruct their own learning, and how to use that knowledge to turn the tables, so you can learn how out get out of your own way.
Learning can be challenging and uncomfortable; some people take to it more easily than others. Denial is a natural reflex that's designed to save us the hassle of changing. But, if we want to learn and develop, we need to change anyway.
Sometimes people feel threatened and insecure when facing up to the need for change. Learning is changing, though. Just doing more of the same stuff will not move your performance forwards. So we need to change anyway.
How can we manage this process better?
Firstly, choose to welcome change; find it interesting.
Be alert for anything that seems even slightly different from your current understanding. Have an enquiring mind. For example "That's different, what does that mean? What are the consequences? How can I use it?"
If you actively collect these opportunities, you'll overcome your denial reflex and, in it's place, you'll develop a new reflex: "That's new, that makes it interesting."
Of course, in general life, the denial reflex saves us from the chaos of changing everything we do, all of the time. But we are talking about your BASI course here, so you need to learn to switch it off to get the most from what your course has to offer.
You think you understand the Central Theme? Your Trainer understands it better. Will you be held back by what you think you know, or will you be open to realizing that maybe you only have part of the picture? So here it is:
Golden opportunity 5: Welcome change.
Secondly, you can save yourself a lot of time, even a lifetime of effort, by adopting a simple strategy for learning.
Many people think they need to really understand issues before they use them. This can be useful, but it can also hold you back in certain circumstances.
For example, your Trainer might suggest a new tactic, or technique or coordination.
You'd have to put in years of study to match his or her understanding, and sometimes people find that the penny does indeed drop some years down the line.
Don't let that happen to you.
Why not, just try it out wholeheartedly, as if you fully believe in it, and feel what happens, right there and then?
The new physical experience may well give you a new insight, which will change everything. But only if you set aside any reservations you may have. You'll be surprised how many course members drag their heels and lose out on this direct opportunity for success.
There's an old phrase " You can't see the view till you've climbed the mountain."
The lesson here is to give yourself the chance of a new physical experience in your performance, by applying the advice you receive.
Even if don't yet fully understand why, your body may be able to achieve results that your mind isn't ready for. The big physical short cut to success
Golden opportunity 6: trust the advice and behave as though you believe.
There's one more issue to consider while we're on the subject of learning how to learn. It's related to the other two, but deserves special consideration because it is at the root of the self defeating behaviour. It also needs special consideration because it will be very upset if it feels slighted.
We're talking about your ego.
This is not the place for a deep discussion of psychological theory, but there's a really important advantage to be discovered here.
Your ego thinks that it's you, and even if it's not, it insists that it's in charge. Which is the problem.
Which part of you is the source of the denial based behaviour? Which part of you insists on understanding, insists on more details, insists on more feedback?
Which part of you insists on trying to control your body, even though it's not wired in?
Of course, your ego a very valuable part of who you are, and it's role is critical to how you live your life. Your learning will go more smoothly when it learns to become a better team player.
The team here is the whole you, different aspects of which have been referred to as mind, body and spirit. Your ego is part of your mind, but not all of it; and perhaps a part of your spirit, too, but not all of it. It can really work for you when it understands its' place in the greater whole and lets go of its' tyrannical grip.
Golden opportunities 5 and 6 are related to addressing this issue.
Golden opportunity 7: Learn how to get out of your own way.
Your performance development depends upon it.
This will become even more apparent in the next article, which looks at how your BASI course is structured and how to work with it to get maximum results.
It will be published in the next issue of BASI News. If you want to read it now, you'll find it at www.britishskischool.com under BASI Member Resources.
Hugh Monney is a BASI trainer and Director of the BASS Network of elite snowsports schools.