'Level' Again

​The couple of emails on the “next level“ has struck a chord with a lot of people.

That’s good, because practising basics is something that has become overlooked in the universal rush for development.

An example of the value of practising one thing really well was the statement Bruce Lee, the Martial Artist, made about how the opponent who knew 10,000 moves did not worry him so much as the opponent who had practised one move 10,000 times.

Back in the 1960s, I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a clinic given by the drummer Joe Morello, who played with the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

During the clinic, he demonstrated techniques and passages of exquisite timing, rhythm and dynamics.

He then went on to show how he practised the basics; rolls, paradiddles, flams, et cetera, fundamental exercises to learn in the catalogue of percussion.

And then proceeded to show how they were employed to construct the beautiful and seemingly complex pieces with which he had dazzled us earlier.
Most of the display was a combination of basic drills, sequenced into a permutation in a tempo that emerged in the rhythmic musicality that was stunning.

Asked how often he went back to these basic exercises, he answered ‘Daily’.

Frank Zane, the only bodybuilder to seriously challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger during his reign as the Greatest Ever, spoke of doing the basics well, with such mental concentration and singular attention to the movement that he regarded his training as his own personal Meditation.

Which brings us nicely back to the phrase, ‘it ain’t whatcha do as the way whatcha do it’.

Think on that. 
See where you can resurrect some element in life at which you can excel, or be very good at, or even develop a basic competence, which could make an enormous difference to your life.

You need to look for it.
There is always something there, something in your life that may have been forgotten in the relentless imperative we experience as living.

Take the time.
Find it.
Do it.