Drawing Breath

You don’t learn much about whether a process works, when it is working. The most powerful creative forces are time and consistency. But for the long term to be long term, the process needs to be able to adapt, adjust, and accommodate. Strength, flexibility, and control in the face of randomness, complexity, and ambiguity. Like gaps in music, real mastery lies in the ability to draw breath and gain perspective. To step back and gain a broader view of how everything is connected. To use disruption as a learning opportunity. 5Rhythms is a movement meditation developed by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s. It takes you through Waves to release obstructions and inspire creativity. You move through flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. The key is movement, and being still is part of that. This too will pass.

5Rhythms

Change the Sound

What you focus on isn’t all there is. Like most of us, I identify with the voice(s) in my head. That is “me”. The tricky narrator(s) with who I am in almost constant conversation with. If someone irritates me, it is often a projection of something that I am wrestling with. The same, I think, is true of when other people give us a hard time. It is an insight into what they voices in their head are saying. People who are harsh to others, are probably harsh to themselves. Those voice very often don’t reflect reality. They reflect various stories bouncing around. Various interpretations that are either useful, or kind, or not. It’s hard work trying to sort out what is what. Recently, I have been trying dancing instead. I have been doing 5Rhythms dance classes a couple of times a week. Running can do the same. Others swim. Anything to remind you that the voices aren’t you. You can mute them when they pretend they are.

Mute

Dancing the Truth

I don’t believe honesty is verbal. You can’t just vomit the truth. We aren’t always even conscious of our “truth”. We are all incredibly skilled at self-deception. It is a coping mechanism. The truth we experience is a story layered on reality in a way that we find useful. That story nudges our choices by creating habits. Scripts. Ways to respond to things that repeat. These are stories that are going on in the background with the mute button on. They have control, but we just scroll down our timelines looking for the cat memes. A lot of mental health work is about developing an awareness of your patterns. Over time. Gently. Even then, once you become aware of the patterns, the work has just begun. Our responses are deep soaked. Down to the way our finger tips talk automatically with our knees. Conversations built over years. Like learning new dance steps, you start slow and internalise the way you want to move. Then you practice every day.

Dance Class

Into the Space

In her book “Sweat your Prayers”, Gabrielle Roth tells the story of an Indian cab driver who was asked how he survived the chaos of big City traffic. “I move into the space”. More Time and Space often feels like the one thing that is unobtainable, and yet we all have the same amount. Part of it is the big wet blanket of Success. Proving ourselves. Fighting for recognition. For justification. For excuses. For worth. The Mental Health work I am doing at the moment is outside of that world. I spend time running, twisting my Rubik’s cube, twirling on the Dance Floor, learning languages, and doing Tony Buzan style “Memory Work” (using the senses to create a filing system to help pay more attention). None of this seems “productive”. Gabrielle Roth points out that it takes a lot of discipline to be a free spirit. The space is there. But you do need to do the work to build a practice that lets you see it.

Through the Waves

I started going to “5Rhythms” classes about 4 months ago. I am a creature of the head, and 5Rhythms is an intentional attempt to shift attention to what it is my body is trying desperately to have heard. Gabrielle Roth started the practice in the 1970s drawing from shamanistic, ecstatic, mystical and eastern philosophy. Pretty much the opposite of my deep soaking. I do remember a phase of “Slain in the Spirit” embodied work in the Church when I was growing up, but it mostly freaked everybody out. To me it felt fake. I desperately wanted to experience God in that way, if it was real, and had a purpose. I wasn’t willing to fake. I didn’t understand the purpose. 5Rhythms isn’t “Slain in the Spirit”. It takes you through waves, trying to connect with the energy and rhythms of your body. Focusing attention in different places. Releasing. Freeing. Giving permission. The Rhythms are Flowing (Feet), Staccato (Hips), Chaos (Head), Lyrical (Hands) and Stillness (Breath). The workshops I go to are about two hours long, and move you through and with whatever emotions you are experiencing. It is powerful work.

Let it Pass

Personally, I struggle to know how to support both myself and friends with Mental Health, more than I do with explicit “my leg is on fire” problems. Two of the challenges are time and personality based. Your leg being on fire is solvable. Quickly. Your leg being on fire doesn’t change “who you are”. Mental Health professionals are trained to handle and understand things that most of us aren’t equipped to. The best we can do is be good friends. Sometimes that is hard. Especially if the issue changes who our friend is, and we feel like the friendship becomes lopsided. The leg stays on fire. The friend stays absent. Heather Plett wrote a beautiful article on what it means to “hold space” for people, and how to do it well. My take home is that as a friend we shouldn’t treat mental health challenges as legs on fire. We all have to deal with the waves in our heads and hearts. We aren’t problems to be solved. To hold space for each other, we have to hold space for ourselves. It’s a dance. Somehow, it’s a case of seeing the beauty in the dance rather than feeling overwhelmed. Going with it. Breathing into it. Experiencing it, and letting it pass.  

Creating Space

One of the techniques used in teaching people to draw is to forget the object. Draw the negative spaces. Don’t draw the chair. Draw the shapes – between, around, above, below. The chair emerges. One of the techniques used in embodied meditation is to dance with the spaces. Let the spaces be your partner. Mental Health is partly about creating space. How do we create space for exercise, healthy eating, breathing, relaxation and positive thinking when we are so busy? Perhaps we are trying too hard to meet expectations? Perhaps we are too focused on success? Part of creating space is just seeing the spaces that are already there. A different perspective. But that is too easy. You are still drawing a chair. You are still dancing. You still want to have purpose. There is still work to do. Do the work. But see the space. Feel the space. Draw from it. Dance with it.

A sketch of a chair by Vincent Van Gogh

Jelly

Our bodies are not simply transportation devices for our heads. It is easy to think the thoughts we are conscious of are where our best thinking is done. Magic lies when knowledge is embodied. When our heads are clear, and we can just lean into a task we have mastered. That requires proper exercise. We get this for kids. Managing screen time, indoor time, time on chairs, and various other activities that turn us into jelly. It is important that we are equally good at parenting ourselves. Prioritising things like play, stretching, dance and sport. Not as a way of creating balance. Not as a side order. As a key part of fully engaging with whatever meaning we are trying to create.

Parallel Joy

We run along parallel to many sources of joy, meaning and fulfilment if we define ourselves to narrowly. If we aren't able to overcome some of the barriers built of a lack of awareness or discomfort. If we aren't able to get to experience the other side. 

I tried some Capoeira classes last year. It was a wonderful experience that I definitely want to get more of. The teacher described the place where the beauty of Capoeira lies as a dance between the forces of gravity pushing down, and our strength pushing up. Each movement up goes down first. Each movement down starts by going up. There is a flow. When the forces equal each other, there is a lightness. Music. Poetry. 

I am training for the Comrades Marathon. At 89km long, there are going to be a lot of forces flowing through my body. It is famously difficult and yet famously open to everybody. You qualify by running a Marathon and entering before they hit the limit of 20,000 people. I grew up on the route. We used to cheer the leaders as they flew by. Bruce Fordyce and Frith van der Merwe were childhood heros. Fordyce winning every year for the first decade of my life, bar 1989. In 1989, van der Merwe obliterated the woman's record and finished 15th overall in a time of under 6 hours. Most people aren't uber athletes. Their cheers were a mixture of awe, sympathy, support and a transfer of any will power possible. They are parents, uncles, aunts, friends, colleagues and teachers who are waking up early or going for runs after work. Transforming their bodies. Slowly building up to finishing the race in under 12 hours. On the road almost twice as long as the legends.

Bruce Fordyce and Hosea Tjale (Comrades Marathon)

The Capoeira feels relevant as I slowly build up. I have been doing it very slowly. Following the advice that your breath is your best coach. If you aren't breathing comfortably, you are running to fast. As my muscles strengthen, and my joints get stronger, there are passages of running where that balance of gravity and my force seem to be in sync. When I am comfortably moving along. Breathing easily. Outside. Floating.

Wandering the routes around where I live, it feels like as my body slowly builds resilience, I am also growing into the area. Not quite like hoping on a train under the ground. I run past unusual shops. I recognise side streets. I discover alternative routes. Where I live becomes more a part of who I am, in the same way as I am becoming a runner.

Beyond some discomfort, lies a broader you. A stronger you. A you where the ups and downs of life find lightness of being.

I Am

One of the divisions between Western and Eastern thinking seems to be the way we view the mind and body as a separate things. 'I think therefore I am' and so the I is deeply connected to our thought. Vedantic thinking drops the first three words as redundant and leaves it as 'I am'. By 'elevating' our identity to be linked to consciousness and thought, the body becomes, well, an afterthought. Ken Robinson describes many western academics as viewing their bodies as a transportation system for their heads. A way of getting their head from meeting to meeting.

Sara, a family member I have met in person for the first time, is a dance instructor and so has done lots of thinking on the connection between the body and thought. She has given me a reading list to ponder. I have often thought a standard reading list would be a good thing for all of us to do. Share openly the books we think have affected our world view. Of course, most of us are so busy we don't have time to look at other world views, only time to apply our own, but wouldn't it be great if we did. Here are the books Sara has given me...

 

'Six Memos for the Next Millennium', 'Phenomenology of Perception', 'Self Comes To Mind'

'The Tell-Tale Brain', 'The Meaning of the Body', 'Action in Perception'

At some point we stop prioritising our physical well being, because we need to focus on work or 'more important' mental endeavours. I find it interesting that in Yoga, it is often the other way around. You have to exercise first. You have to be able to have control of the body so you can do something as simple as sit comfortably. It is only once you are freed from aches and pains that you are able to focus.

I move therefore I am?

A Thing of Beauty

Because of a habit of bloody violence every time the bossman changed his view (and the evolution democracy), the West separated the ideas of art, philosophy, religion, and science. This allows us to pursue questions of truth aggressively without stepping on each other's toes. I am no historian, but I believe the Romans (before Constantine) initially took an approach closer to the Hindus. Every time a new group of people was conquered, their Gods were 'recognised'. The existing gods often represented virtues or emotions and so they could say, 'Ah yes, we call that god/saint/angel by another name'.

One of the consequences of the later separation, is that Eastern Philosophy is often more holistic. Diet, dance, exercise, breathing, music and every part of what we do is fair game. The study of life and happiness involves everything. The thing that gives me the emotional feeling of elevation comes from the arts. I have just gone to watch 'Last Man Standing' at the Edinburgh Festival. The control these dancers have over their bodies allows them to escape. Along with the music and the light, you are transported to a deeper place you very much recognise. A place you have named.

This was one of those shows that made me want to live healthier. To move more. To feel more. It was a thing of beauty.

Last Man Standing

Intention

Last night, Ponciano told our Capoeira class the story of 'The Tiger who killed a Wife'. The husband was so distressed, he grabbed his bow and arrow and went deep into the jungle to find the tiger. When he saw it, he stilled himself and fixed his gaze on the target. He pulled back the arrow and released all the pain and anguish at his loss at the tiger. The arrow sunk deep. He went across to the tiger and found that it was in fact a stone. A stone shaped like the one who had stolen his world. The arrow had not broken, instead it had sunk deep into the stone because his intention was so intense.

Like Eric Mead in the TED clip below, I have always been fascinated by the Placebo Effect. As a scientifically minded person, you want to strip out the story and make it replicable and testable. You can certainly do that, but it removes a whole lot of the good stuff. For some people something is only interesting if it can be proved wrong. If you can't say it in a way that has the possibility of it be shown to be false, it can be beautiful, but not 'interesting' in a scientific way. By its very nature, belief and intention are not replicable. You have to buy into stories. Through dance, art, poetry, music, writing we can feel beauty and we can do incredible things. I believe much of this is actually because we allow ourselves to drop our negative beliefs. The beliefs we have that say we can't do certain things. I described one of the first times this really sunk home for me in 'faking it'. Hypnosis can be seen as faking or it can be seen as simply a very deep state of relaxation where you become very open to suggestion. Real limits then act as your boundaries rather than the limits you create in your head.

Ponciano's story of intention is relevant for me. If you are able to focus your intention on something, it can be a form of hypnosis. A form of meditation. If you can relax out of any self created concern, you can become incredibly powerful relative to your doubt-ridden self. In my 5th class of Capoeira there are still a lot of real limits. I have to do lots of strength work. I have to teach my body the rhythms. I have to learn the forms before I can forget about them and just play. I thought the Tiger story was beautiful though, and diving into stories helps you learn.

My Capoeira adventure:

1. First Class - You have to start somewhere
2. Deep End - Learn a little, and enjoy
3. Shattered - This impact is bliss for your body
4. Left from Right, Arm from Leg - Training your body to have an awareness of where it is

Left from Right, Arm from Leg

The early stages of learning something can leave you completely disorientated. I had glimpses of 'ooo, I think I just got that' in class four of my Capoeira experience, but a lot of the time I was trying to remind myself whether a limb was left or right, or whether it was an arm or a leg. Every now and then we paired up with another Capoerista (someone who plays Capoeria) and practiced a few moves. Sometimes I was paired with someone relatively advanced, and the were all very patient. On one occasion I was paired with someone at my level. The two of us had the same wide eyed attentiveness I see in my niece and nephew when they are a tad confused but very keen. We would slowly go through the required routine, realise we were in a knot, laugh, and start again. Sometimes we would get it and think boom. Then try again, and it was gone.

I had been out of action for a few days with a cold, but was feeling good. I wasn't as lost this time. Perhaps it was because the Thursday night class is focussed on beginners and there was a guest teacher. There is a Dance Workshop on Sunday and a friend of the teacher (Ponciano Almeida) is here to join him for some demonstrations. They learnt together as little chaps in Brazil. Years and years of practice mean when they play everything flows. They aren't focussed on the mechanics. They can however slow things right down and demonstrate each bit in a fully conscious way.

When you are focussed on the mechanics, there are too many things to think about - so one limb can end up somewhere you didn't tell it to go. I would be focussed on trying to copy the teacher as I twist around and would realise that I was facing exactly the wrong way. A sense of humour is helpful. You are training your body to have an awareness of where it is without your help. I know from yoga that half of the challenge with inverted postures is this body awareness and balance. When you are in a head stand, you actually have a more solid base than you do when you are standing. Your elbows are bigger than your feet. Everything just feels weird because it is upside down. 

Perhaps this relates a little to Rugby. If your fitness isn't there, it is difficult to concentrate on the game or be in the right place at the right time.  When everything connects, the best players seem to have a sense of where the ball is going before it even gets there. Like Zinzan Brooke or Gary Teichmann who were there when they were needed to tackle, but when the ball was kicked downfield they also magically appeared.

Not magic, they also had to start somewhere.

Zinzan the Magic Man

Related Posts:
1) First Class - you have to start somewhere.
2) Deep End - learn a little, and enjoy.
3) Shattered - 'This impact is bliss for your body'.

I have started learning Capoeira at The Dance Attic in Fulham as one of my First 100 hour projects. Let me know if you would like to do one too, and share the experience.

The Art of Pain

We learn through pain and turmoil. But if your artists are good enough, that pain and turmoil doesn't have to be a direct experience. Instead of (or as well as) confessing to priests and psychologists, what if we started telling our stories to artists who could tell them for us? Through plays, books, music, paintings, dance, we can see what is going on in other people's lives. If the only stories we hear are the ones experienced by those who know how to tell them, a lot gets hidden. 

The challenge is trust. We tell our stories to close friends or religious leaders, or we pay someone to listen. The expectation is that that is where the story will stay. When we interact with people, we assume they aren't going to post every detail online or in a book. We would definitely be less relaxed if everyone was wearing Google Glass with a live feed. We wouldn't be as honest. I have always wondered about Sports stars having awkward friendships knowing that tell all books are just over the horizon when people retire.

Humans have wonderful imaginations. Fiction can create entire worlds that get to the truth of a matter in this world. We like to think we are unique snowflakes. Instead I think we are unique combinations of very common flavours. We just don't how common some of our struggles are because we keep them to ourselves. Artists should be able to listen to stories and be able to squeeze out the truth juice while leaving the identity pulp behind. In that way they can protect the fragile bits of us that don't want people to know about our deep dark secrets. We may then find that aggregated, our deep dark secrets aren't actually uncommon at all. We can also talk 'in abstract' about art to people without them knowing we are struggling with those issues ourselves. A great example is 'The Humans' by Matt Haig. This beautiful, funny, piece of art captures some of the difficulties likely faced by many and does it with a sense of hope that doesn't trivialise the problems.

Just listening is a difficult art in itself. I tend to like practical solutions. That is what attracted me to the Yoga I do. If you aren't happy, there is a pretty simple checklist of things to do. Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you relaxing properly? Are you breathing properly? Are you thinking about things in a positive way? Sometimes though, 'it's not about the nail'. The person talking isn't actually looking for a solution. They are looking for someone who can listen. The artist can just listen, and then reflect back through their work what people are feeling.

Shattered

'This impact is bliss for your body. Right now it is ow, ow, ow, but in a month or two it will be woo, woo, woo. You are not made of sugar or crystal. You will not melt. You will not break. It can be both humbling and very powerful. You will struggle but then you will have moments where you have control you didn't know was possible. This is not arrogance. This is part of the practice.'

- Ponciano Almeida

Not Sugar. Not Crystal. Won't Melt. Won't Break.

Last night I went to my third Capoeira class. I felt shattered. It wasn't much longer than an hour, but I was clock watching from about half an hour in. This is not a brutal gym like experience where you have someone shouting at you to push harder. The movements are subtle and beautiful, but you are really using your whole body. The teacher is half floating, musical in his lightness. Like gravity doesn't apply to him. If I was taking it personally, it would be like someone taunting me about how easy it is. For me, the sweat started early as I tried to listen to instruction, conquer the mounting fatigue, and to remember to breathe and enjoy the class. I arrived at that point where your body gives up after one push up, and then the count continued to ten, and then switched arms (one arm push ups!!!). The push ups were part of half dance, half martial arts moves. There is a story involved. I think life tastes better with stories. Being able to witness other students at the boundary of the battle between strength and gravity - a spectrum between a donkey (me) and a poet (the teacher) - gave me some indication of a path worth following.

Afterwards as I was walking home, I was thinking about scales for the piano. There are plenty of scales I could do for Capoeira. Push-ups, sit-ups, planks, yoga - it all becomes a part of training to be able to play Capoeira. Just like the piano. When the drills become second nature and the expression becomes the focus. Like a kid moaning about learning at school when they don't see the point of what they are doing, part of the motivation for something comes from having a 'why'. The why may be an end goal, but it may also be a how. Capoeria seems like a wonderful way to keep fit and get the body moving because it weaves in a story, where training is a dance.

Deep End

Do you dive in at the deep end, or gently wade? After my first class of Capoeira last Sunday, I attended a beginner's class on Thursday night. I also taught the first class of a 4 week beginner's Yoga course on Tuesday. Sometimes we get the option to be eased in to learning a new skill surrounded by those at a similar level. We get a teacher who adjusts the pace to the class and fellow students who are keen to learn and feeling similarly shrouded in mist. My aim as a teacher in the first yoga class is to leave the student with a feeling. I presume they are going to forget most of the instructions, but will remember having walked out of the class relaxed. 5 years after starting Yoga, that is one of the things that keeps me going back to the classes. Although how far into some of the postures I can go has changed, that is rather immaterial. It is the same slight edge forward and the same feeling that I tasted in my introductory class.

Source: Mojuba

I didn't count how many people were there on Sunday, but there were around 30 of mixed levels. The teacher had to try and cater to the various students. One of the great things about being thrown into the deep end is being able to enjoy a vision of where you can get to. If you are able to switch off the voice that says you obviously can't do it because you are missing every beat. I enjoy asking more advanced students how long it takes till the sense of confusion goes away. Till there is a gap in the mist. Mestre Poncianinho, my Capoeira teacher was talking about this on Thursday. There are only ever really gaps in the mist. You are always learning. In the beginning everyone feels like they don't know what they are doing. Then you go through a plateau where you gain a little confidence and start to feel pretty good about yourself. Then the mist descends again as you push a little further. Mist is good. It means you are pushing yourself a little. You need to concentrate. Too much mist is bad. It means you lose the path and the feeling that keeps you on it.

It is easier to give beginners a flavour of the feeling in small controlled groups, but sometimes you do get thrown into the deep end. It then becomes your job to not beat yourself up through comparison. Learn a little and enjoy.

Mojuba Events

First Class

You have to start somewhere. Last night I met someone who did, and loved Capoeira, so today I did my first Capoeira class. The Dance Attic in Fulham is not far from where I stay and offers a full range of classes including Flamenco, Ballroom, Street, Jazz, Tango, Salsa etc. I have always loved the fact that in London, if you want to do Northern Russian Speckled Frog Tulip Serenading, there is probably a club for that with daily classes that meets twice on Sundays. Every single person who is awesome at something once couldn't do it. Every single one had a first class.

 

As part of my sedentary lifestyle, my fingers were the only things that got to dance for multiple hours a day. I need to get my bits to move. When I heard Capoeira described by a fellow yoga teacher, it seemed to fit the bill. It includes movement, balance, strength, interaction, music, singing and even a bit of poetic license. In this lesson the teacher, who seemed to have magical control over his body, was talking beautifully of the balance between the downward force of gravity and the upward force from pushing against the earth. We repeat how what goes up must come down, but in learning to control strength and gravity and get the body to move, what goes up must have come down first. The explanation of how to gather strength for handstands etc. is similar to Josh Waitzkin's concept of having to invest in loss. To be learning you have to go through the awkward stage.

As I stare in the mirror surrounded by people who mostly seem to know what they are doing, I saw a chap with a bemused look on his face. Me. The teacher moves fluidly, his voice calm and his actions pulse with rhythm. I try to repeat each movement fighting the mist of confusion. I try to breath and enjoy myself. Every now and then I had to skip through multiple intermediate steps to catch up with the rhythm of the class. A little laugh at how much I have to learn and a reminder that everyone has to start somewhere. When the teacher comes and shows me, I get it after a few repetitions. Then he goes away and somehow it is gone. Oh dear.

Then there is the issue of fitness. The first class was as much about using muscles that I had told my body I didn't need for well over a decade, as seeing what they were needed for. To get to the teachers level of calm and rhythm, I need to have the movements become second nature. Instead of a checklist of conscious movements, everything starts to flow. I have experienced this enough elsewhere to know a first class is actually more about learning to recognise this happening in others. To get a sense that the juice is there even before you taste it. 

I got that sense. I'll be back.

Bits to Move

If my theory is right that we are a small hump away from many sources of joy - dance is definitely one of those humps for me. What I lack in actual skill in moving my body in sync with the music, I occasionally make up for in enthusiasm. Where I came from, young girls learned to dance together making up various routines but for the most part boys stood aside. As we got older and boys and girls started to mix, 'dancing' consisted largely of standing in front of a DJ box shaking like epileptic chickens, or in really large circles rocking from side to side.

 Not sure whether it was me who cleared the dance floor

The Afrikaans chaps used to have a few tricks up their sleeves and so if you were cunning like a fox, you tried to learn from the langarm sokkie. A Sokkie is what seems like a blast from the past. You still ask someone to dance rather than just being in the throng of people. You then literally go spinning on the dance floor with various over and under arm twirls. It is a lot of fun. Even then my repertoire is very limited.

Saying that South African men can't dance is very far from the truth. The advantage of having lots of cultures is when you realise that your little bubble just wasn't as much fun as some of the other bubbles. Time to get a bigger bubble. Here is an example of school boys dancing in another Saffa style - Kwaito.

One song that will get a lot of South Africans line dancing together is Mandoza's Nkalakatha, and you should get a few chaps (and certainly this chap) throwing their legs up in a Zulu Warrior dance if Johnny Clegg's Impi starts playing.

Dancing is a great way to release stress and with our sedentary lifestyles, a reminder to the body that we are still alive and need our bits to move. This epileptic chicken is going to make an effort to put in some time so that 'I can't dance' becomes 'I couldn't dance'.

Beneath the Surface

Ken Robinson points out that if you ask a classroom full of 5 year olds who can draw, they all put their hands up. If you ask a group of 15 year olds who can draw, perhaps one or two will. At some point we learn what we are good at and we create an identity around that. We direct our activities towards the things where we are technically competent in a way that can be objectively assessed - i.e. we work for marks. School and then university become a filtering process where your identity is sifted out. I worked for 18 months at a school in Chichester which really encouraged music. In fact I ended up taking up piano while I was there and learning my middle c alongside 6 year olds. It really was a wonderful place which actively found a place for the creative side of learning. The music teacher from that school, Alex, shared this article which looks at the role of arts in education - Dance, Art, Music, Writing, Drama. More particularly, it also looks at how the arts can be left aside in education when money is tight and we start to prioritise.

Art from one of my favourite 5 year olds, Justin

Excluding the arts is as dangerous as excluding business skill for those who pursue the arts. The idea that we need to define ourselves and super specialise is a problem. The word 'balance' is often used, but I am trying to think of another one. I don't like balance because it doesn't seem to quite capture that we can be more effective by not neglecting the balancing items. The goal should be to educate you in all the skills that are needed in life. Some of these are tangible, but some come as a side product.

I did a semester of Computer Science at university. I really enjoyed it but it was just a filler course and I can't remember any of the programming that I learnt. What I do remember is that it taught a way of thinking. In writing code, it showed the value of structuring thoughts in a way that is easy to follow in order to find mistakes. It helped take ideas and distill them down to very clear, unambiguous instructions. I can't remember how to code, but that lesson stuck with me. The arts is similar but more pervasive than that. 

As I am relearning the piano, I am being forced to slow right down. I have to build the muscles in my fingers. I have to learn to connect them to what I see on the page. The left and right hand won't coordinate at first and are playing different parts. I have to slowly get to the point where they can do their own thing but fit together. As it comes together, the rhythm starts to appear after hiding as my fingers stumbled. This process seems to train patience and problem solving better than any of the courses I did in Business Science.

It is one thing to learn to identify problems. It is another to learn the process of solving them and that is where the arts come  into their own. The very goal of the arts is to look beneath the surface at the stuff that isn't obvious. It isn't good enough to be technically competent. You can't just learn the words in drama. You have to fight with them, chew them, and feel them until they come to life.

Education should be careful not to filter out the flavour.