Learning theory, Juggling, and Taijiquan

I'm both a juggler and a taijiquan practitioner.  I've juggled for 16 years, and practiced martial arts for 10 (taijiquan for the past 7). 

I came across several confluences today. Michael Moschen is one of my favorite jugglers, has been since I first saw the contact juggling in Labyrinth.  I found this 37 minute segment from Michael Moschen today, where he discusses learning theory while performing excerpts from some of his famous tricks.  

I've also been reading Chen Zhonghua's site: practicalmethod.com.  There's a lot of discussion about how you have to do something before you can learn it. 

The confluences I noticed are (the times I list below are for the Michael Moschen video clip, links are to practicalmethod.com discussions or videos):

12:00 Only a juggler can follow the pattern, as only someone who knows taijiquan can tell if its being done right.  If they haven't done it to the point that they know it, they won't be able to follow it visually.

15:00 Michael teaches a simple finger trick, tells how to learn it, and shows the audience how.  Likely only a few of the people watching it bothered to pick it up. 

17:00 More on the learning process

19:00 How do you look at time.  Michael talks about space and exploring it around the 10:00 minute mark.

21:50  An approach to stillness, different from, but an interesting approach to proportional movement discussed here.

22:45  Fine tuning.  As in taijiquan, start with something, and start big, get feedback, and eventually the skill level will improve to where you can work with something smaller, and improve.  Big circle, small circle, no circle.

24:00 What spots don't move?  I'm not suggesting that the methods of getting a spot to not move are the same, or even close.  I'm fascinated that the same concept of moving some areas, and not moving others shows up in both places.

 35:30 Not knowing, and perpetuating not knowing in order to learn. 

I've found that learning to juggle (or ride a unicycle, or a new martial arts form) is similar in some ways.  Learning something new takes me a while.  I need to play with something for a long while (days, weeks, months, sometimes years) before I have a good idea of what it is. 

When I was learning to juggle clubs, it took me several hours practice every day for more than a week before I could keep them up (and this after several years of ball juggling).  I kept doing this for a couple weeks before I was more comfortable with them.  The second club trick I learned took a couple hours over a couple days.  Then something happened, as it had with ball juggling.  Once I've had a couple tricks down, I could pick up a new trick in a couple hours (often under an hour).  That doesn't mean that the display is polished, and certainly not that I'm ready to use it in a show, but I have it enough to remember it, and be able to practice it further without getting it too wrong (see deep practice, chunking, and a few other pieces of learning theory).  In other words, its not polished, but I have it, I can do it repeatible, and know the right feel for it.

A teacher, or guide is of infinite value.  It me months to learn how to juggle 3 balls.  I made many mistakes, learned habits that took a long time to undo, and had to figure out even the most basic patterns.  A good teacher can turn those months into hours. I occasionally have people walk up while I'm juggling and ask if I can teach them.  I've learned (through teaching) that some people can learn to juggle in under an hour.  Not that they're ready to put on a show (though I think they should, and then teach someone), but they can keep three balls in the air for at least a few tosses.

With juggling, the feedback is instantaneous.  If each hand has a ball, and one's in the air, you're doing ok.  If you've dropped something, then there's some improvements to make. 

Its much harder to get a similar feedback level in taijiquan.  You can't learn it by yourself.  There are rules and principles to follow, but without a lot of practice, with hands-on demonstrations and oversight by someone who knows taijiquan, a practitioner will never get it.  Even with demonstrations and oversight, a practitioner may take years to "get it".

Why?  Because there's no immediate discernible feedback to let the practitioner know what they're doing wrong.  A teacher is needed precisely because the practitioner doesn't know what to look for.  The feedback is there, but not available at a level that the practitioner will recognize.  That's what makes taijiquan so much harder.  And in some ways, so much more rewarding.