I knew that experience is crucial – and thats why action is too – but I never imagined that our wrong learning behavior would affect us in such ways..

thank your for thinking.

It’s perfectly okay to accept these truths, but only accept them for what they are: The truth according to the other guy.

This is where urban legends come from. We hear something, and accept it without ever checking the facts. Like the myth that you’ll catch a cold if you don’t dress yourself warm enough on a cold day. The common cold (and the flu) are both viruses. You won’t get them just because you are cold. You get them from other people, and what do we do in the winter? We huddle up, and close all the windows. No air circulation and lot’s of people in a room. You couldn’t make a virus more happy.

In “things you can do with the body” (dancing, martial arts, playing an instrument) accepting someones truth isn’t good enough. You will never master what you are learning without experiencing it for yourself.

What’s more, either it’s wrong, or right. There is no “almost got it” in throwing a punch. Either you do it the right way, or it’s not a punch. It’s here that we often lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that we almost have it. So we repeat the “almost right” (read: wrong) punch over and over again. Training ourselves to perform that wrong punch. if it didn’t work, scrap it and begin anew.

If you don’t scrap it you’ll end up creating another filter. “it should look something like this” You keep working with the one that went wrong.

All in it’s a hard concept to truly convey through writing. I think Peter had done a better job of it than I ever can. If you want more reading on the subject might I suggest you picking up one of these two books by Peter:

Principles of effortless power
Ancient wisdom, new spirit

“Principles” is centered around his martial art, “spirit” is more about the mind.