Dan Millman
(Excerpted from The Inner Athlete
Published by Stillpoint Publishing)
(3 of 10)
I use the image of the snow-covered lot (above) because it represents graphically what happens in your neuromuscular system when you are learning a new skill. The solid line from A to B shows the perfect execution of a skill. If line A? is your first attempt at the skill, it means that you were totally prepared?entally, emotionally, and physically?nd were thus ready to perform it correctly the very first time.
Because most of us are not perfectly prepared, our first attempts are represented by the curving dotted lines above. Then we gradually home in on line A?. This homing in process takes varying amounts of time, depending upon the approach to learning.
Your first attempt at a new skill is the most important one, because you've formed no previous pathway. The next time . . . and the next time, you're likely to follow the first path you made. Every time you take the same neural pathway, you'll stabilize and reinforce that motor response whether it is correct or not.
Every time you let yourself practice a movement incorrectly, you're increasing your ability to do it wrong. It follows that you want to repeat the correct movement pattern as much as possible and to avoid, at all costs, repeating an incorrect pattern. A fundamental rule of learning, therefore, is this: Never repeat the same error twice.
We know that errors are a part of learning. You will make errors. In order to avoid stabilizing the errors, however, you have to make consciously different errors each time, in order to move yourself toward the correct pattern. If you make different errors, you don't habituate yourself to any single incorrect movement pattern. This is a very important point, because one of the prime causes of slow learning is repetition of (and thus habituation to) one incorrect motor response. You get used to swinging the bat too low; you get accustomed to arching in a handstand; you begin to feel comfortable shifting your weight to the wrong foot on your golf swing.
As you consciously make each attempt different, you're simply exploring the many possibilities for error as you home in slowly to the straight path, the correct way, without forming bad habits.
Awareness and Practice
If you practice hitting a thousand golf balls every day but really pay attention to only two hundred swings, then you're wasting eight hundred swings a day?nd in fact, those eight hundred semiconscious swings may be doing you more harm than good, because, as I just pointed out, you can form bad pathways without noticing it?ike walking through the empty lot in your sleep.
Practice doesn't make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect. Proper learning technique consists not only of attempting the correct pattern but avoiding the incorrect one. Remain fully aware in your mind and in your body of every attempt you make during practice. If you make an error, never just "do it again." Take a moment to be fully aware of what went wrong if you don't know, you'll just repeat the error. Then make a determined attempt to do something different.
The Stages of Practice
Most of us assume that if we want to become skilled, we must practice the skill over and over, many times. This is not necessarily true. Most beginners tend to practice too much at first. If you're a beginner at a particular skill, you'll probably have a low level of "feeling awareness" at first. You don't exactly know what the skill, performed correctly, should feel like. Don't practice many repetitions, therefore, or you're likely to develop incorrect patterns. Instead, begin with a few repetitions, maintaining intense concentration and real interest. You may continue while concentration and interest are strong but if you begin to repeat an error, or if real interest and attention start to fade?f your approach becomes casual?hen stop, and come back to your practice later on. Practice is like gambling: you have to know when to quit. When you find that you can consistently repeat the correct pattern, only then should you begin to do many repetitions for endurance and stabilization.
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