30 September 05 - 14:04Breakthroughs and trudges in learning

I'm learning several things concurrently these days. The language Haskell, the game of Go, playing the guitar, how to run a one-man business, Satir tools, writing, etc.

I'm seeing a pattern in the different types of things I learn in each of these disciplines, the pace and the order in which I learn them.

In some disciplines, like programming, I feel that the level I've already achieved allows me to learn "horizontally", in small bites and at leisure. That is, I feel like I am broadening my knowledge, making small but significant connections between things I already know, not pursuing one topic systematically but rather trusting to exploration and randomness. This is what feels most comfortable to me.

Some disciplines bring opportunities for "breakthroughs". Before a breakthrough, the feeling is that your abilities are seriously limited - that you're banging your head against some invisible wall. After breaking that wall, your learning becomes freer and takes on some of the quality of that "comfortable" state.

As a beginner in Go, I played my first "serious" games recently against Emmanuel, a more experienced player. I knew some of the basic tactical instincts of the game, but I was quite deficient in strategy. Emmanuel brought to my attention the virtues of keeping my stones connected and cutting the opponent's. This was enough to bring my playing to an entirely new level, and I was able to venture out onto one of the servers for online play and actually win a game on the "serious" 19x19 board.

The breakthrough is a happy feeling, but I think that most learning actually consists of "trudging". By trudging I mean things like practicing, reading, doing small exercises, never quite getting it right or perfect or "professional". This is for instance where I'm at on the guitar, on what looks like a perpetual plateau. I practice at least 10 minutes a day, doing scales, playing simple pieces, trying to increase the tempo by small degrees for simple exercises, absorbing some theory a little at a time. It feels like ascending a steep slope - sometimes it feels like making no progress at all, in fact.

It's interesting to be learning several things at the same time and make comparisons. For instance, I'm wondering about how these three different types of learnings - comfortable learning, breakthroughs and trudges - might form cycles. I feel sure that before long, my Go playing will become more of a trudge as I learn joseki, work through problems etc. I know that the "comfortable" state lasts until it becomes stale, at which point you start desperately looking around for a breakthrough to take you to the next level. And so on. (I think that one breakthrough for early learners is to figure out what type of learnings they're facing.)

It also struck me recently that I decided to become a student in all these things for a reason - to learn more about learning itself. You could call these various attempts - in particular at guitar and Go - "learning Katas".

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