Developing a Deliberate Practice will improve not only your writing skill but your yoga as well.
I was in Montreal practicing yoga at Darby’s studio. Everyday I watched Darby complete the Advanced series of Ashtanga Yoga. He was extremely focused on his practice.
Darby has been practicing yoga for over 30 years. He has an amazing and very advanced practice. Each year he returns to India to practice with his teacher. He is always working on advancing and improving his yoga practice.
Was he born super flexible? No, he says that before he started practicing yoga in the 1970s he was a pretty average guy as far as flexibility went, which is to say that he was not very flexible.
What made the difference is the hours and hours of practice that Darby has completed over that time. Darby has been applying the principles of Deliberate Practice to his yoga practice for the past 30 years and as a result he has become very flexible and can perform very challenging yoga poses with ease.
What is Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice is very different from regular practice. It is a very focused and demanding practice. There are five features of Deliberate Practice that taken together separate it from regular practice.
The five features of Deliberate Practice are:
- It is designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teachers help
- It can be repeated a lot
- Feedback on results is continuously available
- It is highly demanding mentally
- It is not much fun
Deliberate Practice is meant to stretch the individual beyond their current abilities. It requires that they repeat their practice a lot in order to see significant improvements.
Let’s look in detail at the first of these features of Deliberate Practice.
It is designed specifically to improve performance
For each practice session there is a specific skill or technique that is the focus of the practice. You and your teacher decide that today you are focusing on twists, tomorrow you will be focusing on the breath and the next day it will be the hamstrings. During the practice you focus on this one aspect in all of the poses.
Your teacher will be able to tell if you are practicing in the Learning zone at the edge of your abilities or if you have fallen back into the Comfort zone where things are easy but not much learning or advancement is going to happen. Your teacher will help you to deliberately design your practice for today to keep you in the Learning zone where you will have the maximum amount of growth and improvement in your yoga practice.
Your teacher plays a critical role in keeping you in that Learning zone, because they are looking on from the outside and they can recognize when you have slipped into the Comfort zone.
Your teacher will also know when it is time to add new features of a pose to your yoga practice that were formally in the Panic zone and too challenging to attempt.
Darby returns to his teacher once a year to have his yoga practice updated and to keep it in the Learning zone.
You get your practice designed for maximum benefit then you move on to the next feature of Deliberate Practice.
It can be repeated a lot
For Deliberate Practice to be effective you have to be able to repeat it a lot. Daily practice has been found to be the frequency that you need to work towards developing.
Once you get beyond the checking it out stage with your yoga practice, your teacher will start encouraging you to move to a more frequent yoga practice. Practicing once a week will not result in much improvement in your body or your yoga practice.
Moving to a regular and frequent practice will result in significant improvements in your mind and body. Eventually you will be practicing every day of the week with one day off to rest the mind and body. With this frequency of practice you will start seeing improvements quickly.
Like Darby you now have a well designed practice that you are repeating everyday. This is good but you also need to know how well you are doing and that leads us to the next aspect of Deliberate Practice.
Feedback on results is continuously available
Feedback from your teacher will keep your practice in the Learning zone where you will get the maximum benefit.
Your teacher will also insure that you are doing the poses properly and are not about to injure yourself.
Feedback from your mind and body will also keep your practice on that Learning edge. Your body will also tell you when you are attempting to go too far and are at risk of injuring yourself.
This continuous feedback from your teacher and from your body will result in your practice evolving and moving forward. It is this feedback that keeps your practice in the Learning zone at the edge of your abilities.
While Darby is away from his teacher, he relies on the feedback from his body to keep improving and modifying his practice.
All of this feedback requires that you stay focused on your practice and this brings us to yet another feature of Deliberate Practice.
It is highly demanding mentally
A Deliberate Practice requires that you stay focused on what you are doing. You can not let your mind drift away from the practice to what you did before class or what you have to do after class.
Once you lose the focus on your practice you will fall out of the Learning zone and into the Comfort zone. This is a nice place to be if you want to relax but there is no progress made when you are in the Comfort zone.
You and your teacher need to make sure that you are focused on your practice and that your mind has not left the room. All of this focus makes for very demanding practice.
Your mind is fully engaged making sure that you are staying in the Learning zone, that you are working on the aspects of your yoga practice that are the focus for today’s practice. There is no time to day dream.
You can tell when you watch Darby practice that he is highly focused on his yoga practice. All of this focus and attention of your mind on your practice brings us to the final point about Deliberate Practice.
It is not much fun
When you decide to do a Deliberate Practice, you will discover that you are working very hard. You are pushing your mind and body to their limits. You are challenging your mind and body to develop further.
You are getting constant feedback from your teacher and body on how your practice is progressing and you and your teacher are using this feedback to constantly change and improve your practice.
This sounds like a lot of work. So why would you ever want to do all of this deliberate practice if it is not a lot of fun?
Why do a Deliberate Practice
The rewards of adopting a Deliberate Practice for your yoga are many.
Your mind will become calmer. You will be able to focus on a task for longer and with more intensity.
You will be able to handle stress a lot better.
Your body will be more flexible. You will be able to do simple things like pick up the newspaper from the floor without complaining.
You will feel healthier.
Next Steps
The next time you practice yoga work with your teacher to develop a Deliberate Practice. You will start to reap the benefits from your yoga practice a lot quicker than if you continue with a regular practice. Like Darby you will improve your mind and body and have a healthier life.
