Learning to learn refers to developing the faculties to become aware of our own learning processes. It is equivalent to being willing to question every situation, to change our behavior based on the result of constant experiences. Learning to ski or to improve our own skills depends on the learning capacity we have. The development of this faculty allows for greater efficiency in both overall performance and control of specific executions. If we are good learners then it will be relatively easy but if not, then learning can become tiresome.
Learning to learn means not only to start learning something but also to continue learning once a certain mastery has been reached with the aim of achieving effectiveness but also efficiency. It consists of the ourselves engaging in applying what we have learned in a variety of situations by identifying ways in which we learn but also in which we mentally obstruct ourselves. Often, we learn new skills but do not apply them to challenging situations. An interesting aspect of learning is the importance placed on what is being learned. If we do not clearly perceive the value, we tend not to pay the necessary attention.
The learning context directly influences how learning takes place. We make sense of the surrounding environment and, in turn, we produce feedback on our efforts to generate the relevant actions. The type of motor tasks, the way we receive information on how to execute them, the model we imitate, the prevailing social nature and, especially, our own expectations also have an impact when facing a learning challenge. Therefore, in order to learn to ski properly, we must be able to balance the information we receive and the information we actually use.
Faced with our own inability, as beginners we became dependents on the circumstances and the instructor to learn how to ski. As already skiers, if we are predisposed to our own learning we do not question whether or not what we are about to learn will be useful because we concentrate on our own development, which results in a more practicable self-learning process.
The main problem in most ski teaching methods is that they do not pay enough attention to how people learns. Methodological developments and pedagogical practices should include neuroscience, psychology, and limit biomechanically oriented approaches or redundant technicalities. Perhaps the problem lies with instructors’ trainers themselves who do not yet know enough about the scientific research on how our brain learns.
Just as a ski coach develops the technique in his athletes and the instructor configures it from the initial levels, it is also fundamental to have notions about the neuroscience and the psychology of learning. It is common to believe that learning means taking more lessons and completing more training sessions but this does not guarantee better learning or technical improvement, so it is important to think about teaching and training in a different way. Therefore, each professional should embark on his or her own path towards neurolearning research.
Learning to learn allows the development of the following aspects:
- On our personal side it collaborates in eliminating the fear of skiing as we ski, to face our own abilities, to surpass ourselves, to relate to the environment, to discover the movements and sensations of our own body and the taste for sliding.
- Psychologically, to control intrusive thoughts through the practice of concentration, to stimulate challenges, and the overcoming of obstacles.
- Sensitively, to develop the ability to observe, to experiment with different sensations, to stimulate bodily sensitivity, to become aware of the environment, space, time, and energy, to make an effort, to develop intuition and adaptive creativity.
Essential learning skills
- While commitment is an important characteristic in learning, patience is closely linked to it since it promotes its constancy, contrary to impatience that hinders the achievement of the defined objectives. Patience allows to efficiently regulate the consumption of psychological energy applied to learning, being able to learn faster and with less fatigue. On the contrary, at being impatient we resist learning little by little and tend not to learn from our own mistakes which are generally attributed to inappropriate external situations. The use of patience collaborates in maintaining focus on the present, applied in the construction of movements and actions that must be executed in the here and now, especially in critical situations. Patience allows us not only to accept our own limits but also to overcome them gradually.
- Courage is another essential skill to overcome the fear of failure and frustration. To assume possible failures with courage is to admit our own mistakes and attribute them as beneficial because, although they are not enjoyable, they allow us to realize which aspects need to be improved. A good learner is one who stops being a victim of his failures and recognizes his own responsibilities.
- If we experience satisfaction from what we have learned, we will generally tend to probe further and thus perfect our own learning system.
- By perceiving our inhibitions and resistances, through intuition we will be able to moderate them by promoting our own potentialities. This will allow us to be less defensive, less demanding but more confident in our perception of situations as we will reduce our mental distortions.
Changing towards learning
To learn is to overcome challenging and uncomfortable obstacles in situations where some are more easily mastered than others. To learn is to change but sometimes we deny changing to avoid the difficulty involved. If we really want to improve our skiing, then we must change even if we feel threatened or insecure in doing so.
Getting used to a proposal for a change by modifying our own attitude helps in this regard. A curious attitude toward what is different allows for an opportunity that can be seized or the simple act of questioning what benefits it can bring. In general, a greeting attitude towards change favors learning.
In the process of changing habits, an essential skill is to maintain our will to change. While old motor habits will not disappear completely, new ones will make skiing better. In deciding what to learn, we should assume the role of a beginner in that we wish to learn letting resistance go and trusting the process of learning a better skill, as well as be willing to change even though we perceive it as a threat, but in reality it is a challenge to be faced in order to become a better skier.
From the beginners stage we learn, among other things, to balance, to control speed and direction until the moment when we feel we are truly skiing. When reaching this stage, we normally have less incentive to continue learning and, although we can still improve everything we have learned, we settle into our comfort zone. Every now and then we ask ourselves what aspect we would like to change to make our skiing better. This is when the balance between accepting and changing our own skiing breaks down.
It is often heard that we would like to ‘learn’ how to ski better, when in fact what we are implying is that we would like to ‘know’ how to ski better; it is the learning effort we don’t like. So, it would be healthier to accept that we are not willing to make the effort to ski better but should also be aware that, if we are really interested, we can decide and dedicate ourselves to change our skiing. While most of us have an ambition, we can easily accept not to change, not to ski better. The important thing is to know what kind of skiers we want to be.
