Learning How to Learn 1.0
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION BY MASTERING THE FUNDAMENTALS 1.0
Any domain of art or knowledge can be mastered over time. The problem comes when we are in a hurry to learn. In this mental state we tend to skim over the fundamentals.
A key Law of The Universe that we live in is Things Are Build On Top of each other. Spiders have several legs, centipedes have a 100 legs and millipedes have a million legs. But they all have legs. Humans have only two legs. Legs have been perfected by the universe through iteration over many models of beings. Once the process is complete and the functionality is robust, like any good programmer, the coders of the universe, reuse what works in a stable way. It is treated like a component or an object and used again and again everywhere. Therefore most beings have legs! Nature abounds with examples of technologies that have been developed, and iterated over many generations, made robust, and once robust used in many other types of beings.
When we want to learn something, the same principle applies. The domain emerges as learnings are built one upon another. A master of an art appears to do the art effortlessly. A beginner who looks at the master is inspired to do the art like the master. She tries to imitate the master. This does not generally work, because the master has many levels of learning, built one on top of the other. The foundation is the basics, the fundamentals. The biggest mistake is to skim over the fundamentals and try to do the advanced stuff, because one is in a hurry to do the fancy stuff.
A very core key is to start with the most fundamental elements of a domain and stay with that for a long time, and really master the fundamentals. The deeper the mastery that one obtains over the fundamentals, the more, one is in a position to advance, because the fundamentals can then be taken for granted and serve as the foundation for more and more advanced layers of learning.
To apply the principles to my JavaScript learning, even though I have been programming since childhood I have worked with Basic, Pascal, Python, PHP, ASP and many other technologies. I have also worked with JavaScript. But now in 2018 I feel JavaScript has really come of age. When I use it, I get the same feeling of creativity and power, and fun, to be able to program whatever I can imagine, with JavaScript. So instead of learning advanced Javascript I am going back to the very fundamentals. I am working through Dr. Axel Rauschmayer’s course http://speakingjs.com/es5/index.html a detailed course on fundamental javascript. I plan to do a little bit every day till I finish it. Then I will do http://exploringjs.com/es6.html which covers ES6 in detail. This will enable me to strengthen my fundamentals. Thereafter I am free to learn anything else. This could take a while, but that is the price to pay for mastery.
The same thing applies to my Dhrupad, Indian Classical Music vocal training. I started training with Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar and Pandit Nirmalya Dey 14 years ago, in 2004. Over the past 14 years I learned a lot but I was 33 years old when I started learning the classical core of singing Indian classical music, a vast and deep art. After 14 years of training I now realise that even though I did a lot of basic training, certain fundamentals are still not properly in place, because I spent a significant portion of the time doing more advanced things that other students were doing. The other students were imitating the masters and wanted to be able to do all the fancy stuff fast. But that is not the correct approach to mastery.
Once I realised that, I immediately went back to the very fundamentals. Now I am working with singing the most basic notes, in the traditional way as taught in the Dagar school. There are so many things to learn in terms of how to sing the notes. How to produce the voice, to fix the pitch of the notes, to make the correct production of notes 2nd nature. This is done through very basic exercises. And I am not doing many of them, only three simple ones, that I repeat daily for about 4 hours, for months, maybe even years. This approach to teaching and learning the Dhrupad is encouraged by Pandit Ashish Sankritayan who learned the same way from Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar and he is taking me through the fundamentals in the traditional way, starting from the A B C or should I say SA RE GA of Dhrupad
This may sound a bit extreme, but this kind of learning cannot be had any other way.
Focus on the fundamentals. Study every aspect of them. Learn and relearn them. Thereafter the next level will open up. Proceed one level at a time. The key is to work daily and have a very good lifestyle and routine. As one begins to master the fundamentals and amazing inspiration and sense of power in the art form dawns. This inspires more practice and we have ripples and reinforced inspiration, practice, results and things move along.
Mastering the basics is probably one of the most important aspects of learning how to learn any thing. If there is one thing I would tell my children if they wan to learn something seriously and to master it, it would be
“Son and daughter, seek out the very basics of what you are trying to learn. Spend a lot of time, work on them daily. Master the basics. Then master them again and again. When you are sick and tired of the basics, do them some more. When you think that you cannot do the basics anymore and you know them, do them again!”
The old Kung-fu movies demonstrate the same principle. In the 36th Chamber of Shaolin the novice goes back to the very 1st chamber and must practice that for a long time till he masters it. Only then can he advance to the next chamber. Soon he gets the hang of what is going on at Shaolin and he gets inspired to stay in the current chamber till he becomes really good at him. Soon his masters egg him on to the next chamber, as he masters his current level.
My Kung-Fu master Shifu Ashok Chaube says that fighters of old did not fear martial artists have done a lot of fancy training. Rather, one who has practiced the foundational training for a very long time is to be feared, because that one simple basic move or form, is embued with super power, it is ingrained in the practitioner at the deepest level.
Here is a video of me doing my basic Shaolin Kungfu routine
Most of what I am doing here is basic things. I have been doing the same basic things for over 20 years. This was made about 6 years ago in 2012 for an art show I did at the Visual Arts Gallery in New Delhi, called Arjuna Does The Classical Training Part 1. I’ve improved some since then no doubt…Now when I do Kung Forms, it is Super Duper fun! This is because all the basics are ingrained. They all come into play when I am doing my forms. When I kick, my thighs slam my chest and its effortless. One cannot kick any higher because the thighs cannot go behind the chest when one is doing a kick! Thats the power of practicing the fundamentals to build a foundation.
Arjuna Does The Classical Training Part 1 was all about going back to the fundamentals in the various art forms that I practised at the time Drawing and Painting, Shaolin Kungfu and Dhrupad Indian Classical Music vocal. (Now my passions have increased!) Virgil Elliot at that time was guiding me at an online forum called Cowdisely on how to train in Painting. His advice was “Practice Drawing it is the foundation for painting. If you do the classical Drawing training and build a strong foundation in the drawing, by only drawing (And not just any type of drawing, but doing the classically prescribed drawing training) for several years, then your painting will improve to a different level, because you will have improved your foundation.
Arjuna Does The Classical Training will be discussed in an upcoming post. In the mean time, whatever you are learning, go back to the basics, find resources that describe the very basics of what you are trying to learn, work through that material meticulously, over a long time. Get a notebook write down everything, use memory flash cards, obsess over the detais.
As David Noltie my old time mentor taught me, things will always take much longer than you anticipate and cost much more! Give yourself a vast amount of time to master the fundamentals. Pretend that you are going to live forever and then don’t waste any time, train hard in the fundamentals everyday, and you will be on the road to mastery. Good luck my friend!
If you have any questions, don’t understand something or are stuck somewhere please feel free to reach out to me Arjuna at brahmaforces@gmail.com. Happy coding!
