Worklife

Ramblings about workplace culture, life in Japan, and then some.

What happens when I stop practicing

Dec 11, 2003 13:32 pm / 3 comments

What hap­pens when I stop prac­tic­ing? First, I get rusty. Then, even­tu­ally, I wouldn’t be so good at it. Then, I for­get that I was ever good at it. That’s what hap­pened with my writ­ing. Unlike paint­ing and draw­ing, writ­ing did not become painful as I grew older. The joy in writ­ing grew as I grew older, at least the entire time I was in school. It didn’t mat­ter whether it was in Japan­ese or Eng­lish, I loved to write com­po­si­tions and reports. I loved the process of writ­ing, read­ing what I wrote, mak­ing cor­rec­tions and adjust­ments, then read­ing, repeat­ing the process over and over until I felt like the work is finished.

I’ve recently started read­ing On Writ­ing Well by William Zinsser to improve my report writ­ing skill. The moment I started read­ing it, the book reminded me of the Eng­lish classes in high school days, the Eng­lish classes I loved so much.

The gram­mar lessons, learn­ing new vocab­u­lary words, writ­ing com­po­si­tions. I loved them all! And I used to take pride in myself for the under­stand­ing of Eng­lish gram­mar, hav­ing good range of vocab­u­lary, writ­ing neat com­po­si­tions. What hap­pened after not writ­ing seri­ously for 25 years is that I have become unsure of Eng­lish gram­mar, for­got­ten half the vocab­u­lary words I learned, and I dread writ­ing any sort of work related piece, report, let­ter, or e-mail.

Like learn­ing to ride a bicy­cle, I haven’t for­got­ten alto­gether how to write. But like every­thing else, sports, cook­ing, arts, any prac­ti­cal skill, once I stop prac­tic­ing, I am going down hill.

The feel­ing started to come back since I started writ­ing into my blog last Feb­ru­ary. The feel­ing started to grow, and by read­ing , I have come to real­ize what hap­pened. One great thing about this re-discovery is that the feel­ing of enjoy­ment in writ­ing came back. It doesn’t mat­ter if the lan­guage is Eng­lish or Japan­ese. I know what to do now. Keep prac­tic­ing. Don’t stop.

 

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3 Comments

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1. gt said on Dec 14, 2003 01:02 am:

Once you have reached to some height of any prac­tice, you have devel­oped neural con­nec­tion in your brain through the learn­ing process. Through releas­ing neuro trans­mit­ter chem­i­cals at the end of den­drites, neu­rons comu­ni­cate to each other. When you are not prac­tic­ing fre­quently, those neu­rons tak­ing rest from pass­ing sig­nals to the next. But even dur­ing that time the con­nec­tions remain.

Re-discovery of prac­tic­ing is an inter­est­ing process. It is a process of re-triggering your neural con­nec­tions and make them release neuro trans­mit­ters again. How­ever, I could say it is still prob­a­bly faster than learn­ing com­pletely new things.

I’m on repro­gram­ming of myself over ten years I guess, but the tem­po­rary result looks like patchy. Ah yes, I mean think­ing in Eng­lish and con­trol­ling oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. I hope it won’t get downhill.

BTW down­hill was fun when I rode my bicy­cle in Alaska two years ago.


 
2. Fujiko Suda said on Dec 14, 2003 11:08 am:

Hi gt! Great to hear from you! I’ve vis­ited your blog and looks like you are as busy as ever.

Read­ing your com­ment, I remem­ber you men­tion­ing about “place spe­cific mem­ory”. Was it explained to you by a pro­fes­sor of Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity? I’ve been fas­ci­nated with the neural sci­ence ever since I’ve read Com­plex­ity by M. Mitchell. Edward O. Wilson’s Con­silience is great too.

I finally got to meet your cats through your blog! They look like cats straight out of comic strips or paint­ings. Were they try­ing to go on a trip with you when they made them­selves com­fort­able in your suitcase?


 
3. gt said on Dec 18, 2003 21:08 pm:

some way I hap­pen to be man­ag­ing six blogs. it’s a bit crazy but likely reflect­ing multi-personality prob­lem of me : )

ah yes, that thought on “State Spe­cific Mem­ory” was from neuro sci­en­tist Dr. David Warner cur­rently (sup­posed to be) at Syra­cuse Univ. it could be places, views, sounds or any­thing that are bound to the memory.

That cats pic­ture was from 5 years ago. I’ve been trav­el­ing a lot and I know they didn’t like me trav­el­ing abroad. I think my cats wanted to go with me. When I openned the case to start pack­ing, they all came into to fill the space. Any­way, a few years later I had to see two of them departing.


 

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