Retain the lesson

I teach many people yoga.  Some people pick up the poses and essential actions really well.   They can retain the lesson.  Some hear verbal cues and apply them in their bodies with great ease.  Others need to see an action to emulate it, but verbal cues are gibberish to them.  Some learn better when given a hands-on assist to help direct or align their body and they respond to the physical sensation of touch better than to words or demonstrations.  This is just a fact of different methods of learning.

Right now I am interested in the question of retention. Some students who attend my classes have received all methods of instruction (verbal cues, demonstrations, hands-on assists) but they show up and generate the same misalignments time after time.  They shift when given guidance but do not retain the lesson, the new way, for the next time.

Not applying the lesson:

Many yoga poses are asymmetrical – we do one side of the pose and then we do the other side of the pose. There are students who need re-aligning on one side. They make the adjustment on one side then, when the other side of the pose is called, they perform the same misalignment they did before correction on the first side.

In yoga class we often do several repetitions of the same pose. Some students get guidance on the first set and make the adjustment but revert to the misaligned way for second and subsequent sets. What might it take for the lesson to stick?

What other lessons have these people not learned? Do they touch hot stove tops? Do they leave leave milk and chicken out on the kitchen bench rather than putting them away in the refrigerator? Do they fail to thoroughly check both ways before they attempt to cross the road?

Side plank - retain the lesson
Hamish Kenworthy of Apollo Power Yoga in side plank

Driving too fast:

Statistics relating to motor vehicle accidents reveal that, the more serious the crash, the more likely it is that speed was a contributing factor. Road signage and television advertisements continually remind people that speed on the roads leads to accidents. Yet, the message does not get through. When I drive at the posted speed limit, other cars accumulate behind me and take the earliest opportunity to overtake me.

I knew a guy some years ago who asserted that New Zealand should have no speed restrictions on the open road. He asserted that it was ridiculous that Denny Hulme, a former Formula 1 motor racing champion, should be restricted to a 100 km/h limit. I suggested that the issue was not whether Denny Hulme needed a speed limit but whether every 18-year old idiot who thought he was Denny Hulme should have the speed limit imposed upon them…

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