Learnin like a SPED
Well Structured deliberate practice can make you great at what ever you want, no matter how you think or comprehend.
I hate this circle with every fiber of my being!
I mentioned this before, I am not a natural at anything especially picking up something new, I don't always "Get It". I think this goes back to my special education days. I learned after high school witch literally tought me nothing more than how to read books about Sam, Ann and Nip... Seriously! I needed to put in a bout load of hard work before i could even be ready to go on to my secondary education with most people take for granted. I ended up graduating with homers and a 3.9 GPA... To make it worse it was art school and half way through I realized I was color blind. Sitting in color theory class looking at those circles with the dots in it and seeing nothing made my blood run cold, I had to face it from this moment forward, yet another thing I could not do naturally. Nothing for me came easy is what I am saying. I was even Special Ed in art.
So now I want to be funny. I was not the class clown growing up so this is not natural to me. But I am good at learning my job, what ever it is through "deliberate practice". I try to learn the insides and outs witch takes work and determination, reading about your industry and working to learn about what your working on. So I know why things are important and what each task impacts in the chain of events, etc.
I have to do this for myself because I never just "Get It". I think that is why I am here, to help others that just don't always "Get It". But the good thing about this way of learning is that outside of the corporate world it called "deliberate practice" and it is what makes outstanding performers in Sports and Music even the Military utilize Deliberate Practice.
So becoming the best ----- you can be: Let's remember that lesson from Ben Franklin and do it yourself. see my post Deliberate Practice
Step 1) Knowing what you want to do: the keyword is not "what" but "knowing"! Because the demands of achieving exceptional performance are so great over so many years, no one has a prayer of meeting them without full commitment to it. You have to "know" what you want to do, not suspect it, or be inclined toward it, or just thinking about it. But Know it!
Step 2) So let’s say that you’ve settled on what you want to achieve, even if it's only the next step in your general direction towards your goal. The first challenge in designing a system of “deliberate practice” and identifying the immediate steps you need to take.
In a few fields those steps are clear, if you want to playthe piano the exact skills you must learn and the order in which you learn them have been worked out by many generations of teachers and instructors.
If you want to be an accountant, lawyer or doctor these are well-established curriculums and you have teachers to guide you and so on.
What if you are like me and want to be a comedian that wants to inspire and teach people. There is no published curriculum, no syllabus or list of materials that must be studied and mastered. So deciding which skills and abilities to work on and how to do it can be daunting.
We could use help from those with perspective. We can see mentors in a new way, not just as wise people to turn to for guidance but as experienced masters in our field. Who could advise us on the skills and abilities we need to acquire next and can give us feedback on how we're doing correct and what we need to improve. At least that's the ideal mentor, but finding such a person isn't easy… I haven't found it.
So if you are like me and you are on your own ( A "do it your self" finding your way to the next skill kind of situation... ) It is possible to pursue the “general” principle witch is "practice activities", in my case as a comedian it's highly valuable to get others feedback. So as a comedian I need to get on stage as much as possible. Witch means open mics and performing in free shows in bars and coffee houses, anywhere you can get someone to hear you. I can’t hone my skills in the same room with the same general audience members. So with that said what are you going to say when your on that stage? What about things like writing the jokes, learning joke structure or how to rehearse?
Now we need to practice:
The opportunities to practice fall into two general categories: A) opportunities to practice directly, apart from the actual use of the skill or ability. The way a musician practices apiece before performing. I would learn my set as a memory, like I lived it, make the joke a video in my head not words, but pictures, sounds, and emotions... Not words I finally learned to not do the words thing... Great thing I learned from the Greg Dean book on step by step to stand up.
B) opportunities to practice the skills to produce the work itself, practicing directly, this is more complicated... Here is where I learn how to find my topics to write about, then actually write everyday, day after day. Then find bits you can get out of that writing that can be salvaged. Put that together then test these bits with multiple groups. Record the feedback, listen to the feedback re-edit the bits repeat cycle over and over until you have a clean streamlined set.
The hard part is that you only get 5 minutes to work with at a time. Limitations of the world of open mics. So you have to work in small chunks if you are a story teller like myself you learn to put these together as puzzle pieces
I had a hard time repeating my sets over and over at open mic nights thinking that the other comedians would judge me for not always having new stuff. I say screw that. I have to still learn how to be on a stage and I want to end up with a great joke, rather than stand up there and tell an "ok" joke and then drop the "f" bomb for effect..
The audience ( mostly comedians ) will have heard it a few times but it's ok to do this at open mike. That's what is for. Don't play to the band as they say. Your goal is not on the comedians it's you becoming better and making non comedians laugh.
Learning about my sub-skills like storytelling, improv, writing, character choices, acting, reading out loud, using a mike properly, stage picture, using the NYC subway system is helpful, and speech and story writing to inspire in my case is very important. And you need to learn to Marketing yourself! These skills are all so much different then just standing on the stage telling some jokes.
I am not here to be an over night success. I am the old fission hard work and the talent will come kind of guy. So this is my version of Special Ed Comedy learning... So who wants to take the short bus to the next open mike with me?
I will make the Short bus Kool!