Current state of mind:

If you have been following me for a while, chances are that you have heard me refer to the 4 stages of learning:

• Unconscious Incompetence
• Conscious Incompetence
• Conscious Competence
• Unconscious Competence

I feel understanding these stages of learning is super important to set proper expectations around the learning process to stay motivated to continue to learn. I’ll delve more into these individual stages in the future, and these stages also apply to instructors.

I feel it’s really important to realize that instructors are students as well, there’s no skill level high enough where you are done learning. I love the saying that an instructor has to “outstudent” their students to ensure those students continue finding value to keep learning from that instructor.

It’s an interesting perspective to be in as an instructor to realize that you are in the cycle of the four stages of learning and also helping others navigate their way through the same stages in their own journey. In this light, I stumbled upon an article that has multiple references to a 5th stage of learning from different researchers.

The reference that resonated with me the most was the one that referred to “reflective competence” by David Baume, explained in the following snippet:

“As a fifth level, I like what I call 'reflective competence'. As a teacher, I thought "If unconscious competence is the top level, then how on earth can I teach things I'm unconsciously competent at?" I didn't want to regress to conscious competence - and I'm not sure if I could even I wanted to! So, reflective competence - a step beyond unconscious competence. Conscious of my own unconscious competence, yes, as you suggest. But additionally looking at my unconscious competence from the outside, digging to find and understand the theories and models and beliefs that clearly, based on looking at what I do, now informs what I do and how I do it. These won't be the exact same theories and models and beliefs that I learned consciously and then became unconscious of. They'll include new ones, the ones that comprise my particular expertise. And when I've surfaced them, I can talk about them and test them.”

This resonates with me so much, I'll write a blog on this but I want to share my inspirations with you all subscribed to this newsletter first, send me any thoughts if you have any. 

Song I’m currently jamming to:

David Ruela’s Road To Wonderland song is magical, he is now my favorite kiz producer.

Also, D&L Beats came out with a new mix called Reconnection, it’s pretty dope as well!

Recent content:

I did create some musical tracks that I will use as musical guides for the musicality course I’m working on. I upload those tracks to Soundcloud to show the image I shared to illustrate a very common and simple musical pattern of a 2 count sound occuring every 4 counts, sliding down an 8-count measure so the pairings would be 1 & 5, 2 & 6, and 3 & 7. Did this breakdown make sense to you?

Join the musicality course email list and support the course by filling out a survey and/or purchasing a limited pre-sale spot for $27 for up to 50% off the course launch price!

I also created a newsletter section on my site so if this is the first newsletter you are receiving from me, you can check my site to skim through all of the rest.

There is also an events page on my website so you can see all of my upcoming events in one place!

Cool video I’m watching:

This video of a tango performance by two men in suits was super impressive!

Upcoming Travel:

I have several events on my calendar so far, maybe I’ll see some of you at these events if they are close enough to you, all the events listed are on my website’s event page for more info and links to purchase passes:

8/5 - 8/16 - Chicago, IL; Future Zouk & Neokiz Workshops in Chicago

9/10 - 9/22 - San Francisco, CA & Portland, OR; I’m currently only teaching in Portland, but I might do something small in San Francisco.

10/21 - 11/1 - Phoenix, AZ; Neokiz Workshops in Pheonix

Question of the week:

Does becoming aware of the four stages of learning motivate you or discourage you to continue learning?

Thanks for reading!

Thoughts and feedback on the newsletter or on anything covered within are always welcome, just hit reply. The thing I love most about writing this newsletter is follow-up interactions with readers.

Charles