Creativity precedes the learning process
My objective is this new sequence, maybe even a new choreo.
I find an inspiring piece of music and I start tuning my body into moving along with its rhythm. I start searching for one move. I have no idea what it looks like.
In the back of my head I have a movement theme for it:
coordination and symmetry.
I explore my creativity by shifting into a state of play. So I start playing. Now I’m not searching for anything, I just explore the steps, the gestures, the weight shifts, the turns, the orientation changes, my balance and the small stretches I enjoy feeling by going through those moves that simply come out of my body.It doesn’t matter how it looks, it only matters how it feels. Sometimes I don’t even hear the music, it’s more of an interoceptive exploration into my senses that involves listening inside more than listening outside.
It doesn’t matter how it looks and I don’t know and I don’t think about how it looks. I have the camera turned on for that to see later. That is – if there is any camera at all. And it’s not – most of the times.
And then I feel
THE move.
That’s it, I fell in love with it and the feeling tells me I want to do that move again.So I stop to internalize it.
So I start searching for repeating it. It felt right so what was THE move again?
.
This is where creativity ends and the learning process begins.
So I have to make a choice. I continue exploring and playing or I go into learning that move by repetition until I remember it. Until I have the pattern, the rhythm and the counting, until I synchronise the technique with that good feeling I just had.
What is my choice this time?
As this new move came up and I decided to stop and integrate it – now the next step is to practice until I learn it, to adapt it to the theme I had in mind for the next class – “symmetry and coordination”
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In my case, the learning process optimises through a state of play. And I believe this is not only my case.
We learn through joy and play.
.
But I feel it as a different kind of play than the one I feel when I explore, when I’m creative. It’s more focused, it involves a different kind of attention.
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A neuroscientist I heard the other day spoke about the learning process and said
// in the beginning nothing comes
// in the middle nothing stays
// in the end nothing leaves
And I felt and recognised the truth in that
.
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The best thing about the learning process is the process itself.
Learning something new keeps our body and mind alive.
Many of us get frustrated about those stages of learning in which nothing comes and nothing stays.
// But if we put aside the fear of making mistakes,
// if we stop associating the uncertainty of not knowing YET with failure,
// if we start seeing the process of learning as natural as it is – with it’s beginning and it s middle,
we start enjoying the whole process and we benefit from the aliveness that we get to feel in our bodies and minds.
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And the kid follows whatever I practice with joy
.
Our brains and nervous systems need both
// learning new things and creativity
// and having routines that hopefully turn into constructive habits
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See you on the dance floor!
With love,
Alina.