Overcoming the difficulties of pushing your limits

[Bob]

You push yourself.  You get hurt.  If you're smart and you push yourself the "correct" way (whatever that is at the time), then you have a chance at true progress...

How do you deal with the pain while making this transition to the next level?

I'm not quite sure I'm asking the right question.  I'm not quite sure I can articulate what I mean exactly.  I have some vague ideas coming into mind, but I'm interested to hear what others say.

How do you push your limits?  And do so in a way that guarantees true solid progress?  And how do you deal with that transition, from the standpoint of everyday life and contintuing to do other things and from the standpoint of maintaining your current level of playing?

[jeremyjchilds]

I think it is good to (every once in a while) bit off a little more than you can chew.

Pushing limits is one of the breat thrills in life that makes one feel alive.
Trying to do that 30km hike in a day...Trying the "double" jump....getting in front of people and presenting a workshop....and yes, trying to memorize the "48"

It is at one's limit that he begins to learn about himself.

I think there are two qualifying remarks about this though...that should keep people from being mislead by what I just said

1) Reason for pushing the limits should be valid
         -Some people are constantly pushing thier limits because they do not want to spend time at thier limit due to pride. this is foolish. You see it all the time with sport-bike crashes

2) Timing and quantity of "limit pushing" should be valid.
        - Some people are always stressed because of thier overstretched life. I believe that the time to make a "stretching" decision, is usually the time when one is either stagnating or completely "on top" in whatever discipline you happen to be talking about.

[ted]

I must be a lazy bugger of the first water then because I have never been aware of pushing any limits in music or piano playing. Either that or I am just lucky in that fulfilment lies within my natural capacity.

[bernhard]

Adding to what Jeremy and Ted said above, make a distinction between challenging and impossible tasks when pushing yourself.

Trying to push yourself to do the impossible (something clearly out of your league) is what results in "hurt" (and later depression "I'm no good" and suicidal thoughts).

However, challenging situations are always (or seem to be) within grasp and usually with the right sort of effort they end up indeed firmly in your grasp. This generates enthusiasm, motivates and is highly empowering.

And of course, as you go to the next challenge, what was impossible gets closer until the moment it is no more impossible but just challenging.

Also very often you don't need to push yourself. Life has a funny way of doing that for you (which might explain lazy buggers like Ted )


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[alzado]

I have to agree with Ted.

I've learned that the repertoire for piano is just huge.  There are far more good composers out there whose work is still being published than the short list that gets most of the attention here.  (Do I even have to name them?)

So I have little difficulty finding lots of material that I admire without going "over the top."

Once and a while I take on more than I can chew.  Sometimes I've put a particular piece  aside because I estimated wrongly about the difficulty, and I just don't want to take weeks and weeks to learn a piece, and probably never play it really well anyway.

I do feel that gradually, over a period of months, I do improve.  But I'm not in any race.

Good luck to you, and I suspect your burning desire to improve will get great results.