Ah Ha! The understanding becomes your own!

I’ve been working in experiential education for years. This field values the “Ah Ha” moment. We talk about it. We identify it when it happens. We create activities and hold space for our participants to experience it.

But I’ve never really heard the “Ah Ha” moment defined or a context for what actually happens. Today I was listening to an interview with a horseman who was talking about how when horses make connections, either in training or with herd communication, they exhale. It is a release. In his mind, this release of breath means, “ah I understand and I have made the information my own.”

I said “EUREKA” (or Ah Ha!). And grabbed my journal and began writing about this idea. The idea that an “Ah Ha” moment, for people like for horses, is “the moment when breath is released, learning happens and understanding becomes your own.”

I decided to do some research to explore what brain based research has been done about “Ah Ha” moments. I was hoping to find support for my theory. (Want to avoid pseudo science…I’m hearing it’s unpopular.) But I didn’t find any.

So I’m playing around with this definition,but sticking pretty close to it. I know from my own personal experience and from watching hundreds of others experience “ah ha” moments, that this is truly what is happening.

The value of this explanation for me is that I can now give a context for what is happening and why “ah ha” style learning is so incredibly valuable over other types of learning. The understanding becomes your own.