I’m just more than half-way through my first semester here at SWAC (http://www.acupuncturecollege.edu/), and so far things are going well. It turns out that as part of the transfer process I ended up in a few classes that are for the most part review. Initially I was some what frustrated and bored, but at a certain point I started to put more into the so called review to make the most of it. It turns out I learned a whole lot of new things and now have a much more nuanced understanding of things I thought I already knew. Why this surprises me, I don’t know.

These mid-terms happen to be falling right after a  yearly fun-filled Jewish Holiday called Simchat Torah. It’s a celebration of the fact that we finished reading the whole entire Torah (Pentateuch) and get to start it all over. Why would be excited to start rereading the same book over again from the beginning? Why would be excited to re-celebrate the same Holidays over again? Well, there’s something nice to the familiarity, but I don’t think that’s what it’s about. It’s about a deepening of our relationships and understanding. The idea is that maybe there’s something new to learn, even where we thought we already knew everything. Maybe we missed something the first time around. It fosters an attitude towards life and towards learning that implies a certain amount of humility, an awareness that though we may have come far, there’s plenty more to go, and it requires us to cultivate curiosity and interest, even in the seemingly familiar.

Wait a second, what did I miss the first time around? What didn’t I notice? What don’t I remember? How does where I am right now and the knowledge I already have change and contribute to relearning things a second time around?

For me this all stands out the most in the arena of the Acupuncture points – who are they? where are they? and what do they do? By now, I’ve learned them all once through, I’ve been tested on all of them once through, why again? Well, it turns out that there are more than handful that I didn’t really know all that much about. There were a few that I could locate, but wasn’t all the comfortable needling them, and there were some that were just shrouded in mystery (plenty of them still are). But after relearning a handful (and we’ll be reviewing another handful the rest of the semester), I have a much better understanding of all of them and a deeper appreciation for what they do and when to include them in a treatment.

Just as important as a deeper understanding of the material, I experienced a valuable attitudinal shift with regards to my learning process. Instead of resisting “relearning things I already know,” I can eagerly approach familiar material to get deeper into it and expand my relationship with it. If I see the “information” as static, than my relationship with it is static, but if I hold onto an awareness that this medical material is a dynamic body of living knowledge, my relationship with becomes alive. A living relationship still involves ups and downs, frustrations and confusions, but it also creates space for more enrichment and growth.

Whether you’re a cook or an engineer, a manager or a lawyer, an artist or a mechanic, you can consider your attitude about your learning process and where you’re at, and examine your relationship with body of knowledge that’s out there and how it may contribute to your practice. The fall, is a wonderful time for refinement and enrichment!