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Practice is an Art

In the previous articles we looked into the Preparation for Practice. and the Mental Workout and why it is the so powerful. Now we discover:

Practicing is an art, not a skill. A skill is something you can be taught in a certain number of lessons, while an art is something you learn slowly and gradually over your entire life. Whether you are a sculptor, a painter, a ballerina or a trombonist, you have to apply discipline in order to progress. The art of practicing is something you adhere to for a very long time, and you must master it to become great.

Most people look back on the lessons they had with their teachers and find that most of the time was spent on clean-up, various excerpts with the teacher and a tree. You're basically taught how to create an instant bonsai. We haven't really learned how to practice! And yet that's what we spend most of our time doing. We practice. Much of the time aspiring artist waste time or actually destroy their tree is in the practice studio at home. Why? Because they are impatient and look for instant bonsai.

Mindless practicing gets us into trouble. A daily routine can be a good and a bad thing. It's fine to go through many of the same exercises each day, but you shouldn't just be going through the motions. You must hold to a very, very high standard. The key to developing a great bonsai is to set these standards for yourself and apply them every time you pick up the tree.

You have to set goals for yourself and the tree when you are practicing. If you are working on a cascade, you should ask what the tree is accomplishing. What does it want? Is it looking to be a cascade, does it need a thicker lower branch, more secondary budding, wiring or other technique?

Your Most Important Tool: The Pencil! You must have a pencil there. Many bonsai enthusiast don't carry a pencil with them, and if they do, they don't use it enough. You need a pencil to work out all the ideas, future changes, and to correct mistakes as you make them. Trying to remember your mistakes is a major mistake. Think of your brain as a computer. . If your brain is seeing something and misinterpreting the message, and you don't correct your computer's software, it's going to make the same mistake again. The pencil is extremely important!

My Routine: I take a bench at a time and clean out weeds, clean the bench, rotate the tree, check the wire, add fertilizer, plus various little techniques that I've picked up over the years. It can take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes, depending on whether I'm trying to take it easy or wanting to cover every little nook and cranny.

The routine evolves slowly over time, although the foundations are always there. It starts with cleaning. Then I get busy with observing and health checks and finally I add some refinement technique to a single tree as needed. This refinement is anything that pops into my mind looking at the tree that will make it look just a little better. It also includes recording in a notebook what I hope to accomplish for this tree.

Take a Break: One of the biggest keys to successful practicing is resting. There are two types of rest, the rest in your practice session and the rest between practice sessions. The rest you take while practicing can be 10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes, even 10 minutes. Practice until you feel fatigued, then stop. Never practice until it becomes work because you can damage the tree.

Practice longer periods when it feels comfortable to do it. Don't practice with a feeling of fatigue, and don't put your watch on to determine when you are going to come back. Come back when you feel fresh. This is a difficult thing for impetuous people. Most of us want things to happen instantly. We want to practice something and have the tree actually improve while we're there. Not surprisingly, bonsai does not improve right in front of our eyes or overnight! A lot of the improvement happens over the long season, and when we as artist allow our brains sort things out for us.

Next, the whole point of practicing is to improve. Learn how Read More