In the last post I talked a bit about learning sequences of numbers. I got up to 3 numbers fairly reliably, then I went back to the weaker letters and numbers and tried that. I’m still doing this during my commute, and mostly in the walking parts, so I’m not writing anything down and I’m doing one group at a time.
I noticed two things:
- I can feel my tendency to (unnecessarily) delay recognising a letter or number until a bit late. Like I need to hear the whole thing and then think what it is. That means the next letter is already happening and I’m still thinking about the last one. Or even delay until the end of the word.
- There’s a joyful ‘yay’ in my mind when I recognise something. This then distracts me and makes me lose the next symbol.
From this I’m thinking that I need to fully climb into each symbol and try and recognise them before they are finished. More like feeling the letter or number and then quietly moving on rather than delaying and getting caught up with it.
As a result of this, I’ve gone on to working with enough symbols at a time that I can’t stop and think, or delay to the end, so I’m trying individual groups of 5 and concentrating on properly climbing into each symbol and not getting stuck in them, in the congratulations about recognising something, or delaying it all until there’s a gap. Some of this is mindfulness (being still enough, back to the Zen and the art of Telegraphy focus on getting into a mindful state) and some is trust and perseverance.
So, I’m going to keep working with 5 symbol groups for a while, still at 18 wpm, and see how good I can get.All in all, I’m loving the learning at the moment. Long may that continue.