Copyright © 2011, David Bolton. All rights reserved.
Language Learning – Outside the Box!
by
David Bolton
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
David Bolton on Smashwords
Language Learning – Outside the Box!
Copyright © 2011 by David Bolton
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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Dedication
To my beloved wife, Maki, without whom this book never would have materialized.
And to my four charming nieces, Ally, Jackie, Lydia and Cassandra.
Never limit yourselves to what they tell you in school, girls!
Think for yourselves. Always be curious. Cultivate a genuine love of learning. And never fear to think "outside the box", for it is often there that you will find the best means of conquering any obstacles you may encounter on the path towards true knowledge.
Part 1: Laying the Foundation for Successful Language Learning
Chapter 1: Can you really learn a second language?
Chapter 2: "I want to, but can I?”
Chapter 3: Why do you want to learn a language?
Chapter 4: Exactly how much do you want to learn the language?
Chapter 5: The Incredible Power of Belief
Chapter 6: Your Inner Monologue
Chapter 7: Passion and Discipline
Chapter 8: Key Points to Remember
Chapter 9: Forming Powerful Positive Habits
Chapter 10: Positive Language-Learning Habits You can Acquire
Part 2: Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, and how to put it all together
Forward
Chapter 11: How to Acquire Correct Pronunciation
Chapter 12: Achieving Excellent Pronunciation - another Powerful Method
Chapter 13: Heinrich Schliemann
Chapter 14: More Heroes of Language Learning
Chapter 15: Mp3 players
Chapter 16: Listening - like a Baby
Chapter 17: Vocabulary and Imagination
Chapter 18: The Role of Imagination in Language Learning
Chapter 19: Words and their Emotional Content
Chapter 20: Repetition - with a Twist
Chapter 21:Practicing Verb Forms
Chapter 22: More on Imagination
Chapter 23:Imagine You're a Native Speaker
Chapter 24: Learning Sentences: How to "Group" Concepts
Chapter 25: Learning Sentences: Taking it to the Next Level
Chapter 26: Getting over the "Conversational Bump"
Chapter 27: Teaching your Teacher to Teach
Part 3: Formulating a Plan for the Study of a Language
Chapter 28: Understanding; Vocabulary; Pronunciation; Grammar; Conversation
Chapter 29: A Sample One-Week Study Schedule
Author’s Bio: David Bolton
Part 1: Laying the Foundation for Successful Language Learning
Can you really learn a second language?
For those of you who have already mastered another language, this question might seem ridiculous. After all, you yourself have done it, so obviously, others can as well.
Nonetheless, I would like to begin with this question, for the benefit of those people who are just starting a new language, and who may doubt their own ability to ever achieve a high level of fluency.
The answer to the question is, of course, a resounding "yes!" This is not merely an attempt to get you to think positively; it is a definite fact.
Years ago, at the age of eighteen, I visited the small country of Luxembourg. I met a nice girl, and we began to date. She spoke English well enough to get by easily, which was a good thing, considering the fact that it was the only language that I spoke back then. I had had three years of Latin in high school, but naturally, I couldn't really speak it, and it wouldn't have helped me much in Europe anyway, at least not in the twentieth century.
Monique was an intelligent girl, though I would not have called her a genius. Yet she spoke Lëtzebuergesch (related to German, though it is so different that it could be considered another language), as did everyone in Luxembourg. She also spoke German, French and English, languages that everyone there learned in school starting in childhood. Her friends spoke those languages as well.
Now, I ask you: is there any reason to believe that people in Luxembourg are much more intelligent than those in the U.S., or in other countries? And if they can speak, while still in their teens, four languages, isn't it reasonable to assume that you, too, can learn a second language - or a third - or a fourth?
Some people may believe that language learning ability requires great intelligence. I disagree with this opinion, for I have known many people of average intelligence who spoke more than one language quite fluently. Intelligence can help one learn more quickly, where grammatical rules and vocabulary are concerned, but actual speaking demands a rather different skill: the ability to adopt oneself psychologically to the language being spoken.
Sometimes, people of above-average intelligence cannot learn a new language well, for the reason that their egos do not permit them the sort of mental flexibility required to put themselves into the mindset of native speakers of that other language.
In other words, learning a new language requires that you think differently. Gradually, you must learn to express all of your thoughts - even those semiconscious ones that pass through your head throughout the day - in a totally new way.
Winston Churchill once said that to learn a new language is to acquire a new personality, and there is indeed truth to that statement.
If your sense of "I" is very strong, you may identify so much with your own way of thinking, that it will be excessively challenging to learn a new language, since you will resist expressing your thoughts, ideas and utterances in terms other than the ones you are used to, and with which you feel secure.
Thus, someone of high intelligence who is emotionally inhibited may learn a language much more slowly than a person of average mental gifts who is nonetheless able to forget him/herself, and "absorb" the new language without the ego getting in the way.
A strong need for ego-security is detrimental to our ability to "open up", and can be an excessive hindrance to language learning. You need to put your ego aside, and pretend that you are a new person - one who speaks the new language well.
This is best achieved not by taking the learning process extremely seriously, but quite the opposite: you should learn a language as if it were a game.
Children tend to do this naturally. This is no doubt one of the reasons why they learn languages quickly. A child of five, for instance, would probably not think: "I am Johnny, an American who speaks English. This foreign language, French, is really strange. I am not French, I am American. Therefore, it's not natural for me to try to speak French."
Many adults, however, are victims of just such thoughts when they approach a new language. This often occurs sub-, or at most semiconsciously: they may, on the one hand, want to learn, but somewhere in their minds, they tell themselves that they cannot do so, for whatever reasons their ego comes up with.
"I want to, but can I?"
Wanting to do something, and believing that you can do it, are two different creatures. Whenever they are in conflict, it is the belief that you can - or cannot - that will win out in the end.
This fact was discovered and propagated by Emil Coué, one of the early pioneers of positive thinking. Coué put it this way, in a formula that has since become legendary:
When the will and the imagination (belief) are in conflict, it is always the imagination that will win.
This sentence is worth memorizing, for it reveals a basic truth about how the human mind functions.
An excellent example of how this works can be seen in demonstrations of hypnosis. For example: the hypnotist puts his subject into a trance, and tells him "You cannot lift your arm. You want to lift it, but as soon as you try, you see that you cannot." Invariably, try as he may, the subject cannot lift his arm. Although he wants to lift it, he imagines (= believes) that he cannot, and so it is completely impossible for him to do so.
Yet even when you are not hypnotized, your will to do something can never be as strong as your belief in your ability to do it, that is, your imagining that you can do it.
Have you ever had trouble getting to sleep at night? I'm sure this has happened to you on occasion. Of course, you really want to fall asleep, yet the more you try, the less you are able to. In the end, the only way to finally fall asleep is to stop wanting it, and either think about something else, or else, even better, to imagine that you really are losing consciousness and drifting off into Dreamland. Imagination – belief - is stronger than will!
Or perhaps someone whispers something tremendously funny to you, and you begin to laugh, even though you are in a situation where laughter is not at all appropriate: in class, during a seminar, at a funeral...
You want to stop laughing, but you simply can't. Until you imagine something else, or imagine that you now have a straight face. You get the point: here, too, your will is not as strong as your imagination.
And remember, truly imagining that you can, or cannot, do something is here synonymous with believing in your ability or inability to do so.
A girl may want to get a date with the best-looking guy in her class, but if she totally believes she can't, she probably won't.
You may want to get an "A" on your next math test, but if you imagine that this is impossible, it most likely will be, even if you do the necessary studying.
I'm sure you yourself will be able to think of many other examples of this basic principle in action. Imagining, and believing you can do something, is always stronger than wanting to do it.
Therefore, when you begin to learn a new language, make sure you truly believe that you can master it, given time and effort. Once you have this faith in yourself - faith that is certainly well-founded, for as I pointed out earlier, you don't have to be a genius to speak another tongue - you can then use your will to train the skills and acquire the knowledge you need, persisting until your goal is achieved. That will be the day when you are indeed able to converse with someone in your new language. And that day will arrive as long as you firmly imagine that it will, and take the steps necessary to bring it about!
Why do you want to learn a language?
Knowing why you want to do something should be the first step in anything you do, especially something that is going to require a lot of time and effort on your part.
There could be many reasons for wanting to learn a second language:
- You may be planning a trip to a foreign country, and wish to speak to people when you are there.
- You may be very interested in the culture and/or history of a far-away place, and want to understand its people and customs better.
- You might have fallen in love with a person from a certain country, and want to be able to communicate with him or her better.
- You may have a job that requires you to deal with people from another country.
- You may feel that knowing another language might help you in finding a better job.
- Or perhaps you want to learn because you have to: that is, you are going to a school or college that requires that you take courses in another language.
Obviously, wanting is not always really desiring. “To want” originally meant “to lack”: if you “wanted” food, it was another way of saying that you “lacked” it (though in such a case, you would probably also desire it). On one level, you may want to learn a language (for example, because it might have practical consequences for you), but the truth may be that you don’t have a strong desire to do so.
If you have met the love of your life, and he/she is French, and hardly speaks any English at all, you might want - and truly desire - to learn French as quickly as possible, so that you can whisper those sweet little nothings into his or her ear in a way that will be understood. To be sure, being in love with a foreigner is often a tremendous motivating force for learning a language, and will almost assure that you will learn as fast as possible.
On the other hand, having to learn a language (or anything else, for that matter) generates most likely the lowest amount of motivation. After all, who wants to be forced to learn?
Why is the subject of knowing exactly why you are learning so important?
Because the reason why you are learning the language has a strong influence on your motivation for learning it.
The more motivation you have, the better and faster you will learn; the less you have, the slower, and less pleasant, will be the learning process.
While living in Spain, I taught English to hundreds of Spanish people over the course of nearly twenty years - mostly private pupils who had individual lessons. Almost all of them had had years of English classes in school, and could thus speak English, though at times only very hesitatingly, and with simple vocabulary. Whenever new pupils came for the first class, I would always ask why they wished to learn, or to improve, their English.
Often, the answer was: "Because I'll have a better chance of getting a good job if my English is better," or something to that effect.
I used to then ask: "And do you like the English language?"
Many of them said they did; some others, though, would say: "No, I really don't like it at all. I wish I didn't have to learn it, but these days, everybody says you have to."
I knew right then and there that these pupils would be difficult. After all, they really didn't want to learn English, and would probably rather be doing any one of a hundred other things that might give them at least a bit of pleasure.
These were typically the pupils who called off classes frequently, and whose progress was painfully slow. Knowing that, I would often tell them right from the beginning that they should not have English classes. This often surprised them, and when they asked for an explanation, I readily offered one.
"Look", I said, "improving your English is really not so hard to do, if you like it. If you hate it, on the other hand, your mind will probably be blocked. You won't be able to concentrate on it well; learning vocabulary and grammar will be a pain, and you just aren't going to enjoy it. The truth is that you'd be better off saving your money until you have enough to go to England or the U.S. for a few weeks. Once you are there, you can meet people, and speak English with them. That way, you'll be able to learn more in a month than you would by taking classes here in Spain in a whole year. The reason is that when you are abroad, and meet nice people, you will want to learn, and that makes all the difference."
Despite my best intentions, they usually insisted on having classes with me, and since that was my main source of income, I wasn't going to throw them out!
But I hope you get the message:
The more motivation you can give yourself for learning a language, the faster you will learn, and the more fun it will be.
"That's nice in theory, David", I hear some of you thinking now, "but that doesn't help me at all. My school requires that I learn a language, whether I want to or not, and if I want to pass this year, I have no choice but to force myself to learn one."
Maybe so, but that doesn't mean you can't take concrete steps to increase your motivation.
Impossible? Not at all, as we shall see a bit later. But first, let's look at the question of motivation a bit more closely, so that you can better determine just how much of it you yourself have.
Exactly how much do you want to learn the language?
I'd now like to ask you a question: On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "I absolutely hate it", and 10 being "There is absolutely nothing in life that I would rather be doing right now", how would you rate your own desire to study a new language?
Here's a list of suggested possible ratings, to help you out:
1) I hate learning the language so much, that I'd seriously rather kill myself than learn any of it. (I'm sure none of you will have this score, or you wouldn't be reading this book.)
2) I hate it, and only learn because I'm forced to.
3) I don't like it at all, and learn it because I have to, but I occasionally find something of interest.
4) I don't like it much, but do realize it can be useful at some time in the future.
5) I neither like nor dislike it: it's just something I should do now, so I do it.
6) I like it somewhat, though it doesn't make me enthusiastic.
7) I rather like it, and even have fun with it sometimes.
8) I definitely like it, and it's generally a lot of fun.
9) I really love it! There are few ways I'd rather spend my day.
10) Learning this second language is the most fun and pleasurable thing I've ever done in my life. It's even better than sex, and if I didn't have the chance to learn it, I'd become severely depressed.
How would you rate your attitude, given the options in the list above?
OK, I don't expect anybody to pick the “10” rating. I know I sure wouldn't! But no matter where you fit on this scale, you can always aim at increasing your rating by a notch or two. After all, the more you like learning the language of your choice, the faster and better you will learn, and the more fun you will have. Or to put it another way, you will learn better and faster precisely because it will be so much fun.
And how can you go about convincing yourself that you like learning the language more than you do at present?
It is all a question of modifying your beliefs, as we will see in the next section.
The Incredible Power of Belief
Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I learned how to hypnotize.
Some of you may only have a vague idea of what hypnosis is, and think it's some sort of "party trick", or else a kind of "magic". In reality, hypnosis is something quite simple.
No, this book is not about hypnosis. Nonetheless, a basic understanding of the phenomenon lets us better understand how our minds work in general, and this is going to be of great use to us when we learn a new language. So although this chapter may seem a bit off-topic to you, please bear with me, for you'll soon see the relevance.
Have you ever been watching a really exciting TV show, and were totally captivated by it? So much so, that when somebody said something to you, you didn't even hear them? If so, then you have been hypnotized. In that case, it was the TV show that had hypnotized you, so that you didn't even notice that someone had spoken to you.
Though there are a number of scientific theories to explain the phenomenon of hypnosis, I feel that it is basically very simple (though the remarkable things that a person can do when hypnotized are anything but simple to explain).
Let us first distinguish hypnosis from suggestion.
Hypnosis is, in my view, a narrowing of focus of your conscious mind.
Suggestion, on the other hand, is what the hypnotist tells you to do, or (if you practice self-hypnosis) what you tell yourself to do.
The more focused your conscious mind, the more open your subconscious mind will be for suggestion; the less focused your conscious mind, the less open to suggestion your subconscious mind will be.
This explanation implies that in a way, we are always hypnotized, because our minds are always focused to a degree. In other words, it is almost impossible to "open" your mind so much that you will notice everything that is going on around you. While you are reading these lines, for example, you may not have noticed that a dog started barking in the distance somewhere outside. Or maybe you didn't see that mosquito that has been flying around your room, and just landed on your left ankle (perish the thought!).
Your mind, therefore, is always focused to a certain extent. All that happens when you are hypnotized is that it becomes even more focused, much more so than is usually the case. It is thus only a matter of degree: when our minds are much more focused than normal, and when that focus has been brought about by using certain techniques (hypnotic induction), we say we are "hypnotized"; when our minds are in their "normal" state, we think we are not hypnotized.
Yet consider the following situation, one that you yourself may have experienced at school.
There is a certain teacher - a history teacher, for example - who is really great. She makes the subject come alive. She doesn't just give her students a bunch of dates and facts: she tells stories about what happened in the past, and in such a way that the students are totally fascinated. As a matter of fact, when she is at her story-telling best, the whole class is mesmerized: they are staring at her, following every word she says, and have totally forgotten about the upcoming prom, the next football game, or about the huge load of homework they are going to have to do that night. All the kids do now is listen, totally engrossed in the story the teacher is telling.
Okay, I know such teachers are rare, but if you were ever lucky enough to have one like that, you'll know what I mean. And in such a case, the students in the class are, in a real way, hypnotized: that is, their conscious minds are completely focused on what the teacher is saying. And because they are so focused, they are all the more receptive to what is being said (what in hypnosis is known as the "suggestion").
Another example, one that I'm sure practically all of you have had:
You are walking or running, and you trip and fall. As you are going down to the ground, suddenly everything seems to be going in slow motion. In reality, it only takes you a second or less to fall, yet it seems like it takes a lot longer.
This phenomenon is, psychologically speaking, a defense mechanism. When you trip and begin to fall, your entire consciousness automatically focuses on what is happening, so that you might act in a way that will reduce the harm you will receive. For instance, you raise your hands to cushion your fall.
Now, imagine you that trip, and begin to fall, yet your consciousness is not focused. That is, while falling, you are thinking about totally unrelated things, like what you are going to wear tomorrow, a TV show you saw last night, the food you want to buy in a shop, etc. If your mind is filled with such things, you probably won't even lift your arms to break your fall, and might land flat on your face!
Don't worry, though: when you fall, your mind automatically becomes focused on what is happening. That is, for that second, you become hypnotized - your mind's focus becomes extremely narrow, and concentrates only on what is occurring, i.e., the fact that you are falling.
There are many examples I could give of common situations where people are in fact hypnotized, though we normally wouldn't think of it that way.
Here's an example of such a situation, of the type that I hope you haven't had.
A mother is extremely angry with her five-year-old son. So angry, in fact, that she slaps him in the face, and yells "you're so stupid!"
Most people would see the slap in the face as being the worst element of this situation, but in fact, it could well be that it's not the slap, but rather the accompanying words that do the most damage. The slap in the face is somewhat like the fall we mentioned before: to the mind of the child, it means "Danger!" As a result, when he is slapped, his mind focuses on what is happening. As a result of the intense focus of his conscious mind, his subconscious mind is all the more open to suggestion. And what suggestion is he receiving at that moment?
"You are stupid!" Because his mind is so focused - that is, because in a real sense, he has been "hypnotized" by the slap - the words that are said enter much more directly into his subconscious mind. Result: this child could soon come to totally believe that he is stupid. Is it any wonder that children who have abusive parents often do very poorly at school, and in life in general?
You may be skeptical at this point: "Can a child really come to believe he is stupid just because his mother tells him that, even if she is slapping him at the time?"
Yes, he can. To give you an idea of just how powerful belief can be, and how quickly and easily a belief can be implanted in our brains, let me tell you about an experiment I did with hypnosis back when I first learned it.
I had just arrived in Germany a couple of months before, and was living with a German family, a mother and her two adopted daughters, thirteen and fourteen years of age.
When the mother heard that I had learned hypnosis, she asked if I could do a demonstration, and I complied. I hypnotized the younger daughter, who, as it turned out, was an excellent subject: she went into a deep trance the very first time.
After inducing the trance, I gave her the following suggestion (all in German, of course, since that was the language we were speaking):
"When I wake you up, you will not be able to understand anything in German. Also, you won't be able to say anything in that language. The only language you will be able to understand, and speak, is English." (She had had only one year of English in school, so she knew very little, and was not able to converse in English at all).
"Until I say the word 'sofa', you will neither understand, nor be able to speak, German; only English."
I brought her out of her trance, and she looked wide awake. Then, her mother said something to her in German, and the girl stared at her, perplexed. She obviously hadn't understood anything. Her mother and her sister then both began speaking to her in German, but the girl understood nothing. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but could not utter a word.
Then her mother spoke some simple English to her daughter. Now, she understood! What's more, she managed to piece together a reply, also in English. Naturally, both the girl's mother, as well as her sister, thought all of this was hilarious, and were laughing, although the girl didn't know what was so funny. After about ten minutes of this, I then said the word "sofa", and all at once, the girl once again understood all that we said in German, and could answer in that language, too; she was once again "back to normal".
What had happened? I had implanted into her subconscious mind the belief that she could not understand, nor speak, her own language. Because she was an excellent hypnotic subject, her mind had been so focused on this suggestion that it entered deeply into her subconscious mind, with the result that she actually, and totally, believed it. As a result, she indeed could not understand, nor speak her own language, until I had given her the "magic word".
During the time she was under the influence of the suggestion, she wanted to understand and speak her own language, yet her belief that she could not do so made it impossible for her.
As Coué pointed out, the will is never as strong as the imagination.
Some of you may be thinking that this experiment could have been dangerous. Suppose, for example, I had not arranged to say a special word, and had simply told her she could no longer understand or speak her own language. Might she have then never been able to speak German again?
No, not at all: in such a case, the effect may have had a hold on her for an hour, or maybe several hours, but sooner or later, she would have come back to "normal" and would have been able to understand her language again. The belief had, after all, only been implanted one time, and this would hardly be enough to do away with a person's ability to speak her own language forever.
My point in telling you this true story is to show you just how powerful your mind is, and above all, to demonstrate the power of belief.
Now, suppose you were to implant the belief in your mind that you absolutely love to learn the language you have chosen to study. Can you imagine the passion with which you would approach the subject, the enthusiasm you would feel while learning? And as a result, imagine how fast you would be able to learn!
I am not suggesting you have yourself hypnotized. As a matter of fact, this isn't even necessary. What you can, and should do, however, is train your mind to love learning the language of your choice as much as possible.
For some of you, this won't be necessary, assuming that you do indeed already love learning that language, and feel totally happy when doing so.
For the rest of you, however - that is, for those whose motivation for learning is not so complete, perhaps because they are doing so out of a feeling of obligation - changing your beliefs a bit can make all the difference between rapid progress, and sheer drudgery.
Your Inner Monologue
More often than not, we think in words. You are walking down the street, and your mind won't stop talking to you...
"Hmm, I'd better not forget to buy a new light bulb, or my wife will be furious."
"That's a nice car. I wish I had one like that! Well, maybe if I get that raise, I'll be able to get one next year."
"These shoes are really hurting my feet. I should have worn sneakers today."
"I hope that exam at ten o'clock isn't too hard. I just barely passed the last one."
"Life is really a drag. Why is everything so boring? I wish something exciting would happen."
"Wow! Look at that hot girl. Man, I'd really like to..."
OK, let's not get too explicit here! But you see what I mean. We are constantly "talking" to ourselves in our minds, telling ourselves things, expressing our desires, fears, feelings, and thoughts, of every variety. This is normal, and can be quite healthy. Yet it can also be very harmful.
It all depends on what we tell ourselves.
Imagine this line of thinking:
"Oh, I wish I didn't have to give that oral presentation in class today. I hate speaking in public! It makes me so nervous. I get sweaty. I stutter. I forget things. And some people might even laugh at me! Oh, why me? Why do I have to do things I hate to do? I just know I'm going to mess it up, since I'll be so nervous!"
Even if a person were not afraid of speaking in public, he could become absolutely terrified if he started telling himself things like that, over and over again.
Remember the girl in the hypnosis experiment I did? By simply receiving the suggestion a few times that she wouldn't be able to speak or even understand her own language, she in fact could not, merely because I had implanted those beliefs into her mind.
So what beliefs are being implanted into his or her own mind by the person who is afraid to speak in public?
"I hate speaking in public."
"It makes me so nervous."
"I get sweaty. I stutter. I forget things."
"Some people might even laugh at me!"
If that person told himself these things only once, it might not have much of a negative effect. The problem is that most people, when they have a definite aversion to something, repeat the negative suggestions in their minds constantly, again and again.
This is a sure way of hypnotizing yourself into believing whatever it is you are repeating to yourself.
Believe me: I know whereof I speak, because I myself have also been a victim of my own thoughts. Allow me to give you a concrete example.
I used to be horrified at the thought of going to the dentist. Okay, I know that I lot of people are, and it's no wonder, since dental work is unfortunately often a cause of pain, and nobody likes to suffer.
Years ago, when I knew I had to go to the dentist in three weeks, for example, I would think about it every day...
"Oh, why do I have to go to the dentist? It's going to hurt like it always does. Why can't people be born with teeth that never hurt? Oooh, I just know I'll have another cavity that needs filling, or maybe even worse. And whatever it is, it's going to hurt like crazy!"
For several weeks before going to the dentist, I couldn't fully enjoy a single day, because my mind was constantly coming back to the fact that pain was on the near horizon.
Once, however, I went to the dentist after weeks of anxiety, only to find that I didn't need any fillings at all. Naturally, I was elated!
I then started to think about what I had been doing to myself in the previous weeks. I had been worrying constantly, yet for nothing at all: in the end, there was no pain. What a waste of time it had been to worry so much! I realized that such thinking made no sense whatsoever.
Soon thereafter, I read a story about a Zen monk that gave me the key to changing my negative thought patterns once and for all. The story went something like this...
There was once a monk who was being chased by a pack of ravenous wolves. He ran as fast as he could, and finally seeing a cliff, he went over the side and began to climb down, carefully gripping the protruding stones, and the roots and branches that were growing out of the crevices in the rocks.