درسنامه تفسیری

Slow ls Smooth – Commentary

Hello, this is AJ, welcome to the commentary for our slow is smooth lesson.

So there I was in the ocean, attached to a giant kite. This kite looked like a parachute. It was flying above me and the strings came from the parachute in the air and attached to my waist, like around my stomach area to a belt. I could feel the kite pulling me in the water. I struggled to control the kite. Suddenly, a powerful wind caught the kite /wu:/ and I shot out of the water. And then very quickly crashed face first into the water /^hə/.

It hurt. Water shot up my nose, went up my nose. The kite continued to drag me through the water and the waves face first, with my face in the water. I felt fear. I felt panic. I couldn’t control the kite. Finally, I managed to get my head above the water, breathing heavily, feeling panic, feeling fear and controlled the kite enough to keep my head above the water and breathe. And then, in addition to fear and panic I felt extreme frustration, because this continued to happen again and again and again. I was taking a kite surfing lesson in Hawaii on the island of Maui. I was trying to learn to kite surf and I had already had many lessons before, but every time the same thing happened. I couldn’t control the kite. I felt fear and panic as the powerful wind pulled the kite, shot me out of the water, dragged me through the water face first again and again and again.

My mind ran amuck with panic. My thoughts jumped around wildly as I tried to remember all of these suggestions that the instructor gave me. I said damn it, I can’t do this. Why can’t I do this? Everything happened too fast and the wind and the kite were too powerful. Finally, I got back to shore, exhausted /hə/. And I asked the instructor for advice and once again the instructor gave me many different suggestions, many different tips. He told me how to use my hands to control the kite. How to make the power less. How to make the power more. How to move it in different ways. What to do with my body. How to stand up on my board. So I tried to remember all of his instructions and went back into the water again. I tried like hell. I tried like hell to do everything he told me.

But the problem was I couldn’t remember everything. I couldn’t think fast enough, because everything was happening so quickly, so suddenly, so I couldn’t remember everything in the moment. I couldn’t remember all of the nuances of his advice. Because when the wind suddenly increased, suddenly became powerful, everything happened /clap/ in an instant and once again I shot out of the water. Once again I failed to control the kite. Once again I got dragged through the water /h^h/. To be honest, I almost quit. But, I decided to stick with it. I decided to stick with it and keep trying. But I tried something new. I realized that the normal lessons were not doing it.

I was not improving for some reason so I tried something new. I went home and I stopped taking lessons for a couple weeks. But at home I tried to practice kite surfing in a different way. What I would do is visualize kite surfing in the water, right, so I would imagine that I was in the water and kite surfing, but I was at home just on dry land. But I visualized that I was kite surfing in the water and then super slowly and carefully I practiced each action, each movement for controlling the kite, especially for controlling the kite when there was a sudden gust of wind, a sudden strong wind. That was my problem and unfortunately on Maui there are many gusts of wind, many sudden strong winds.

The advantage was that at home I could practice very slowly. I practiced the slow is smooth method. So at home I would imagine that I was in the water, imagine the kite was above me and then I would imagine a sudden strong wind coming and then very slowly and carefully I’d practice each action that I needed to take with a strong sudden gust of wind. I practiced smoothly, releasing the power from the kite. I practiced smoothly, moving the kite forward. I practiced lifting my body up to stand on my board. I imagined all of this and I actually did the movements very carefully and slowly while sitting on the floor. I repeated this again and again and again, very, very slowly and carefully at home, each day at home. I did this for about two weeks.

I did it until the movements became automatic, so I didn’t have to think about them. I practiced them super slowly, super slowly, super slowly. Very, very precisely and carefully. And then finally, maybe after a week or so, a little bit faster and a little bit faster and a little bit faster and a little bit faster until I could do them at full speed perfectly. Then I went back for another lesson and the next time I finally controlled my kite and I stood up on my board and rode on my kite board for the first time. So I can attest to the value of slow is smooth training. It was the key to finally learning to kite surf.

So why is slow is smooth training, why is slow smooth training so effective? Many different reasons, but I think one of them is that slow training requires intense concentration, intense mindfulness, intense awareness of your mind and your body, and even your emotions. See, when you practice something fast it’s very easy to be sloppy. Sloppy means not careful, not precise, not exact. It means you make a lot of mistakes when you’re sloppy. When you practice something too fast then you can create, you can actually practice bad habits, so that you’re learning it and practicing it in the wrong way.

So fast training can be sloppy. You can do things quickly sometimes without concentration, you’re kind of distracted but you still do it in a fast uncontrolled way. But, super slow training requires careful concentration and it allows for perfect performance.

When I was in the water kite surfing, my mind ran amuck in the water. Too much was happening at the same time and it was a scary situation for me. The waves were kind of big and they were splashing me in the face. I had this kite, which I couldn’t control, dragging me through the water which was also kind of scary. Then I was trying to do all of these new movements using my hands to go forward and back, to control the power of the kite and also moving it left and right to control the direction of the kite and then trying to use my body to balance onto a board, which I’d never done before and trying to do all of this in the water while my mind was running amuck.

So my mind was kind of going crazy jumping around and I couldn’t stay calm and focused and I couldn’t think clearly enough or fast enough. Everything happened so quickly, too fast for me to remember all of the different points, all of the different advice from the instructor, so it was very hard to learn it for me, right in the middle of the water with everything happening so quickly.

The slow training, what it does is it conditions your mind and your body to do exact movements correctly and eventually automatically, so you don’t have to think about them anymore. Then you can do them very quickly. That’s why we say slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Slow training eventually creates fast automatic skills. So, with slow training you’re conditioning your mind first, it’s a mental process first to perform correctly and automatically.

Because some skills they’re too hard to do correctly and fast at the same time when you’re beginning, when you’re learning them.

Let’s talk about another example that you might understand. English pronunciation, pronouncing words correctly, having a good accent, a nice clear accent, an American accent, or if you prefer British or Australian access. Well, one problem people have with pronunciation training is pronouncing the words correctly during normal speech in a normal conversation. Think about it. If you’re talking, if you’re having a normal conversation everything happens much too fast, you can’t think about pronunciation. You can’t think about the position of your tongue, the position of your mouth, where the vibration is happening. Oh, on this sound the vibration is in my throat or in my mouth or in my nose. You can’t think about all of these small points for correct pronunciation, when you’re talking to someone.

It’s happening too fast. You try to just think about the meaning of the words and the ideas and what you want to say, you’re just trying to do that. So how can you learn to pronounce correctly at full speed? Well, you really can’t do it by practicing only at full speed. This is where slow is smooth training can be very effective. First, you practice making the sounds very slowly.

Let’s say, for example, you have a problem with the R /^r/ sound /rə/ right. The first thing you might do is just practice that one sound very slowly and carefully. So, for example, in my new pronunciation course which is almost ready. In my new pronunciation course I first teach you a sound, a difficult sound like R /^r/ or like the TH /tʃ/ sounds or some of the difficult vowel sounds. And I do it with video and you can watch how my mouth moves and I tell you all of the small points. And first you do slow training, slow perfect careful training. What you’re doing is training your mind, training your concentration to make the sound exactly right.

Just like me practicing the kite surfing movements at home, right, you’re there, I could practice each little movement individually first. And then, next, I would put the different movements together, but again, very slowly and carefully so I could do them correctly and that’s what you could do with pronunciation and that’s what you will do in my pronunciation course. Soon you’ll practice doing some words, making the sounds slowly and then what’s the next step, of course, is to then gradually get faster, but very gradually not suddenly. So with kite surfing, again, I started doing the movements a little faster, a little faster each day. With pronunciation you do the same.

Maybe you get a paragraph that has many difficult sounds and first you practice pronouncing the words, the phrases, the sentences very slowly, very carefully. Then you practice doing them a little faster and then you practice doing them at full speed and then you might even practice saying them correctly at a very fast speed. And with the Effortless English Pronunciation Course, I actually do that, I give you three different speeds. I give you a slow training speed, a medium training speed and then a quite fast training speed. But you start slowly and carefully.

This month your homework is to do some slow training.

• Step one, pick a skill you want to improve.

It might be English pronunciation. It might be some sport, some physical activity, anything you want. You choose the skill, something that’s a little difficult for you that you want to improve.

• Step two, train this skill super slowly every day.

I mean super slow. It should feel painfully slow. It should feel so slow that you’d think it’s crazy to go so slow and don’t fret, don’t worry. Don’t fret about the slowness. Don’t fret about improving super slowly, it doesn’t matter don’t worry about that. Just trust this process. So train the skill very, very, very carefully and super slowly every single day.

• Step three, when you are doing slow training use perfect concentration, perfect accuracy. Notice everything. Make sure every little part is exactly right.

• Finally, step four, at the end of the month try to go a little faster and then a little faster and then a little faster for maybe a week and then finally, try the skill at full speed.

You will see the amazing benefit of slow smooth training.

I look forward to hearing about your success on Twitter, on our social site, wherever you want to tell me. I’ll see you next time, have a great day. Bye for now.