raise _your

 
Raise your hands

all those who can give perfect instructions.

 
 
 G'day G'day Folks,
 
Especially to those of you who are not reading this because you raised
both hands before opening the post.   <grin> 
 
Let's say for some reason you actually attempted to follow the
instruction to raise your hands and further let's say you practised it
till it was perfect.    The chances are that your hand raising would
be perfectly incorrect according to my map.   Your map of raising your
hand and my map are different.   Your body is different from mine and
what might be right for me is inevitably slightly wrong for you.
Check it out all you hand raisers out there.  
 
Did _you_ bend at the elbow?  
Did _your_ wrist rotate as you raised your hand? 
 
Not by the same amount as mine. 
 
Now here we meet one of nlp's little dictums.  
"If at first you don't succeed, try harder, make a greater effort." 
 
Nah.   Just threw that in because that _isn't_  the nlp approach. 
Unless your desired outcome is "trying."      <grin> 
 
The nlp dictum is usually expressed as,
 
"When at first you don't succeed, do something different."      
 
Get creative. 
 
Well one way to get the creative juices flowing is to connect concepts
aren't normally considered together.   
Shoes and nlp.  That sort of thing. 
 
For me in this instance it was a Chinese mathematical process called 
"Too much & too little"    This was way before the symbolic algebra so
methods were taught by example.   We are talking ancient wisdom here.
 
                                 00000000000000000000
                                 00                                00
                                 00           As if              00  
                                 00                                00
                                 00000000000000000000
 
An "As if" frame is provided for those who used to think they couldn't
do arithmetic once upon a time and were thinking of skipping off to
another post.  Well just you fire your resource anchors and stick
around now.  
 
A barrel holds 100 gallons.   It has some husked rice in it. 
The barrel is topped up with unhusked rice and then all the rice is
husked.    A barrel of unhusked rice yields 60 gallons of husked rice.
 
So, every 10 gallons of unhusked rice gives 6 gallons of husked rice. 
 
The mixture though yields 70 gallons.    
 
The Chinese method was to _  guess _ twice _.    
These guesses were deliberately not the correct answer.   
The method has even been called,  
"The method of double false position."    
 
Taking the first false position, 
Let there be 20 gallons of husked rice to start.   Then the barrel
would take 80 gallons of unhusked rice which would give 
20 + 8x6  =  20 + 48  =  68 gallons after husking     
 
Result = -2     ie two too few.  
 
Taking the second false position, 
Let there be 30 gallons of husked rice. 
This time dehusking would yield  30 + 7x6 = 72 gallons,  
 
Result = +2   ie two too many. 
 
OK if you now take a wild guess, and that can be wonderfully
therapeutic thing to do,  you may well see the answer is half way
between 20 and 30 gallons in this instance.  
 
The ancient Chinese had a more general procedure for finding the
solution.   If they had had symbolic algebra it would have looked
like,
 
Answer =  (Error1 x Guess2 - Error2 x Guess1) / (Error1 - Error2) 
 
WOW.   
 
To get the answer, one has to deliberately experiment with two false
positions and then allow personal self-adjustment to occur.
 
Mathematically if Error1 = Error 2 then the expression is meaningless.
 
No solution is possible then. 
 
What this means is that if someone were to seek to perfect something
by repeatedly following a single instruction then the very accuracy
with which they followed the instruction would preclude them from
finding success. 
 
Doesn't the Feldenkrais instructions for experiential relearning now
make total sense.   
 
How to relearn head turning.     
 
Turn your head while leaving your eyes focussed one spot.
Turn your eyes first, then your head,
Turn your eyes with your head.     
 
Always gentle.   
Always about right.  
Always opening up new possibilities. 
    
Maybe some of you will even listen with new understandings to
Learning Strategies "Option Generator" tape and notice certain
similarities. 
 
Who knows?