So often we grow at a snail’s pace. We experience life one slice at a time in the
beginning.
I watched a video clip of a young baby elephant learning to
take his first steps. It looked like an
uncoordinated mass of grey. He stepped
on his trunk more than once and finally, with success, he took those first
important steps.
In another video I watched a golden retriever Mom teach her
young pup how to walk down a set of five steps.
Her first attempts were so tenuous, and then down one step, but oh so
quickly she went back up. Finally, with an
amazing dose of encouragement from the mother, the young pup finally took the
bold steps and was successful.
The principle is this – what we learn in small steps leads
to bigger and bolder steps.
We gain confidence, we gain balance and we gain skill in
those early small wins and it is on those that we build our lives.
This is true in music as well as in all of life. That is why we encourage going slowly at the beginning
of any new skill. We break the skill
into chunks that can be managed, and then we connect the dots for all of the
skills until mastery happens.
In the book The Power
of Habits, we find this seed.
“Once a
small win has been accomplished,
forces are
set in motion
that
favors another small win.”
Carolyn Biggs
Steps and
Skips
Tips for
the Developing Student
