Last evening I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful surprise 60th birthday party hosted by friends of mine in honor of a man who is deeply loved and respected by his friends and whose life has been shaped by his evolving relationship with the most tenderhearted of nature's creatures, horses. It's rare these days …
Tag: mastery
Virtuosity
"The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all." - Pablo Casals In many areas of life there is movement from coarse to fine. The development of motor skills, the forming of language skills and the generation of technical skills take time, there is almost no limit to how far you can …
Submitting to Mastery
Most hawks will stand on a falconer's glove within the first few minutes of being trapped from the wild. The hawk will likely puff himself up to look menacing and spread his wings to appear larger, but he will stand there and not bate (jump) from the glove despite his distrust and fear. It's a …
Building Blocks
To master anything you must first master the fundamentals. The fundamentals, those pesky building blocks that stand between the novice and the master, can be found in any activity you might consider. They are the scales and the chords on the piano, the coordination of the ailerons, rudder and elevator in the airplane, and prospecting, …
The Road to Truth
"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast." ~ Leonardo da Vinci The oscillation between theory and practice is fundamental to effective living. There are underlying principles behind all that is and each thing has a discoverable and …
Indispensable Self-Control
It takes time to develop proficiency and even more time to come to the point of mastery in any field of activity. That said, the more perfect the practice and the more consistent the progression, the less time is spent retracing steps and rebuilding foundational elements that have eroded with the passage of time spent …
Coarse to Fine
Movement toward mastery, be it in a sport, trade or hobby, is a progression from coarse to fine. In the beginning, things tend to be a little awkward. The fundamentals are a foreign concept and it can be hard to get through even the most basic exercises in relation to the task at hand. As …
Time is Elastic
October by Robert Frost O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to …
Kronos and Kairos
Kronos (Κρόνος) is an ancient Greek word meaning chronological or sequential time. It is measured by clocks, we tend to race against it and somewhere along the way we began to equate it with money. While virtually everything in modern civilization hangs upon this word, there is another type of time that is often overlooked, …
Mastery, Practice and Subtlety
The French have a saying: "Qui trop embrasse, mal etreint" which means, "he who embraces too much, has a weak grasp." What does it take to move from being a "Jack of all trades, master of none" to being a master of all trades? While there is value in have a breadth of skills and knowledge, …
Gregory Hake 