Some people are great with verbal memory, you tell them a name or a phone number and they can remember it for a long time.
There are people that works better with visual. You can tell them a name or a phone number, they will have to write it down to have any chance of recalling it. Gymnasts and dancers are really good with visual memory, they can recall motions in their mind as if it was videotaped. In exams, there are people that can recall ‘pages’ of information.
My mother can remember things from way back. However, she can ask the same question over and over again without remembering the conversation from a few minutes ago. However, she can be brilliant in gossips. Some people need to ‘feel’ before they can remember it.
In every day life, movements are driven by functional goals, as long as you can accomplish the end goal, you don’t really remember how it was done or any of the details. However, in internal martial arts, there are a lot of important finer details requiring muscular neural coordination that may be quite foreign.
Last week, a lot of you have problems picking up the new moves for good reasons. Learning a sequence of moves with so many details is challenging. To make things easier, learn complex things by breaking them down to bite-size pieces. Know what kind of learner you are and use that information to help you memorize the movements. Furthermore, you need to do it via the “onion layer” approach, peel one layer at a time. For example, understand the intent first, then memorize the framework and then fill in the important details.
Exercise
If you have not completed last week’s assignment. Do it now. Otherwise, practice a few extra rounds with visualization as well as details that you can remember.