Skip to main content

The Long Game

I was talking to a long time friend of mine who is now a yoga teacher. He is the unlikeliest of yoga teachers. He runs his own factory, had no connection with spirituality or philosophy and joined yoga out of curiosity because he wanted to accompany his mom. His mom stopped, and he continued and continued. 

For 12 odd years. 

At the end of which he knows enough to be a teacher - somewhat, in his words. And he started teaching a few people,assisting the experts in teaching and so on and so forth. The line of yoga he is a teacher is in - is the world renowned Iyengar Yoga. 

It has no certifications, no fixed hours, no syllabus and follows a rigorous method of learning. People learn for years and there is a method and an order for it. 

All around, while there are others offering quick fix teachers certifications and yoga courses, this method continues to follow a time honoured tradition of building skills and expertise. 

This is not about whether it is right or wrong and all that. 

As we spoke the other day, it set me thinking that there is incredible value in sharpening a skill. A skill is sharpened over years. 

As a consultant - my facilitation skills is one such skill that I have worked and continue to work. In the last nearly 2.5 years, I have logged in approximately a thousand facilitation hours and every single time, a little bit of it gets sharpened. And I have miles to go before I can say, I have this skill - there are people who I look up to and they are exponentially better than I am.


And yet, every grain of sand builds the metaphorical bridge and I am able to see my evolution pre and post this thousand hours…And this is kind of how my friend put it for his yoga practice as well. In the space of a year, he has grown immensely as a teacher, as a student and a practitioner. If that isnt growth, what is...

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why does elearning exist?

 Elearning is one of those niches that does not deserve to exist. Yes, it was a novelty 20 years ago, but not now. It cannot exist. But somehow it does. Disclaimer: I used to head a content team once upon a time. And I used to ask those whom I hired - tell me the last thing you learnt from an e-learning. The answer is - pretty much nothing (and this is a good decade ago).  Why?  If you want to learn a recipe, you go to Youtube, or Reels or something like that. If you are terribly old fashioned - as in, you read - then you go to a website and read the recipe and make it.  Most other things you learn by doing or learning on the job or asking an expert.  If you have to learn something in depth, then there are other ways.  So, where does e-learning fit in all this? E-learning is one of those products that the customer hates, but has no choice, because someone has decided it is the best way. For instance, you have to learn a new CRM or some other product - you w...
Post a Comment
Read more