Bring Home Your Groceries

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. - Leonardo da Vinci

I am noticing a common pattern among you, my students, and I can sadly report that I occasionally fell into the same trap at your age: you don’t bring your groceries home! Going to your lesson to receive instruction from your teacher is a little bit like going to the grocery store. You go to the store, fill your cart with items, pay, and then bring the food home to eat so you can remain alive, healthy, thriving as a person. But a lot of you are in the habit of casually leaving the bags behind at the cash register!

Week after week, some of you walk in the studio without having put in a real effort to solve the problems addressed in the previous lesson. What you get then is what I call a “repeat lesson,” when the teacher has to repeat and explain the same concepts all over again. It is hard for you to improve significantly and difficult for a teacher to move forward when, lesson after lesson, the same material and the same notions must be revisited.

Some of you do try to a certain extent, but several of you revert to the same old bad habits whenever something feels slightly uncomfortable or requires real effort to accomplish. Fight this urge and tackle your bad habits!

You pay good money for your lessons! Why not take full advantage of the knowledge that a teacher is trying to transmit to you? Why not commit to trying wholeheartedly to implement the techni