My last post was about not using force and having fun.   I still stand behind what I think I said.  🙂  But I would also like to advocate for “forcing” yourself into totally new WTF environments.

I came up with that idea in a Japanese Tai Chi class as I was moving my arms and legs in all kinds of weird positions and getting totally confused by the directions.  The teacher was really nice and she said (in Japanese), “Don’t worry, even Japanese people get confused by this.”  It reminded a little bit of my old Silverspoon experience, where Khatz kept encouraging us to buy yoga, karate, exercise videos etc.   I never did get around to getting any of those videos or books but I can imagine that it is a whole new cool way to learn a new skill while immersing in a second language.  Combine body movements with learning a foreign language sounds like some kind of hybrid Brain gym exercise.

Though there’s a lot to be said for comfort and fun,  sometimes you just have to startle yourself out a plateau to develop your skill.  That’s one of the key ideas that I got from Daniel Coyle’s book,  The Little Book of  Talent.  The fact that the Zboys spent a summer skating in dried out swimming pools changed skate-boarding forever.

As AJATT.com recently reminded me, sometimes you have to go a little bit loco on whatever skill you are trying to develop:

Having crazy ideas won’t change your life. Trying even one of them will. Let a teeny tiny bit of that insanity out, like vanilla essence, just a drop, just enough to take you into so-called genius territory. And no more

Go a little crazy every now and then.   Stray a little bit into the WTF territory.   Send samurai mind  a postcard.