Talent, Effort and Dedication

How Far Will They Take You?

Occasionally, someone compliments me by remarking that I am a talented photographer. I accept comments like this graciously and enthusiastically - it's always nice when someone appreciates my work. But I realize that talent isn't what made me a photographer.  

For most of my life, I was a casual snap-shooter. I took bad photographs for decades. When I look back over my albums from those years, I don't see much evidence of talent shining through. 

After seeing some awe-inspiring photo exhibits, I came to realize that cameras could do a lot more than I thought. There was more to photography than the faded, poorly composed rubbish that I was picking up regularly at my neighborhood drugstore.

Eventually, I dedicated myself to becoming a serious photographer. I felt a burning desire to make photos like the ones that had impressed me in those shows. I dedicated time to learning everything that I could about cameras and the photographic process. But even as I was learning and developing skills, I still made lots of bad photos.

Talent didn't make me a photographer. Work and honest self-evaluation were the most critical factors in my development. I took lots of photos, rated my progress, devised new approaches, and went out and shot some more. Over and over and over again. Over time, I learned a lot and improved my skills in the process.


The Diamond Under The Mountain

I have met people with a real talent for photography, people who have impressed me with a natural gift for composition or a sense for finding fascinating subjects. Some of these folks have impressive portfolios. Some have modest portfolios that show untapped promise. And some are casual snap-shooters who upload mostly unimpressive photos to social media on occasion. 

All of these people have talent, but only some of them have achieved impressive results. The difference is in the effort and determination that they have committed toward achieving those results.

Talent is potential. Exceptional talent will let someone achieve more in the same amount of time or with the same amount of effort. But without effort, that talent will remain unfulfilled. Talent is a diamond buried under a mountain. You'll have to dig deep before you can access its full value.


Limitations

A lack of talent does enforce some limitations. Most people will never compete in a professional sporting event or sing on stage at a famous opera house. The people who make it to that level all have extraordinary talent. But talent didn't put them on the stage or the playing field. Top performers typically dedicate countless hours toward developing and maximizing their talent. 

A person with average talent can achieve impressive results by committing themselves to hard work and a plan for making the best of the abilities that they have. Maybe they won't discover a diamond under their personal mountain, but they'll find other beautiful and valuable assets. In many cases, their lives will be more fulfilling for having put in the effort.


A Weakness Exposed

I have been blessed with some degree of talent, and I am thankful for all that those talents have enabled me to achieve. But there are plenty of areas in my life where I lack talent to an embarrassingly painful degreed.

A lack of scholastic talent emerged as a critical weakness when I went to college (university, for international readers). It wasn't just that I struggled to get good grades. I plunged into a downward spiral that led to some of the most difficult and disappointing years of my life.  

I read very slowly. It takes me three to six weeks to read an average-sized novel. I know people who can finish the same book in an evening or two. 

That might not sound like a big problem, but it became a serious disadvantage when I started studying at the university level. I struggled to complete assignments, I fell desperately behind semester after semester, and my grades were horrible. Not just bad - horrible! I was frustrated, exhausted, depressed, ashamed, and I felt utterly hopeless. I feared that I would never earn a degree, and I had no idea what I could do to reverse the damage.

With each new semester, I resolved to do better, to study harder, but I still struggled. In fact, things got worse. Much worse.

Finally, after it seemed that all hope of ever getting through college was lost, I had a breakthrough. I resolved to do whatever it took to earn good grades and complete my degree. 

I scheduled as many hours of study time as I could find available each week, and I wouldn't let these periods be skipped or interrupted. I found the quietest places on campus and spent hours there every day (effectively hiding) in order to avoid distraction. In my notebooks, I paraphrased every paragraph that I read as I was reading it. I imagined myself standing before a classroom full of students, explaining the material. I needed to understand every concept and every detail in order to avoid looking like a fool.

I didn't gain any scholastic talent overnight. The Learning Fairy didn't cast a magic spell on me. My reading pace was still ponderously slow. 

But by refining my approach to studying in a way that compensated for my weaknesses, I went from being an academic embarrassment to getting A's in three-fourths of my classes. I completed my degree, and I went on to have a long, successful career in a field where continuous learning is demanded.

Those speedy readers obviously have more talent than I do in this area. I doubt that I could ever survive in law school or medical school - which is just fine, because they would never accept me anyway. But I was able to find a way to overcome my academic weaknesses. The dedication and effort required were significant, but it did prove to be possible. 

Desire and commitment and hard work can move anyone forward toward any dream. If you have talent, you'll be able to go a little farther, but you're still going to have to work hard to get there. If you don't have a lot of talent, you can still do many of the things that you dream of doing. 

Never let a perceived lack of talent discourage you. Maybe you don't lack talent at all; you might need to try something different in order to develop your unique potential. Keep working at it. Keep trying new approaches. Good things are waiting for you. There are diamonds hiding under the mountain, but it will take work to find them.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2015 The Exploring Tango Blog

www.exploringtango.com

All Rights Reserved

   

   

Why Feedback In Class Is A Big Deal

A Perspective On Teaching Styles

Some years ago, I signed up for a bunch of tango classes at a respected school in my area. They had a program where you could pay one price and take as many classes as you'd like. It seemed like a good deal. I was eager to work hard and learn as much as I could.

I knew some of the teachers from previous classes, but some were unfamiliar to me. It turns out that one of them was very well known in the tango world. I didn't realize this when I signed up. I had been dancing for two or three years, but there was still a lot that I didn't know about the scene. 

This particular teacher - we'll call her Miss Big Deal - attracted a lot of students to her classes. Space in the room was tight but not unmanageable.

The classes followed the standard "one sequence per week" format, where the students spend an hour learning a single, moderately intricate series of movements that are meant to be performed together. The teacher explains the sequence in chunks starting at the beginning. The unspoken objective is to get through the entire sequence by the end of the class and hopefully pick up some technical tips along the way.

This isn't my favorite format for learning - for a whole host of reason that I'll save for another blog post - but it's very common. In my experience, most classes by most teachers follow this format. As a student, you deal with it and try to learn and remember as much as you can.


A Non-Learning Experience

After years of classes, I find it fairly easy to learn a new step sequence. The teacher instructs the class to do A-B-C, so I do A-B-C. They ask us to add D-E-F, so I do. Unless one of the steps in the sequence presents a technical challenge, or unless it goes poorly with multiple partners, I tend not to ask many questions. I figure that the teacher needs to spend their time with the students who are struggling.

That said, I do appreciate when a teacher passes on an occasional tip or insight. Technique can always be improved. Ideally, the teacher will notice something that I'm doing incorrectly or ineffectively and mention or demonstrate how I might go about improving it. Even in a fairly large class, it's possible to pass on a bit of feedback to each student.

Miss Big Deal didn't offer much advice. She made no attempt to wander through the class offering suggestions to individual students.

Miss Big did spend time with couples who asked her for help directly - typically those who were having a hard time learning the sequence. I applauded her for spending time with them, but she didn't share any information from those discussions. There was no follow up announcement to clarify for the entire class a point that one or two students had raised.

On two occasions, I was able to get Miss Deal's attention. I asked her to help me understand why something wasn't working. She would motion for us to execute the sequence, watch silently for a few seconds, and then walk away without making a comment. The expression on her face was one of utter disinterest.


Seeking Answers

I probably shouldn't have wasted my time in that class, but since it was part of a package deal, I kept at it for five months. During that time I received no feedback from this teacher, none whatsoever. No feedback was offered spontaneously. No feedback was given when I asked for it. 

I might have tried to ask a few more times, but there was a constant frenzy for her attention in class, particularly from a handful of people who seemed to require explanations for everything. I wondered how they managed to arrive at the school on time without her explicit direction.

Undeterred, I went to the front desk one day and asked whether I could schedule a private lesson with Miss Biggie. They informed me that Miss Deal's private lessons were booked solid for months in advance and that cancellations were rare. I couldn't even BUY feedback from this highly-regarded expert.


For The Record

The class was effectively a complete waste of my time. I forgot the sequences nearly as quickly as I learned them. There wasn't much discussion of technique as we memorized those soon to be forgotten steps. Occasionally, she would mention a mistake to avoid. Corrective feedback was of course, non-existent. I didn't even see her offering words of encouragement.

In all fairness to Miss Big Deal, however, I would like to mention a more positive experience. I took a weekend seminar with her a few months later. The information presented was well organized and helped me increase my understanding of tango significantly. I didn't receive any feedback, of course, but it was still a valuable educational experience. 


The Importance Of Giving Feedback

I give feedback to every one of my students in every single class.

Why? Because I care about their progress. Because I want them to become better dancers quickly and directly, not haphazardly. Because I want them to get some value for the time and money and effort that they have invested into their time with me.

I let each student know, in a gentle and supportive way, where their weaknesses are and where they'll need to focus their efforts in order to improve.

I try to catch students in the act of making a mistake, even if I have to ask them to repeat a movement a few times. I want them to understand the problem as it occurs in real time. 

I'll demonstrate the proper technique side by side with the way that they were doing it. I want the difference to be absolutely clear in their minds so they know WHAT they'll need to practice and WHY it's important.

Feedback is absolutely critical to the learning process. Why do people take classes for years and not make much progress? It's probably due to a lack of feedback. If you don't know what you're doing wrong, you're not going to fix it.

If you want to be happily mediocre for the rest of your life, don't bother to look at the details. Just keep doing what you've always done. But if you really want to improve, the quickest and most effective way is to address your weaknesses.

Feedback is a big deal. I'm not a big deal. I don't have private lessons booked solid for months in advance. But I know that I have helped every student who has walked into one of my classes with even a modest desire to improve to do so. I coached them, I encouraged them, and I helped them to become a better dancer than they were when they walked in the door that day. That might not be a big deal, but it's good enough for me.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2015 The Exploring Tango Blog

www.exploringtango.com

All Rights Reserved