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The unlearning part of the learning process

Each time I learn something, I am intrigued by the unlearning part of the learning process. And I seem to enjoy that process.

This is the part where, as you learn, you need to be fully in the moment. For example, as the coach (and the coach may be someone half your age) says, don't use your wrist use your forearms. It takes conscious effort of everything in the mind to tell the wrist to stay still and put the forearms to work. It take conscious effort to keep the racket at the right position.

And you have to do it every single time. And just when you think you have got it, the mind slips into bad habits. The wrist suddenly takes over and you feel a stinging pain. Or the knee doesn't bend and the upper body does and you receive a message that, you got it wrong. And there are these delicious moments when you know you got it wrong and you know it just that at point when you got it wrong and then you get into position again and, well, try it again.

As you might have guessed - these are from my own lessons for the two tennis classes I took. Since I have always played badminton, tennis and a bit of cricket - the wrists are always in play. Not so in tennis - so it is an amazing unlearning process.

Previous posts on unlearning, here and here.


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