Instructor: Rainsong
Date: July 13, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: Visualization – Follow-up Q&A – Saturday, 13 July, 2019 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong — Search LECTURE84
Rainsong: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another seminar here at the social club.
Rainsong: Are there any requests for a topic tonight?
Rare peypey: hello, present
Rainsong: hihi
Rare peypey: if there’s no pre planned topics, could you clarify a few things on suggestion from last week? we tried the chess thing but ran into some issues
Rainsong: Sure, we can do a follow-up on that
Rare peypey: awesome, thanks. so when we tried it, we found that neither of us really knew what we were doing so we were just trying to force a move. this didn’t seem to work so well in the early game when there were so many options, and in the mid game we were both running every possible outcome of every move through our heads before moving a piece. it didn’t work there either. the only real successes we had were when I was pretty much done with a 90 minute game and wasn’t focusing as hard. this made me much more susceptible apparently, i made the worst possible move (which was the one being suggested to me). it seems like a game like chess is quite complex for starting out with this, are there any other games you’ve used for this sort of practice?
Rainsong: Gotta love these easy questions… 😉
Rainsong: Nine Men’s Morris, Tic Tac Toe, Chinese Checkers
Rainsong: It’s been too long since I’ve played Backgammon to say for sure, but it’d probably work
Rainsong: As long as there is an element of choice or strategy on the player’s part, you’re good to go.
Rainsong: Which also means you can wonder away from board games into things like poker, too
Rare peypey: basically any simple board game, alright. we were thinking of screen sharing a maze game and turning off our monitors, and then the person who could see the maze would suggest to the person with the ability to press the arrow keys. a board game is probably simpler though
Rare peypey: that ends up as a sending exercise, but they all are. it’s very hard to separate
Rainsong: Board game is easier, yes. The maze game you described would also be good practice, but might be hard enough to be discouraging at first. So I’d suggest only doing that one part of the time.
Rare peypey: okay, thank you. small update on the visualisation technique thing. i’ve been visualising use of pk on the door using the technique from last week like I said, and it feels like i have a better grasp of the door now, although no success yet. could be placebo, but it’s encouraging
Rainsong: Worst case scenario on that one is that you “only” improve your focus and visualization skills, so it’s a win either way
Rare peypey: yeah exactly, 10 minutes isn’t a big time commitment
Rainsong: And if it works to improve your PK, so much the better
Rare peypey: on a pk related note, do you have any tips for levitation stability? it’s not really hard to do things like knock a psi wheel off a pin, but evenly distributing the force is really hard. it seems kinda weird to me that rolling objects is so much easier, but this is more of a control thing than anything
Rainsong: Stability’s going to be determined by a combination of the object’s centre of gravity and the location on the object you’re pushing up on (or pulling up on), wouldn’t it?
Rainsong: So, to what area of the object are you applying force?
Rainsong: (Also, if mass or weight has a bearing on things, rolling an object requires less force than lifting it, all else being equal)
Rare peypey: well i try to apply force to the bottom of the psi wheel evenly, doesn’t work out so well. it seems like it’s easier to push on just the tips of the arms, but then it just ends up rocking and being knocked off the pin
Rare peypey: true about the mass point, but a folded post it note weighs less than a lip balm
Nevyn: Push up on the middle
Rainsong: Try pushing up on the middle of the bottom? Where the point is?
Rare peypey: this is something i’m only really trying on the side, but let me get a picture to show why i haven’t been doing that. i’ll make a new psi wheel to practice this specifically later
Rare peypey:
Rare peypey: using psi wheels from back when i couldn’t get past the psi wheel, and i just spun them through. i fell for the stacking psi wheels meme
Rare peypey: so it’s always a bit off balance when i put it on the pin
Rare peypey: so i avoid pushing right on the centre because that’s off balance
Rainsong: Push up in the spot that would be balanced in roughly the middle?
Rare peypey: it just seems to quiver if i do that. it’s better because you wouldn’t get as much angular forces as when pushing on the tips, but it’s hard to get a “lift off” that isn’t just flinging it off the toothpick
Rare peypey: practice is the answer here, i know. just wondering if there’s any advice on making it work that you can think of
Rainsong: You could try pulling it from over top
Rainsong: But for pushing from the bottom, it’s like an adagio dancer or a pairs skater doing a lift: find the centre of gravity and push there
Rare peypey: pulling from the top is something i haven’t tried, so i’ll do that later. and focusing on the centre of gravity as the point to push seems like a good call, thanks
Rainsong: Any other questions arising?
Rare peypey: not off the top of my head, you’ve given me a few things to practice so i’m good for now
Rainsong: Cool 🙂