I am reading The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros and one of the chapters deal with the 4 stages of learning - in this case, learning how to invest. The 4 stages are:

  1. Unconscious incompetence
  2. Conscious incompetence
  3. Consicious competence
  4. Unconscious competence

In other words, each of the above stage means that:

  1. You don’t know that you don’t know
  2. You know that you don’t know
  3. You know what you know and know what you don’t know
  4. You unconsciously know that you know

I’m surprised I found these gems in an investment book. In the context of Tai Ji, they fit quite well as well! I think i am in the 2nd stage, where I now realise I don’t actually know that much. What I find interesting is that stage 1 can easily be mistaken as stage 3, where you think you know what you already know, and know what you don’t know. I think a lot of people fall into this trap when doing tai ji, especially those who have been “at it” for a long time.

It’s difficult to admit that all your training has not even scratched the surface of what is tai ji. But without realising that you are in stage 1, you can’t actually move to stage 2, not to mention stage 3! Stage 1 is where confidence is highest, but skills is lowest - ignorance is bliss, until you find out that you don’t actually know anything!

So, are you brave enough to admit that you’re in stage 1?

Dreaming one day that i’ll be in stage 4…