We humans overcomplicate everything. I don’t know about you, but my eyes glaze over as I’m trying to keep updated on the latest research. Pouring over white papers for hours simply because I need to reread the same paragraph 9 times in order to actually process each word.
“If you can’t explain it to a 6 year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
Albert Einstein
Can We Turn It Down A Notch?
I’m making it my mission to try and do just that.
As a Therapist, I want my clients to be able to understand what could be contributing to what they are experiencing. Could I throw at them the logistics of spinal pathways, DCML, ALS, alphabet soup, NWR, PMRF, lobes, and whatnot? #glazedeyballs I suppose with a bit of thinking it out first, I could.
Does that feel natural to me? No. Does it benefit the client? Not at all. They could care less. A client in pain wants to understand why it hurts when they bend it this way or do that activity and what can be done to make it not hurt or to help it move the way it should.
They want simple answers with effective results.
Practitioners Think They Want The Complex
I find it amusing how many Practitioners think that complexity is the key. I can say this, because I was one of them. The more complex, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the words, the bigger the egos involved is like the red dot for cats to practitioners.
Must go after it. But what do you do when you realize that you can’t actually catch the red dot?
I’ll be the first to admit that my brain doesn’t work that way. It takes a bit of elbow grease for that squeaky wheel to run smoothly.
My brain immediately takes information that is complex and reroutes it for a simplified view. It reorganizes it so that it makes sense to me in the way that I learn. For a long time that really bothered me. I never felt that I wasn’t smart enough or skilled enough. I was bothered, because it was easier to arrange the material into something that I could easily apply than it was to simply memorize notes and powerpoints.
Now I understand that it is incredibly beneficial to me, because it allows me to translate to others.
I Make The Complex Simple
As an Educator, I need to be able to take incredibly complex material and teach it in a way that others can learn.
There is a very small percentage of people out there that can immediately grasp higher concepts with ease. I think there is a larger percentage of us that have to work hard for our understanding. And I think there is an even greater percentage that need complex information completely reorganized in a simplified manner to own and apply the material.
And that’s the end goal is it not? To own and apply the material so that we can be of service to our clients. What do our clients want? They want to stop being in pain and move well.
Simple Steps Lead To Big Changes
I want to work with the greater percentage. Those practitioners that are incredibly intelligent and skilled, but want the simplified view are my kind of people. I think there are a lot of Educators out there that do a huge disservice to a large portion of the health and fitness field by overcomplicating everything.
It’s not that the material is too complex. It’s that it’s taught in a manner that is focused on the smallest percent. Do you know how many times I’ve heard students remark, “He/she always teaches to the smartest person in the room.”? Or hearing Educators comment, “They can memorize material and take tests, but they can’t treat.”?
Knowing that I can’t change the old, my intention is to focus my energy on building the new. (Thanks, Socrates.) I want to take this skill of reorganizing complex material and my love for building community and build something new.
In upcoming blogs I hope to take some meaty concepts and break them down into a simplified view that both clients and Practitioners can understand. There are a few that I immediately can think of.
What concept or theory interests you that you would like broken down?
