Juggling practice has featured in most of my recent NLP training courses including the dyslexia coaching so it’s gone high up on my list of things I want to master (or at the very least improve).  I’m going to see how I get on with Lessons from the Art of Juggling by Michael J Gelb and Tony Buzan.  Not only do they talk you through how to juggle in a real, practical sense, the book is also stuffed full of ideas about the ways we learn and the applications of the art of juggling for business, learning and life.

The book opens with a metaphor which gets extra brownie points from me (from Aristotle: "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor…").  Then it’s straight into one of the crunch issues – our beliefs and assumptions about what we can and can’t do, how those beliefs limit our potential and the way that we learn.  Now this is something I often pick up with clients but I also know that I’m quite attached to a deep rooted belief that "I can’t juggle".  That being said it’s part of the reason I’m keen to take on this learning challenge – a) I’d love to be proved wrong and b) it’ll develop my skill in dispelling negative beliefs.

The first set of exercises starts in a good place – by challenging your preconceptions about what juggling is about (I can feel the belief start to crumble even now).  So we start by playing around with just one juggling ball with an emphasis on letting the ball drop.  Even I can do that!  It’s a good place to start from: losing the fear of ‘dropping the catch’ plus an emphasis on fun, experimentation and early wins.

So far so good and I’m looking forward to moving forward to the two ball exercises (that’s right – drop both of them!).  Will keep you posted on my progress…

“I think I’m beginning to understand something about art.”

A true lifelong learner – an open mind right up to his last breath.

I have to confess that when I was in the job that should remain nameless (the civil service) the words “lifelong learning” used to wash over me, one of those meaningless expressions that get bandied about by politicians and educational theorists, bearing little relationship to life (or at least to my life at that time).

Things changed when I took up coaching. For me, one of the defining features of coaching is that it opens your mind to learning again: about yourself, about life, about your values and what’s important to you, about new possibilities, about avenues previously unexplored, opening up new doors that you’d previously marked off as ‘closed’ (too old, too late to change, not clever enough). And once you start down that path of your learning – driven by you, your motivation, your life – it’s totally addictive. You’ll never want to stop.

My most recent foray into new learning has been exploring the power of Baroque music to help us concentrate and learn. I started finding out about this as part of the background work for the dyslexia coaching course. I’d also dipped into some of the material about Baroque music on Robyn McMaster’s site. But the best way to learn of course is to do, so I experimented with using Baroque music to help me master something new.

The dyslexia coaching includes a number of physical exercises to help with balance, co-ordination and develop different parts of the brain. Now as someone who is pretty well challenged when it comes to physical co-ordination this was less than totally easy for me. But my motivation was high (learn to do this and you can help pass it on to kids with dyslexia). So I experimented doing the exercises to Baroque music and it really worked – better concentration, slower pace, greater sense of rhythm, less focus on what I ‘couldn’t’ do as I allowed the music to take me through the exercises. Brilliant! I’m a convert. The music isn’t naturally my cup of tea, but it definitely grows on you, and if it works, it’s worth it.

I’m still learning about this as I said but as I understand it the most important thing is to get Baroque music with a slow or ‘largo’ beat. I found a list of suggested pieces here.

For me it’s a way of slowing down into a rhythm which is natural, powerful, restful, which allows me to do things I didn’t ‘think’ I could do. It’s a way of tapping into a different state. Of making new connections – inside and outside of yourself. Seeing new applications. Opening up new possibilities. Accessing your childlike sense of curiosity, wonder and fun.

Growing and changing and learning: the natural rhythm of life.

A little boy who proudly showed us his school jotter marked with a big ‘well done’ from his teacher.  The parents who told us about the transformation that had taken place in their child as a result of going through the programme – from someone who wouldn’t go out to play to "a different wee boy".  And then there was the man in his 40s, a successful businessman and entrepreneur who had only recently realised why he had ‘switched off’ from education at the age of 10, and had had a miserable, excruciating humiliating experience at school: he was dyslexic.  Their stories were powerful: about what can be done, about the huge potential that lies within people who are ‘labelled’ by the system, about the determination of individuals to fight obstacles and create a good life for themselves and their families. 

I felt inspired and humbled to hear these stories, but also frustrated and angry at how we as a society and our institutions create the circumstances for so much unhappiness and struggle, rather than adapting the way we teach and work and learn so that everyone can fulfil their potential, regardless of their learning style.

Still, it’s great to see how interventions like this dyslexia coaching programme can transform the experience of individuals and their families.  If you’d like to find out more about the potential of dyslexia coaching to help someone in your family do just drop me an e-mail at joanna@coachingwizardry.com