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I identify with this quite deeply. One thing that your idea prompts is thins: as I have gotten better at learning things I have gotten better at just adopting

I identify with this quite deeply. One thing that your idea prompts is thins: as I have gotten better at learning things I have gotten better at just adopting as-close-to-perfect form as I can from the get go. When I learned to play guitar at age 20, I had horrible form, and I did go through a period of unlearning habits (after a period of trying to have a "style" LOL). When I learned to play pedal steel guitar in my late 30s, I was careful to start with good habits from the get-go. Same with snow skiing, banjo, and yoga. :D I dunno how I'd approach this lesson when dealing with younger folks... it was a painful process, but learning that starting with good habits/ form makes things so much faster and easier is maybe just a thing people have to experience on their own.

credit_guy 6y ago
I learned to swim on my own as a little kid. 30 years later, I decided to join swimming classes; I saw that swimming is extraordinarily complex. There are too many things to learn at the same time for someone to be able to pay attention and learn proper form for all of them. Inevitably, you'll learn proper form for one thing, and incorrect for many others, then, with one good habit in the bag, you can start focusing on the next one, then the next one, then the next one. From time to time, you will fall back to the old habits for some certain part of the motion, so you'll need to revisit it, and debug it again. Tom Brady, who many people consider the greatest quarterback in the history of American football, still has a throwing coach (Tom House [1]), and he's still debugging his throwing motion. After 20+ years of throwing in a professional league. So, for sure, unlearning habits is difficult, but learning only proper form from the start is probably an exceedingly rare exception. I think for most people the process of learning will involve learning incorrect form first, and attempting to fix this later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_House
egypturnash 6y ago
This is very true! After I'd mastered drawing to the point where I can pay my rent doing it, it became a lot easier to learn other stuff. My pole dance teacher once pointed out how different my style of training was: most students would try a difficult new move a few times, then go back to practicing stuff they were ultra-confident at for a while, while I'd be more likely to keep on trying the new move with a bunch of different little variations, and to pay a lot of attention to her when she'd come over and point out things I was doing wrong, especially if it was a wrong thing that would make me more likely to hurt myself! I kinda feel like I can do this because I remember how I improved my art by the long, painful process of analyzing what I was doing wrong. And also because I have much less ego invested in the new thing - I already have a thing I can do the heck out of, I don't give a shit if I look like a bumbling beginner when that is what I am. "How to learn" is a skillset, which you have to learn along with everything else you learn in the first two or three decades of your life. Once you have it down it's a lot easier to learn stuff if you're willing to put the energy into doing it right.

credit_guy 6y ago

I learned to swim on my own as a little kid. 30 years later, I decided to join swimming classes; I saw that swimming is extraordinarily complex. There are too many things to learn at the same time for someone to be able to pay attention and learn proper form for all of them. Inevitably, you'll learn proper form for one thing, and incorrect for many others, then, with one good habit in the bag, you can start focusing on the next one, then the next one, then the next one. From time to time, you will fall back to the old habits for some certain part of the motion, so you'll need to revisit it, and debug it again. Tom Brady, who many people consider the greatest quarterback in the history of American football, still has a throwing coach (Tom House [1]), and he's still debugging his throwing motion. After 20+ years of throwing in a professional league. So, for sure, unlearning habits is difficult, but learning only proper form from the start is probably an exceedingly rare exception. I think for most people the process of learning will involve learning incorrect form first, and attempting to fix this later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_House

egypturnash 6y ago

This is very true! After I'd mastered drawing to the point where I can pay my rent doing it, it became a lot easier to learn other stuff. My pole dance teacher once pointed out how different my style of training was: most students would try a difficult new move a few times, then go back to practicing stuff they were ultra-confident at for a while, while I'd be more likely to keep on trying the new move with a bunch of different little variations, and to pay a lot of attention to her when she'd come over and point out things I was doing wrong, especially if it was a wrong thing that would make me more likely to hurt myself! I kinda feel like I can do this because I remember how I improved my art by the long, painful process of analyzing what I was doing wrong. And also because I have much less ego invested in the new thing - I already have a thing I can do the heck out of, I don't give a shit if I look like a bumbling beginner when that is what I am. "How to learn" is a skillset, which you have to learn along with everything else you learn in the first two or three decades of your life. Once you have it down it's a lot easier to learn stuff if you're willing to put the energy into doing it right.