You Can Improve More Rapidly Than You Believe

In two areas, my tennis and my fiddling, I am improving surprisingly fast. This is interesting. What can I learn from the experience? If I can improve rapidly, can you do it also?

After two years of tennis I now play well enough so people on the tennis court treat me with respect - and maybe some fear. I have asked many people about their tennis experience. Here is my conclusion: nobody else does what I am doing. Playing tennis this well at my age should require that I have done it all my life. I am breaking the "rules." Here is an example of someone who plays as well as I do. She was a really fun partner last weekend: a much younger woman, age 42, who has been playing for twenty years. She played well. My serve was better than hers, and my forehand was stronger and more reliable. We both have good backhands, and she plays better close to the net. Overall, her playing was comparable to mine. However, I don't need her advantages to play this well. I learned in two years at age 68. That is breaking the "rules."

Here is a second example. I love fiddling. Generally I do it at "Jam Sessions." A jam session is an informal get-together in which amateur musicians and singers perform. Sometimes we are audience; sometimes we perform. The music is mostly American from the '30s to the '50s. I started doing this about a year ago. My previous experience on the violin was in a small band that played the old Hungarian music for dancing. I played the violin, and Elly played the bass. We did this before my crash. In those days I practiced a lot. However I put away the violin after the crash. When I picked up the violin more recently for the the jam sessions, I was totally unfamiliar with American music. Worse yet, no one brought sheet music. Therefore, if I wanted to play this music, I had to listen and improvise. So I did. Previously, as the Hungarian fiddler, I could not improvise; I could only play music written on paper. My bowing recently has become satisfyingly complex and my speed is increasing. In contrast, when I was the Hungarian fiddler, my bowing was simple, and I could not play fast. My coordination between the hand holding the bow and the hand that played the notes wasn't good enough for much complexity.

The "rules" say I must practice to improve my fiddling. That isn't happening. I only pick up the fiddle to play at the jam sessions. There is no other practice. Yet I continue to improve. I am breaking the "rules" again.

Perhaps I am not simply a fiddler or a tennis player. I am me. When a problem with tennis becomes obvious, I assume that is due to a defect. I go home and use frequencies or symbols to correct the defect. Once done, the tennis improves. So does the fiddling. The healing to improve my backhand also improves my ability to coordinate the fiddler's fingering with complex bow movements.

I can imagine the question of a skeptic: Ok, suppose I have discovered how to rebuild myself so I function better. However, playing music is based on habit. Even if I am now capable of being a better musician, the habits are not there. How do I develop the habits of the better musician without practice? Doesn't it take a lot of experience to develop a habit? Apparently not. Yes, I know it always used to - perhaps because I had defined my self in that way. However, in order to heal myself, I have created good communication within myself. The body can now notice that I have just played a complex passage. It can then ask me if I want to make that a habit. If I answer yes, my body will probably have the habit ready for me by the next day. I could never have done that ten years ago. I do it now routinely.

This is discussed in the following video. I hope it suggests new possibilities for you.