Partnering with your brain pt 1: Why context matters for memory and learning with Collin Jewett
Links
Superhumanacademy.com
Maven.com
Elementalkinetics.com (Hint: You’re already here!)
Transcript
Today we are kicking off a 3 part series Called partnering with your brain. In this series I’ve invited Collin Jewett to come work IN with us. Collin is the Director of Coaching for Superhuman Academy, an e learning company known for their blockbuster learning and memory courses. As an engineering student Collin struggled with the transition from highschool and found himself failing, feeling stupid and being rejected at job fairs. He knew he needed help. So after a tearful experience with his guidance counselor and making some humbling changes, Collin learned how to work with his brain to turn his college career around, get on the Dean's list and land a senior engineering position out of college. Today he’s the author of 2 books on learning and lifestyle design and has helped executives, psychologists and nuclear engineers become learning experts. He’s on a mission to share the love of learning with as many people as possible and ultimately transform the education system.
It's not a requirement but most fitness professionals have the heart of a teacher and a love of learning. Which is a good thing because not only do we need to keep up continuing education to maintain our certifications but we’re also expected to be curators of information. To best serve our people we need to stay current on the latest fads, facts and fiction in the health and wellness world. That’s easier when we don’t let our brain turn to mush.
There are several important reasons that we should also have a basic understanding of how our people learn.
The body, nervous system and movement are intricately connected to how we learn and remember things. And one of the biggest fears for our aging populations is memory loss, dementia and alzheimers. Movement is a key aspect to maintaining brain health so it makes sense that we should expand our understanding of that connection.
The systemic cultural dysregulation of our stress response interferes with how well we acquire knowledge, retain that knowledge and maintain creativity and social engagement.
In today's episode Collin and I discuss the importance of context to learning, demystifying some common half truths about neuroplasticity and memory, embodied learning and so much more.
So let's get started with today's Work IN with Collin Jewett.
Ericka Thomas 0:01
Welcome Collin, thank you so much for being here.
Collin Jewett 0:05
Thank you for having me. I'm super excited about this. I love that list I didn't know you're gonna say that that list of those different topics and how they relate because super true, I could talk about any of those for hours so you're gonna have to help me out here but those are all super important, and I'd love to chat about those.
Ericka Thomas 0:24
Well, good, good. Well let's get started with that, I just want to start at the beginning, we're going to begin at the beginning, and I think a lot of people can really relate to your story, your experience growing up in school. Because not everyone learns the same way. And I think there's so much room for improvement, and how we structure education in schools so I love that that's part of what you want to bring to the world. But as I was listening to your story as I read your story. It would have been so easy for you to just buy in to the things that you were being told, and the stories that maybe you were telling yourself about how smart you were or, you know, how good you were at school or not good at school. But you did it. You didn't buy into that. Can you share a little bit more about your personal story. And what was it that really flipped that learning switch for you.
Collin Jewett 1:29
Yes, I'd love to. So for anyone listening to this, I, I would nuance a little bit but you just said that I didn't buy in to identities, because I think I did I think that was actually a big part of my story was, was buying into certain identities that I crafted. And so for anyone listening I can tell you I've kind of been on both sides of the spectrum when it comes to like my identity with my intelligence and what I thought, You know what I thought of myself because in grade school and all the way through high school. I did really well. I had no problems, I barely studied or straight A's without trying. I'd finished my homework, like during school hours or on the bus like I never had any difficulty. And I was mostly just bored with school. It wasn't that it was too challenging or that I was struggling, I was like this is boring. I can learn all this no problem. Alright so I've been on that side and of course, at that point I was like, I think I'm a genius. I see people around me who are struggling and I'm like wow, they just, they don't get it, I don't know what's wrong with them, you know, which is an easy perspective to adopt if you've grown up that way just feeling like this market. Fast forward to college, it's the exact like polar opposite 180 degrees, I get there, and I am immediately just overwhelmed. I think part of it was, I didn't study before you know for high school and grade school. And so now I have these exams that I think I can just pass and I'm not, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm failing and then I don't know how to study because I never learned how to study because I didn't have to. And so I start to learn all those things that you're supposed to learn which is like, Oh, you got to take notes in class I hadn't done that before. That was new to me, so it's like okay I'm going to start taking notes, and you know all the all the good study methods are supposed to flashcards and whatnot, and it didn't work. I tried all this stuff I started following all the rules I specified that didn't work for me and all of a sudden, I felt like I'm a slow kid shoot. I'm the one who's stupid like All this time I've been, you know, totally wrong. So first I bought into that identity of I'm a smart kid, and I'm just going to have an easy forever, you know, no problem, I can learn anything. And then I bought into the the opposite identity of I'm a slow kid I'm stupid, I just can't learn this stuff and everyone around me is better at it than I am. And that was really hard for me, I definitely like shook out my check out my world, my identity that I practice my whole life, about being really intelligent and really smart. Looking back and really grateful for both of those, because I think if I had just had one my whole life, like if I had gone to college and it was just super easy. I think it would have totally taken a totally different path through life, I probably would have stayed convinced that I was just some genius, my whole life and that's not really a super productive thing to think especially when you're thinking about other people, it's not, not very productive. And I think if I had just had the opposite, I probably would still think I'm just stupid and I can't learn anything. So I'm really grateful that I had both of those experiences because after learning how to learn I'll wish I'll jumped into that and kind of learning how to partner with my brain. It gave me this newfound appreciation for how our brains work, how we're different and how we can take advantage of that and appreciate it and realize if you have struggled in school or you've done super well, or for most listeners, you're probably not in school anymore but you can think back to your experiences or you can think of now like when you're, when you're reading you're trying to learn something new if it's really hard for you, or if it's been really easy for you. That is a lot more to do with your context than it is with how intelligent you are. I think that's a really common misconception that if you're smart, you're good at learning things, and otherwise you're stupid your battle or anything and that distinction is just not accurate. That's just not the case, the vast majority of the time.
Ericka Thomas 5:28
Yeah, so let me jump in, let me jump in here because that experience where kids kind of just show up in high school, and they can have all kinds of success. I would count myself as one of those people, without trying very hard, you can make it through high school, for, for a lot of people, not everybody but a lot of people and then you hit the door of college and you think it's going to be the same and then boom, reality hits you right. I'm wondering and I don't know if you can speak to this, but I'm wondering if part of the challenge there is that you, your brain is at a different point of development. At that point, you know your 1817 1819 year old brain is not the same as it is when it's three four and five years old, you know that really spongy brain that soaks up everything and makes everything, it seemed easy as a child to pick up, and now all of a sudden, you know you're being asked to learn a process that is completely new. In college, or, you know, not new but something you've never done before. Right, so what do you think about that, is there some sort of, is there a piece to this that is a little bit of developmental processes happening.
Collin Jewett 6:53
Yeah, yeah, so that's a really good question because I think there's a ton of. There's a ton of half truths that are buried in that that understanding that I think is really, really common about like brain development and neuroplasticity and I'll say right now like I'm not a neuroscientist, though I do hang out with them pretty frequently in their work with them. But there are some things I can say about this that I think could be really like on a very practical level and really helpful to people. So first is this idea that, you know, we're really, really good at learning when we're really little kids, and our brain just takes in everything, transforms like crazy, which is true. Neuroplasticity which is your brain's ability to change does decrease over time as you age. However, it's not just a factor of time, like that's not the only variable at play, and health has a ton to do with that. And so everything that your the listeners, the people listening this podcast, this will probably be really interesting to you, your physical fitness and your sleep and your diet and all those things have a huge effect on your neuroplasticity. So, if you're sitting around on the couch all day doing nothing like your brain is going to slow down in its ability to change over time, much more than if you're being active and you're, you're participating in other healthy lifestyle activities and that isn't something that's just final either it's not like they're neuroplasticity just goes down over time it's just a matter of how quickly it goes down like that's not really how it works, it can go up and down like you can improve that. So even if you have been sitting on the couch for 30 years. If you've made some changes, like, you can change your learning ability to and your brain will actually change.
Ericka Thomas 8:32
So the mushy brain I have from sitting on the couch for 18 months or two years from COVID that will go away once you get out and start moving around is what you're
Collin Jewett 8:42
one of one of the only things you can you can really say with confidence about your brain is that it can change.
Ericka Thomas 8:50
I love that. I love that. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, so tell me, what was it that was the catalyst for that, partnering with your brain like, how did you make that that shift that change in your approach to school.
Collin Jewett 9:09
Yeah. Awesome question. So I think this will really directly apply to anyone who's listening really. And so for me it happened when I kind of hit that rock bottom, I think it was. I still remember I have a very distinct memory of this, which is there was one week where I had three big exams in one week, which is a lot and I was an engineering school, or I think calculus three was one of them, just to kind of throw out the, the kind of classes I was taking they're pretty difficult. And I had these three exams and so I had been really thoughtful about it I was like I'm going to study very carefully, I'm going to do exactly what you're supposed to do when I started ahead of time and to give myself time for this I'm going to take good breaks, I'm going to get sleep like I was doing all the things you're supposed to do. I failed all three of those exams, back to back to back failed every single one. Which for me it was like, man, you know, I'm, I'm doing everything right, how am I possibly, like if I can do everything right and fail, then there's no way out of this situation, It's really easy to get locked into that mindset. I've done all the things I'm supposed to do and I failed. What's left. And so what was left for me was a cry for help, which I'm glad I did that because it's easy to just not ask anyone for help and to deal with it. But I did, that's that's the story of me crying and for my guidance counselor, I reached out to my guidance counselor and I went and I had this big sob story I told her it was going on. And she referred me to the Disability Resource Center, which I'm very thankful that she did that, it was a it was a partial solution, it was not a full solution I'm thankful that she did that because it helps me to be humble. It was I had never been diagnosed with any sort of learning disability or anything like that. But it really helped me to see that side of the coin, and, and humbly accept the help that I needed. And so I went and they gave me extra time on exams in a quiet, quiet space to to take them and that helped me a ton. That was big, but it didn't address the underlying issue, my issue was not that I needed more time on exam so that did help my issue was exactly what you just said, which is I didn't know how my brain really worked. And so the reason I had succeeded, all through grade school. It wasn't because I understood how to learn effectively. It was because I was in a context in which my brain that default settings I guess you could call them oh my brain were well aligned with that context, so I didn't have to really know, I just have to know how my brain works, it was already kind of like factory default setup in a way that was going to work well. So now we change the context we go to college, which I thought would be the same, it was not. There's a lot of things that are very different about it. And I was sober through college by the way, so it wasn't that. But the context was different enough that all of a sudden all those default default set settings I guess you could call them like the way I was set up, were no longer in alignment with my context. And I think that is the difficulty that a lot of people experience, they think they're stupid and it's really just that the settings in your brain are not set to the right ones for the specific context that you're in. And the great thing about that is you can change those.
Ericka Thomas 12:25
You can change the default settings in your brain.
Collin Jewett 12:30
You can change the way it's set up, you can change the configuration and then you can align it with your environment, we can't do that until you recognize that is the issue. And you're cognizant of how to make those changes.
Ericka Thomas 12:42
So can you describe for me like an example of a contextual environment, maybe maybe two different contextual environments I mean we're talking about elementary school and college, that makes sense but, but can you give us some examples there so we can kind of wrap our head around. Yeah, absolutely.
Collin Jewett 12:59
So, this would be an example of, I'm going to make an example of school versus after school life working world, I think those are two very distinct concept contexts, and that transition can really hurt a lot of people and make them frustrated and feel like they're no longer good at anything. And so some of the some of the aspects of the school context for example, it tends to not be self directed in most most school environments, It's very top down directed, so you have a teacher who tells you, here's the assignments here's when they're due, and they give you, you're getting constant feedback you're getting grades, a B 87% Whatever you're getting very specific feedback. It's not always helpful feedback, but you are getting evaluated and saying here's how you're performing in the context of the rest of your classmates and in this course and everything like that. So, what's essentially happening in a lot of traditional education is you're kind of outsourcing a lot of the things that you need to be able to do in order to be an effective productive member of society, a lot of us are getting outsourced up to the teacher to the structure of the school. And so when you get out of school you no longer have somebody telling you exactly what to do and how to do it and when it's due by and giving you very specific feedback, There's all these structural components that are often removed. Now you might end up in an office where you're super micromanaged and it's pretty much just like school, in which case, if you were good at school, you might still thrive in that environment. If you always struggled with school and then you're in the same environment for workplace, you're probably going to still struggle. And in the last scenario in which you leave school, all that structure is removed and you have a lot more freedom. A lot of people struggle with that because it's a new context. But if you're not aware of the changes that happen in the context or in your context, or you just don't know that you can actually change your brain to adapt to that new context, you're kind of just stuck. And that's where I was when I transitioned into college I, I just didn't, there were there were context changes that I either wasn't aware of, or I didn't know how to adapt to them and so I was just stuck.
Ericka Thomas 15:14
That is fascinating because here's, here's. I'm going to draw some parallels here as far as context for fitness professionals, most of us are independent contractors, which basically means we are our own boss, all of a sudden, for a lot of people that's really, that's really something that they like, that's what they wanted out of their job, they wanted to work for themselves. And as people kind of grow through the industry, it becomes much more entrepreneurial. And when you finally figure out as an independent contractor that hey, I'm actually my own business, maybe I should treat myself like a business and start to kind of move into a different mindset about what you're doing, like, Okay, now I'm the boss of my business. I'm a CEO. It's really a struggle because now all of a sudden if you treat yourself like a business instead of this is just my hobby. There's a different context there. And a lot of people struggle with. Okay, now what do I do with my time. You know, nobody I don't have a boss above me, that is telling me what I need to do, or giving me like goals quarterly goals like I have to make that up by myself, you know, and so it's a very similar thing, Like when you're, when you're applying that context makes total sense to me why so many kids get to college, and fail like wash out of college freshman year and don't come back because they don't, they don't get that that it's totally different and it makes, it's, it's a perfect example what you just were talking about. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, so. Alright so let's, let's go a little bit deeper into this learning and memory thing, because I feel like people, I think, no matter how old you are, you can always learn something new. That's a growth mindset right i. And, you know, you mentioned before, neuroplasticity is out, you know, the brain can change so we can learn new things, but it feels like in reality as we get older, there's always some memory issues connected with that. So, how is that, I mean, are they connected specifically learning and memory like do you have to have a good memory. In order to learn, Or is there a way to kind of, you know, kind of go with the flow, basically.
Collin Jewett 17:48
Okay, a couple of things there. So, do you have to have a good memory in order to learn. Yes, but the but is you have a good memory, even if you don't think you do.
Ericka Thomas 17:58
Ah, I like that I like that people need to hear that there's a lot of people I know that are like I just don't have a good memory and then they don't even try. So
Collin Jewett 18:07
that's really important piece of it so yeah if you're listening to this and you just heard me say you have a good memory and you're like, No, I don't know I don't I can prove it to you I forget every single person's name that I meet, immediately and I can't remember it at all. So, I'm guessing there's probably a lot of people who feel that way, which is, there's lots of reasons for that. Or maybe you can't remember your episodic memories, which is your actual lived experience memories like, think back, what did I do this morning. What did I do last week. What did I do, you know, you can't remember the years of school or the years of work, like the episodic memories are just really hard to grasp. Maybe you feel like that's the case for you, or maybe for facts and figures, which is semantic memory like the more of the ideas the concepts, you feel like you can't grasp those either. Alright, there's reasons for all of those things and it's not because it's very most likely not because you actually have an impairment or like your memories broken or something like that. Alright so let's dig into what's actually happening because I think that's what we want to hear and then we can we can make practical changes and improvements. Okay, So one of those aspects and you nailed it, is that when people start to identify with having a bad memory, you start to say to yourself, I have a bad memory. I'm not going to remember your name if you tell me. You tell me your name's Erica, I'm going to forget it right away. I'm sorry to hear that hear this all the time. I'm sorry I'm going to forget your name just forgive me, I'm going to, you know, I have to ask again, it's just, I have a bad memory. All right, when you tell yourself that story, and this is true of pretty much anything. As you build that identity, it changes your behavior. So now when you tell me your name is Erica. I'm not listening, because I already expect that I'm gonna forget it, so what's the point of listening anyway. And that might seem like okay, well, sure, but I've tried before and I've still lost it, but stick with me, because I think this is true with, with almost anything this is a really pervasive problem, it's true. In, in very pernicious and frustrating ways so consider for example, if you are a chronic note taker you take tons of notes, whether in school or professionals, I know people in both areas that take a lot of notes. If you are somebody, especially if you take like verbatim notes, somebody says something and you write down, word for word. Think about what you are telling yourself when you do that, you are telling yourself, if I do not write down what this person says, word for word, I will forget you are teaching yourself a pattern of behavior that is giving your memory a pass, you're saying, memory you can hang out over here you can do your own thing, I know you're not very good at your job, so what I'm going to do I'm going to cover it for you by outsourcing it to writing. It's kind of like when we were in school and you outsource all of that self, like the direction to teachers, the structure that's kind of what you're doing when you take really detailed notes. I'm not saying you shouldn't take notes, but I'm saying is you need to be very cognizant of what you're teaching yourself about your identity when you do things like that. You are teaching yourself that I cannot remember if I don't take notes, and therefore you will not remember if you don't take notes because you've turned your memory off.
Ericka Thomas 21:13
And also you've given yourself permission not really to listen really carefully, to be present, which we talk a lot about in the in input in spaces like yoga and, you know, the mindfulness Community Right to be present, and it's that concept I think is is not easily understood for people. In this way, I think if you can, if you can explain or understand that presence is really being right there with that person, not having another line of thought that's running through your head at the same time you're talking to someone else, I think there's a lot of, I don't know we have a lot of self talk there's a lot of thoughts in our brain, right, and they're running at the same time as we're having this conversation, and I know so many people that you can almost see like this. I don't know, it's almost like a veil that comes down like they ask a question, and they're so busy worried about what they're going to say to the answer that they don't listen to what you said. So yeah, so, so what you're talking about really is, is a really, it's about focus and clarity about what you're doing, keeping your mind on point. Is that, am I getting what
Collin Jewett 22:38
yeah that's totally true because you can't remember something that you haven't experienced before it's there, there's nothing to grab on to how am I supposed to remember something that I've never experienced. And if you're not paying attention to something, you're not really, you might be experiencing it, but only on a very very shallow level so it's hard to
Ericka Thomas 22:57
pass. Yeah, that is, that is actually that word experience is, I think, a really important piece to this. I mean, You're having an experience with another person in conversation, you have an experience when you're in class, and trying to learn something new. Those that is a, that's a big piece because now we've gotten into not just our mental experience but our physical body like what is going on in this moment of this experience that we can tie these things to am I learning something new.
Collin Jewett 23:32
Yes. And so yeah that's that's that's really good experience is absolutely critical to learning you can't you can't learn without experience and so experience and this is gonna get into all those fitness professionals listening or people who are interested in that this is going to be really relevant to you, both as an individual but also especially as a coach, think about how you're, how you're working with your clients or people that you're teaching or anyone you're talking to friends, doesn't matter. Think about, think about how you can explain these concepts to them so they can learn things better to experience is critical and the way that we experience the world it's, it's not just conceptually, that's part of it. It's also through our senses, we have to use our senses to some degree to understand things even abstract concepts, Always have an embodied form, we do not understand abstract concepts as purely abstract they always have some sort of embodied connection. Like even if you get into like particle physics or something we still, we use the language that we use to describe those interactions, it still always boils down to some sort of embodied form in a physical sensation that we can prescribe to it, even on the most abstract level.
Ericka Thomas 24:41
Interesting, interesting. Can you speak a little bit more to that concept that embodied learning concept, because I'm fascinated by that language there, this, that we can use our bodies to learn. So, what does that mean?
Collin Jewett 24:57
I can give a couple of specific examples. So, one, let's, let's use a non physical example and show you how you can incorporate the physical aspect into it so for example if you're reading something, a lot of people would give telling me that when they're reading something, their mind starts to wander their eyes glaze over before they know what their eyes have kept moving but their brain hasn't. It's kind of like, stuck somewhere it's somewhere else, their eyes moved on the page and like wait, what do they just read well you didn't read anything your eyes just moved. Right. So one of the ways you can really engage with content that you're reading or consuming doesn't have to be written is expressively so what I mean by that is, as I'm reading something, I can imagine, if I were, if I were explaining this to somebody, what would my facial expressions look like like what facial expressions might I use to explain it to somebody, because we understand things physically, and our facial expressions are a huge part of language when you, when you talk to somebody, you wash their face hopefully if you can. You wash their body or even if you don't see them, you imagine their facial expressions on a very even on a subconscious level you imagine the hand gestures they might be using as they're describing, because that's how we understand things. So, if you're reading something and you're not imagining a person sharing it, a personality who's actually explaining it could be yourself or you can imagine somebody else. You can't imagine the emotions on their faces, they're expressing you can imagine their hands moving around, or how they might be physically showing an example of what you're reading, then it's going to be a lot harder to be engaged with it, it's gonna be really boring, it's gonna be bland and you're probably just like skip past it, because we don't engage with. We don't engage with just text, we engage with personalities and with people, there needs to be a voice behind that, and not just a voice, a body, a person behind it. And another way you can do that, not just in your mind but you can also Like literally change your facial expressions while you're reading. And if you're in public, you might feel like a crazy person doing this but if you if you if you're in the comfort of your home or something like that, try that try changing your facial expressions as you read.
Ericka Thomas 27:06
And that and that will help you retain what it is that you're, you're reading, that'll help kind of stick it in your brain is that what you're, is that what you're saying,
Collin Jewett 27:14
They will for multiple reasons. One reason is because of the attention component, you can't embody something if you don't understand it at all like if you haven't interacted with it. So it forces you to pay attention. In order to be able to embody it with hand motions or your body or your face or whatever, you have to be reading it. In order to do that. Otherwise there's nothing there. And the second component is that, that is how that is one of the main ways that our memory works. So here's a really practical, I'll take the, I'll take the other side of that so I use a physical example, so if you want to learn for example let's say you have a background in martial arts right. Yes, you mentioned that and it is yoga, lifting running whatever doesn't matter, but specifically in martial arts I can relate because I, I did Brazilian jujitsu for a couple years, and there's a lot of very complex movements that you need to do them in a specific way, your weight needs to be distributed, a specific way, there's all these things to keep, keep in mind, and this could apply to dance too if you like dancing. So a lot of people they have trouble with that because they watch what somebody does. And then they try to repeat it and they forget like everything, like, oh I just watched it I remember if I remember watching it, but I can't repeat it, and watching is going to watching somebody do something is going to activate what's called mirror neurons in your brain, I don't know if you've heard that Yes, yep, yep so that's that's really, really useful to understand, it means that there, there are these neurons that fire when you do something, and those same neurons or at least a portion of those same neurons also fire when you watch somebody else doing something, it's like your body is internalizing what you're watching and it's, it's kind of replicating it but on a, on a virtual level, that's kind of what's happening. So when you watch somebody do something you can learn that way you can learn from that from that interaction, those mirror neurons are firing. However, you can increase that you can improve on that. By then, going to the next step and imagining yourself doing it. So I watched them do it and then without even doing I can be sitting on the bus and I can practice jujitsu sitting on the bus because I can imagine that I'm in that situation and try to make it as physical as possible, engage as many senses as possible. I can think, what would it feel like I know I need to put my hand on the mat right there, or I need to take that step backwards or whatever. Okay, I can see it but how does that feel like what it feels like to shift my weight to my back foot, and then do that like get those repetitions in your mind you don't even have to do it physically, you can just imagine it. What would it feel like to touch the ground like, Where would my weight be would it be on my hand would it be on my, my back leg, and, and then what you can do this is really cool. You can do it physically so like if you're let's let's say you're doing a yoga position and you want to you want to be able to do it better. I haven't done a lot of yoga. But let's say downward dog is it's one of the only ones I can think of off the top of my head, and you really struggled with that for some reason. If you especially if you're a beginner. So, try doing it a couple times, and then once you feel like you've got it successful think very carefully about the different sensations involved with that. Where does it feel like my weight is one of the sensations in my hands when I'm doing this or my fingers spread out. Are they close together. Where are my toes, where's my head in relation to my heart like think about those things, and can take like a mental snapshot, if that's how that felt. And then try to replicate it mentally like sit down or whatever, get out of that pose and then just try to replicate it mentally Can I repeat those sensations in my mind, can I recall them, is it accurate, and then do it again physically say was that close was it right but did I miss that process is so valuable for being able to train physical skills without actually having to physically do it there's no replacement for that but it can rapidly increase the rate at which you can learn something, a physical skill. If you can get better and better at recreating that physical experience in your mind. Most people don't practice that.
Ericka Thomas 31:21
Yeah and, and as I was listening to you describe that. I think there's a real opportunity for coaches for instructors to help their students with the same kind of directed awareness. So, as a teacher, no we don't always do the, the physical parts with our students often it's verbal cues. But what you listed off there. Like how do your hands feel on the mat, how does your, how do your heels feel what do you, you know, your back, your shoulders, your head, your neck all of these things. For a lot of people when they come into some kind of physical class. That is not an easy thing to just do yourself for many people it's like real challenge to find connection to their body. And so for instructors to be aware of this type of learning. For other people, and this type of just, there's a brain connection there, and neuroscience behind it, it makes it even more important to really be able to talk people through their body in the moment, and it's going to have an effect that goes beyond just physically being able to do down dog, like, who cares about that, I mean, I would honestly it's the least of what we learn in a yoga class. Down Dog. But this goes so much deeper, and, and it can be so much more meaningful for people, it sounds like.
Collin Jewett 33:04
And this is true, how am I going to choose anything so if you've ever tried to learn an instrument, and you feel like that was really hard. Think about. Alright, what would it feel like so I play guitar. So if you watch somebody, let's say they're they're playing an E chord, whatever, it doesn't matter if you don't know the chord looks like a guitar, but you can watch somebody do it and then without ever picking up a guitar, imagine what it feels like what it feels like to put my fingers in that position, like what I feel the string like digging in what hurts like where are the fingers relation to the fret, can I feel that I don't use technical language if people aren't familiar with a guitar but yeah just that process can make it, it gives you something to experiment with, because now you can. It's essentially a hypothesis, right, you have this hypothesis I think it's going to feel like this. And then you could test it was like close. If you weren't close, there's an opportunity to improve your ability to replicate physical sensations in your mind and say oh I was, I wasn't catching that component of that feeling I didn't really feel like the texture of the string I didn't think about that, I thought it'd be smooth, but it's actually texture. Okay, that's something I can add to my physical like mental model now. And you see children, I think this is one of the reasons why people just assume that children are so much better at learning. It's because they're doing a lot of these things unconsciously. And you can, You can see it in the way that they, they operate in the world, when you're, when your child pushes the spoon off the table over and over and over again like man, please stop pushing the spoon off the table, what they're doing, without being able to articulate it is they are forming a hypothesis if I push the spoon, it's going to fall in is gonna hit the ground it's gonna make this loud clattering cluttery sound that my parents hate. And then they do it and they test that hypothesis over and over and over again, and they're building their mental model of how the world works, when they do that. And I think as an adult, you know, as we grew up, we start to kind of just get settled with. I've got my mental model of the world and it works good enough. And we stopped testing things, and we stopped asking questions what will happen if I do this, and then trying and seeing if we're right and if we're not updating our model. And so many people I talked to they really really struggle to imagine doing something like I can't just can't imagine what that'd be like, it's like, that's a muscle you have to build you have to practice that. And if you haven't practiced it since you were six, it's no wonder that it's hard to do, you know, it takes time,
Ericka Thomas 35:36
that's a good place to pause this conversation for now. We'll pick up next week with part two of partnering with your brain, where we'll go into the role that curiosity and imagination play to help your brain adapt and learn, changing our mindset about mistakes and how to use creativity to improve working memory. Creativity killers, and so much more. Thanks, Colin.
Collin Jewett 36:04
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Ericka Thomas 36:06
And thank you my curious listener. If you liked what you heard, and you want to learn more, you can find all the links to connect with my guest today at elemental kinetics.com, forward slash, that dash work dash in, as well as free resources to short circuit the stress response and build resilience for fitness professionals and their health conscious clients. Check it out, and I'll see you next time on the work in.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
I’m Ericka
The Work IN is for fitness professionals and refugees from the body brand nation who are ready to make trauma informed instruction the gold standard of professionalism across the industry.
I’m a highly caffeinated resilience coach, course creator and entrepreneur with over 2 decades of experience as a fit pro and a certification collection that includes registered group fitness, RYT, trauma release exercise and more.
If you’re looking for a way to expand your professional scope and burnout proof your business with trauma sensitive, creative class design you’re in the right place. Let’s chat!