Jane McGonigal gives a fascinating talk about the “superpowers” cultivated by the game-playing masses (more than 500 million with another billion coming up in the next decade!). Obviously we all have the image of the gamer locked in his mother’s basement, endlessly pawing away at an electronic reward system, like a hamster. McGonigal’s takeaway is a little different though. She emphasizes the motivation, inspiration, and social purpose built into game play.
I’m working strictly on a hunch here, but I think there’s a connection between the sentiment I tried to express here about not getting lost in the bells and whistles of technology, and this article about “hybrid businesses”. One Foot in the Virtual World, One Foot in the Real World According to the author, Glenn Kelman, a hybrid business has “one foot in the virtual world and one foot in the real world.
Here’s a sneak peek at some online learning support I’m doing with a Tai Chi group in Farmington, Maine. I went up a couple weeks ago to teach an afternoon workshop and this was the practice set we did by the end. The workshop participants also have access to a private Q&A forum, so as they practice between now and the next live training, I can give them feedback. I’ll probably add some new videos as we go to answer any questions that come up.
In a recent post, I asked the question “Can you learn qigong (or any movement art) online?” The answer was a big fat qualified “yes.” I think there is a limited role that online resources can play in your movement education — even though movement is something best learned through live human interaction. So the question for you, as a movement coach, is not whether or not you can teach online, the question is “
Can you learn qigong, or any movement art, online? This is a burning question for me right now. My immediate reaction is “NO!”. However, I believe there is a significant role for supplemental online material in the overall learning process, even for movement arts. Here’s why it’s a bad idea to learn movement online: Learning movement is a kinesthetic experience, not a visual one – you have to feel where you are in space and you certainly can’t get that from staring at a screen You need feedback – when you are learning something new, you need refinement and guidance, usually hands-on Some things need to be felt on another person – we get into this all the time with more subtle qigong principles and there is no way around feeling what’s going on in the instructor’s body to learn what you are trying to do in your own
I’ve been working with the team at Energy Arts on various projects, but mainly in the capacity as a community coordinator. Currently, my focus is on helping them get a new community discussion forum off the ground, but I also had the chance to participate in the launch of their new Ba Gua Mastery Program. The Ba Gua Mastery Program is a home-study program with information on circle-walking for meditation and martial arts.
I’m sure I’m not alone here. Teachers in all disciples, if they need their students to practice to learn what they are teaching, will relate. I don’t know if “movement educators†have it worse because people tend to think of all movement as “working out†– something you go and do, not an art you have to practice. In fact, one of my favorite concepts when you are talking about getting really good at something is called “deliberate practiceâ€.
