LEARNING, UNLEARNING & RELEARNING (Mind over Matter)
INTRODUCTION
NLP: In the field of lawn bowls and other sports; Neuro-Linguistic Programming, commonly known as NLP, is the art of science of excellence, which covers communication, education and therapy. These skills can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally in all avenues of lawn bowls.
A stepping stone: NLP does not introduce different fields of training but actual rearranges and uses what is already there e.g. your mental and physical attributes which are coordinated back and forth within your conscious and subconscious mind. This approach is practical, it gets results and it is increasingly influential in many disciplines in lawn bowls. Think of these words as being a stepping stone, allowing you to explore new learning territory and continue an exciting and enjoyable bowling journey.
NLP is practical: It is a set of skills and techniques for thinking and acting effectively within the game. Although we at times think we can consciously take in very large amounts of information, experts in this field tell us we are only able to keep track of a maximum of seven variables or pieces of information at one time. Believe it or not our conscious mind is very limited and relies on our subconscious mind, the memory bank, to fill in the gaps. So to be practicable in learning our conscious mind is limited to seven plus or minus two pieces of information, either from the internal world of our thoughts, or from the external world. Our unconscious state is what we have learned from our past experiences. Culture leads us to believe that we do most of what we do consciously, yet it is a proven fact that most of what we do, and what we do best, we do unconsciously. During the learning period when we reach the limits of our variables most bowlers don’t see what they are supposed to see, a vast majority don’t really hear what they are supposed to hear and very few bowlers actually feel what they’re supposed to feel.
LEARNING AND RECALL
Instruction learning: It is practical when giving a lecture or a practical lesson on bowls that the instruction goes no longer than forty minutes because average bowlers reach their conscious absorption peak and thereafter rely on the subconscious mind from past experiences. Beyond this point of time, if bowlers are not given a short break or allowed to recapitulate either by question or practical discourse they begin to mishear words, fail to see various points and their senses of feeling begin to falter.
Recall: It is a commonly known fact that thirty minutes after a forty minute lecture or practical lesson that the memory recollection of what has been said or what has been physically taught begins to fade from the memory bank e.g. The average person looses 25% within 30 minute, 50% within 1 hour, and from this point on it relies on connecting subconscious experiences to recall the remaining information.
Aptitude: Because some bowlers excel in learning quicker than you do, this does not mean that you are dumb. The reason is that smarter and more adaptable bowlers who retain knowledge and the practical aptitude have had connecting past experiences in the subconscious mind to rely on.
STAGES OF LEARNING
When using your senses of learning to deliver the jack or bowl, learning is divided into four stages as follows;
• Stage1: Unconscious incompetence; you don’t know how to use your senses,
• Stage 2: Conscious incompetence; it is the stage when you are learning to use your
senses of sight, hearing, feeling, smell and taste,
• Stage 3: Conscious competence: you can use your senses, but it takes all your
concentration.
• Stage 4: Unconscious competence; where what you have learned, blends together into
one single unit of behaviour. Such as those things that are controlled in the delivery
action by the conscious mind and those things that are done automatically by the subconscious mind.
Note: An example of this procedure is given of stage 4 in the
previous article written on Mind over Matter in the delivery skill contained in the paragraph on Mind over Matter.
PRACTICE
If you practice enough you will reach this fourth stage and it will become habit. However, the habits may not be the most effective ones for the task. Our course of training may have caused us to miss some important information en route to unconscious competence. Suppose you play a passable game of bowls and wish to improve your performance. The coach would need to watch you play, then start changing such things as your stance on the mat; body delivery technique, alignment, or timing etc. In other words the coach would take what was for you one piece of behaviour e.g. timing, break it down into some of its components parts such as; the forward step, bending forward and the pendulum arm swing, and then rebuild it through the four learning stages so that you will deliver a better jack or bowl, this is done as follows;
• The four stages of learning are;
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence
Note: Unlearning is 4 to 2. Relearning is 2 back to 4 with more choices.
