Practice

7 Things Worth Sharing

Hi All,

Here are 7 things worth sharing this week.

1. Stephen Nachmanovitch distinguishes two ideas of practice: “The Western idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to our work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there. This is not practice for something, but complete practice, which suffices unto itself.”¹

2. Do babies need to practice? The Great Tummy Time Debate is: should parents put a baby on their tummy before the baby goes there spontaneously? I don’t think babies benefit from parents encouraging them to develop movement faster. Babies are spontaneously closer to the “eastern” ideal of a whole person being revealed through indeterminate experience where everything is part of the complete practice. Of course, certain kids won’t discover movement possibilities on their own because of injury or something else. For them maybe it’s best if a facilitator can suggest movement possibilities (artfully), so the kid spontaneously has their own idea to move in a new way. Other than that, when it comes to movement it’s better to leave small children to their own learning devices.

3. When my cousin Jac died of cancer, he left behind a bamboo flute with a strange sliced off mouthpiece. When I found it, I already had an idea what a Shakuhachi was. I’d heard recordings by Adrian Freedman that captivated me. His playing has a special quality where each moment suffices unto itself. I was listening just before my Dad started to die, so now I associate Shakuhachi with preparing for death.

4. Last week, I thought I might like to practice the Shakuhachi, so I found a teacher near where I live. He has an interesting guide on his website, How to Practice - from David Yudo Sawyer:

   1. Don’t Warm Up

   2. Don’t Make Mistakes

   3. Play without stopping and redoing

   4. Always be responsible for your sound

   5. Stay friends with your instrument

5. Here is Ursula K. LeGuin writing about her practice, waiting for characters to show up:²

   1. “The times when nobody is in the landscape are silent and lonely. They can go on and on until I think nobody will ever be there again but one stupid old woman who used to write books. But it’s no use trying to populate it by willpower. These people come only when they’re ready, and they do not answer to a call. They answer silence.

   2. “If I fill the silence with constant noise, writing anything in order to be writing something, forcing my willpower to invent situations for stories, I may be blocking myself. It’s better to hold still and wait and listen to the silence. It’s better to do some kind of work that keeps the body following a rhythm but doesn’t fill up the mind with words.

   3. “Essays are in the head, they don’t have bodies the way stories do: that’s why essays can’t satisfy me in the long run. But headwork is better than nothing, as witness me right now, making strings of words to follow through the maze of the day (a very simple maze: one or two choices, a food pellet for a reward). Any string of meaningfully connected words is better than none.

6. In a previous newsletter, I said a practice doesn’t necessarily answer the question, how will I pay the rent? But a practice can answer the question, What can I do so my life is worthwhile to me?

7. “Practice is a repertoire of procedures we invent for ourselves.”³

   1. What are you practicing these days?

   2. When was the last time you practiced?

   3. What would you like to be practicing?

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is one aspect of my practice I hope is useful. Let me know! If you’d like to support, please share with a friend or become a paid subscriber.

Your fellow in practice,
Ethan

1. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch

2. All UKLG quotes from “Old Body, Not Writing” in the essay collection The Wave in the Mind

3. Nachmanovitch, again.