This sounds like a challenging situation. How were you able to move past this in order to be able to ask for more specific feedback when you needed it?
It’s not really exciting to say it, but:
1) I learned to identify, internally, what my emotions correspond to (most critically, if I’m frustrated, it’s probably because I’m practicing the wrong thing)
2) I’ve memorized a few phrases that tend to garner the feedback I need (“Can you be more specific?”, “Can you break that down in to smaller pieces?”, “I feel like there’s some little piece I’m missing that would make this all click together”, and “can you demonstrate slowly and narrate what you’re doing?”)
3) Most important, I have a strong CONCEPT of “this technique is actually a series of smaller techniques that I can drill separately”. It’s very hard to ask someone to break something down in to simpler steps when you’re stuck thinking about it as a single step. And I’ve broken things down often enough that I can communicate the idea to an instructor who doesn’t have it as a concept.
3rd one also helps me evaluate things in advance: “this skill is beyond me—I will need to do something smaller and simpler first, otherwise I’ll feel totally overwhelmed and have trouble learning.” The tricky bit is usually just finding smaller pieces, but that’s where an instructor is useful :)
It’s not really exciting to say it, but: 1) I learned to identify, internally, what my emotions correspond to (most critically, if I’m frustrated, it’s probably because I’m practicing the wrong thing)
2) I’ve memorized a few phrases that tend to garner the feedback I need (“Can you be more specific?”, “Can you break that down in to smaller pieces?”, “I feel like there’s some little piece I’m missing that would make this all click together”, and “can you demonstrate slowly and narrate what you’re doing?”)
3) Most important, I have a strong CONCEPT of “this technique is actually a series of smaller techniques that I can drill separately”. It’s very hard to ask someone to break something down in to simpler steps when you’re stuck thinking about it as a single step. And I’ve broken things down often enough that I can communicate the idea to an instructor who doesn’t have it as a concept.
3rd one also helps me evaluate things in advance: “this skill is beyond me—I will need to do something smaller and simpler first, otherwise I’ll feel totally overwhelmed and have trouble learning.” The tricky bit is usually just finding smaller pieces, but that’s where an instructor is useful :)
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Thanks :)