1A Body Mapping (10min)
To flow in your target language, you will need to train the fine-motor articulation in your mouth, much in the same way musicians train the fine-motor articulation in their hands. Our focus this week will be on the general process of training new motor control and awareness.
When you first begin to learn a new motor movement, it will feel awkward. You may even feel like making the movement is impossible. But if you're focused and persistent, your brain will start to create new connections, and in a surprisingly short period of time you can get your body to flow in very complex ways.
After watching the video, reflect on a time in your life you learned a complex motor movement. Something that was very difficult at the beginning, but then became second nature with practice. Examples include musical instruments, martial arts, dance, sport, knitting, pottery, card tricks, kitchen skills, typing, etc.
Once you have something in mind, briefly describe experience and share it in the
#learn channel. After posting your experience, read the experience of the person who posted before you, and reply thoughtfully to what they wrote. 1B The Most Important Benefit of Facial Fluency (40min)
In the videos below, I discuss the most important benefit of facial fluency - the capacity to better regulate your own state. The first video explains how you can influence your mind by consciously moving your body. The second breaks down the facial movements I consider most useful for state-regulation. And the third helps you visualize emotional space, and how to navigate within it using your face.
We will begin our fine-motor movement training by training movements of the face. This gives us a chance to explore the basic principles of fine-motor training before we apply them to articulation in our target language.
For EACH video you watch, reflect briefly on how this information is personally relevant to you, then share your reflections (at least one paragraph) to the
#learn channel. 1C Facial Action Audit (15min)
Below are several short videos of me moving different parts of my face to a steady beat. Moving your body in sync with a steady beat demonstrates your capacity to control that movement. For each isolated movement, I do 8 repetitions.
After watching a video, determine which movements you can and cannot do. Then practice syncing the movements you already can do, and nodding your head on the ones you can't do yet.
Once you've had enough practice, record a Loom video of yourself syncing with me, being sure to make the video a Large circle, and placing it directly next to my face for easy comparison.
When you're done, post your video to
#faces (click here to join channel), along with a few words on how challenging you found the exercise. Throughout the week, you should return to the movements you cannot do and see if you can learn them. ‣
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