Acquiring Skills

Another thing I have been thinking about a lot is the path to get good. My approach until this point has been something synonymous with a blind orge swinging a big bat around in the hope of connecting with something.

Should you just have blind faith that you will get better with time in field?
Should you focus on one thing and try to nut it out?
Should you work on a whole bunch of sticking points at once?

After reading the first few chapters of George Leonard’s Mastery, I think it is a combination of them all.

If only you could see constant improvement. It aint ganna happen. It’s always in bursts. Loving the plateau is huge. You acknowledge that you are on it and just keep plugging away, enjoying the practice, and one day out of nowhere you get a big spurt and it all pays off.

On top of this faith that it will eventually come through, I think my old method of hoping everything would sort itself out subconsciously is a little off. Conscious improvement, or thinking, seems to be pretty important.

Leonard makes reference to a tennis player who repeats the same motion (stationary backhand for example) over and over until it becomes second nature ie no thinking involved. Then it’s time to start moving while trying to hit backhand. For a period, thinking is required, where there will be a regression before it also becomes second nature.

Regression for progression.

I remember when I first discovered the claw. At first I had to consciously force myself to throw my hand over the shoulder of girls and pull them in. Half the time it would look like I was trying to tackle the poor thing. These days if a girl is in my vicinity, next thing I know shes under my arm, relaxed, and enjoying it. I look at my arm and think “oh shit how did that get there”. Second nature.

Somewhere along the line I decided blind faith would be the way. Maybe that was me running away from the real work that breeds progression. I think that instead, once sticking points are identified, a select few should be chosen for conscious improvement. Blow them up with uncalibrated effort. You might even regress a little because of it. Because now you are having to think in field. But have blind faith that over time, it will become calibrated, and it will become second nature. Thus you will improve.

I decided I’d only work on three things at a time. Any more seems to spread to thin, like biting off more then I can chew. Any less I think is too focussed.

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