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The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

commoncog.com

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Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#61

Post by [deleted] »

shadowsun7 wrote: post #19
TameAntelope wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean these? https://i.imgur.com/2tWApHA.jpg I've not done more than cherry-pick from them, admittedly, but I've always had a pipe dream of writing articles about concepts within, as a way of teaching myself. I don't think practicality is a necessary component of truth. It may be true that, should you stumble upon a way to deliberately practice something, you will grow your mastery of that thing regardless of tale…

I've actually been putting some of the CTA methods mentioned in the Oxford Handbook to practice! See: https://commoncog.com/blog/john-cutlers-product-expertise/ for one accounting; I'm currently trying it out with an international Judo coach right now, on technique analysis. (We can't meet due to COVID, since I cannot fly to him, so what I want is to extract his ability to perform video analysis, so that I can perfor…

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Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#62

Post by mikkergp »

How do you measure this? You can't take a group of 100 people and randomly assign half to 10,000 hours of deliberate practices.

I always felt like this conversation had different connotations at different levels. Not everyone can be Simone Biles, but we can all probably learn to do a backflip.

Or more to the point, I think the average person thinks they could never be good enough to impress their friends, and this is probably wrong. With much less than 10,000 hours of deliberate practice you can probably impress people. Write music that satisfies your own soul. You won't be Mozart, but how many of us in the modern world want to be Mozart?

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#63

Post by kansface »

rsync wrote: post #9

One word: play. I didn’t go to Unix school or do practice reps of building networks. I stayed up late nights building weird and sometimes nefarious projects. Similarly, I have mediocre results when my schedule only allows BJJ classes but markedly better results when I can just go “play” Jiu jitsu with others. Just go get reps doing something you love, in an experimental and playful manner.

I don't think this is the correct model nor should we try to generalize it. Deliberate practice works by systematically forcing us to continually engage in the part of the activity that we suck the most at. That is the place where we can most readily improve and addressing it is consequently the best usage of our time (disregarding some side effects and constraints). This sort of engagement requires a brutal degree of discipline and integrity to accurately assess performance. Most people are unwilling or incapable which is why teachers are valuable.

I did martial arts for years, but never quite deliberately. Its easiest for me to talk about music where I put in 3-5 hours a day for years - its so fucking hard to hear what you are playing instead of what you intend to be playing or what other performers have played. Music lives in your head more than the real world. After a few years, undirected practice was stealing my time, holding me back.

> Just go get reps doing something you love, in an experimental and playful manner.

This may have addressed some problems you faced (maybe the practical application of otherwise the Platonic ideal technique), but that is a specific problem. I'd wager the more common problem is one of mindlessly playing with no regard for performance because that's the easy trap. At the end of the day, training BJJ to improve is an entirely different endeavor than going to class 2-3 times a week (though both are perfectly reasonable activities of course).

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#64

Post by poetaster »

rsync wrote: post #9

One word: play. I didn’t go to Unix school or do practice reps of building networks. I stayed up late nights building weird and sometimes nefarious projects. Similarly, I have mediocre results when my schedule only allows BJJ classes but markedly better results when I can just go “play” Jiu jitsu with others. Just go get reps doing something you love, in an experimental and playful manner.

I agree that 3 hours on hannons (pattern excercices) on the piano a day might hold you back. But that's not playful. I built my own metronome. Disasemble the piano! Really. I admit that I will never be a good pianist, but have made good music, with others, on keys. It is really difficult to be mindfull and conscious of your production. I try swapping modalities. Loop record some chords on top of euclidean rythms... Swap to the drums. Obviously the dilettante approach can also be a dead end. But I've been learning music, more and more this way for decades. I'll never be a virtuoso, but have recordings where I think, wow, was that really me? Does help to play with others who help 'carry' you. I have a similar approach to software.

PS. I did have to save for the basement studio.

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#65

Post by sn9 »

Pamar wrote: post #24
borroka wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard BJJ classes (warm-up, technique of the day, sparring) are pedagogical black holes (BB here), anything else decent enough is better.

Can you provide some suggestions on improving (or just pointing out what makes these pedagogical black holes)? I am a MA practitioner myself (Aikido, 32 years and counting) and while I am always interested in the pedagogical aspect even if I rarely held a lesson myself. (And yes, I know that BJJ is very different from Aikido, but at the end of the day, I see lots of other arts - including Karate, Judo... Aikido etc.…

It's been a few years since I read it, but Josh Waitzkin's Art of Learning discusses how he went from complete novice to winning the world championship in Tai Chi Push Hands within two years.

It's a pretty good memoir for anyone interested in chess, martial arts, or just learning in general.

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#66

Post by glangdale »

borroka wrote: post #57
glangdale wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a black belt myself, but agree with GP. Sparring frequently tends to be "people trying to murder each other on the mats in pursuit of their egos". There's a level of dynamism in good sparring that can immediately get shut down if one or both practioners are overly motivated by "winning". You need to take a lot of risks to learn in practice even if it means getting clowned by someone who you could beat if you had…

Yes, that's my approach when I am teaching. Positional sparring is way superior to free sparring for learning. Lower stakes, people are more relaxed, the same position is presented multiple times and that's where learning happens. And I explain it to students beforehand. I say to students: there are interesting games going on in positional sparring and one is that who is trying to escape (say, from mount) is in a bet…

I like this approach. I always wanted more positional sparring and less free sparring. I've noticed that high pressure "expected to win" situation (which, frankly, I love in mount/side control as I've got a better game, relative to expectation of a submission, while my back control/submissions game underperforms).

I've noticed the defender from 'bad positions' does better in specific training than they do in sparring in the same position, probably because they can put everything into getting the "W" - while the attacker in sparring would probably be cooking them or switching to a different position.

There are still weird ego-driven things going on here. My least favorite: being on bottom open guard and having people disengage and run around to win - it's like, bro, if we weren't positional sparring I can just stand up and we can see who has better takedowns. Personally I think this one should begin with at least one grip to avoid time-wasting.

Do you do the "5 minutes on top / 5 minutes on bottom" approach? Or alternating? Or "3-5 people down with a line of people coming in". I think each of them has good/bad elements (without "3 wins and you're out", the latter tends to reduce to the top 3 students annihilating the newer people and not facing each other :-) ).

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#67

Post by borroka »

glangdale wrote: post #66
borroka wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's my approach when I am teaching. Positional sparring is way superior to free sparring for learning. Lower stakes, people are more relaxed, the same position is presented multiple times and that's where learning happens. And I explain it to students beforehand. I say to students: there are interesting games going on in positional sparring and one is that who is trying to escape (say, from mount) is in a bet…

I like this approach. I always wanted more positional sparring and less free sparring. I've noticed that high pressure "expected to win" situation (which, frankly, I love in mount/side control as I've got a better game, relative to expectation of a submission, while my back control/submissions game underperforms). I've noticed the defender from 'bad positions' does better in specific training than they do in sparring…

Yes, I have found positional sparring to lead to the quickest improvement from blue to black (novices have different needs, typically)

"I've noticed the defender from 'bad positions' does better in specific training than they do in sparring in the same position" - It varies, but my rationale is that when somebody is passing your guard and then mounting you, you are typically dog tired and mentally you go from bad position to worse. In positional sparring, the guy in a bad spot starts from that position, so mentally is in a good place, and not as tired or positionally compromised.

"My least favorite: being on bottom open guard and having people disengage and run around to win" - Agreed, like typically new guys not engaging and wasting a couple of minutes by running around. In that case, I simply say, "come here my friend, let's practice", and they start getting in. And the same when I am the coach, I just encourage a more low-stake environment (which does not mean low effort or low quality) and I must say that I never got any pushback. "Let's practice, that's how we improve".

"Do you do the "5 minutes on top / 5 minutes on bottom" approach?" - I typically do two bottom and two top for each position (one top and bottom with one person and one top and one bottom with another), with rounds of 2 to 3 minutes, encouraging students to push the pace (2 minutes go by real quick and I don't like wasting opportunities to improve). My coach likes the line of people getting in, winner stays in, and 3 wins and you are out.

I think that both have a place, but I have prefer the two minutes round because it creates good competition (you pass my guard, we restart, now I am trying to avoid that same pass, while with the line there is not this immediate opportunity of a comeback).

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#68

Post by borroka »

sn9 wrote: post #65
Pamar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some suggestions on improving (or just pointing out what makes these pedagogical black holes)? I am a MA practitioner myself (Aikido, 32 years and counting) and while I am always interested in the pedagogical aspect even if I rarely held a lesson myself. (And yes, I know that BJJ is very different from Aikido, but at the end of the day, I see lots of other arts - including Karate, Judo... Aikido etc.…

It's been a few years since I read it, but Josh Waitzkin's Art of Learning discusses how he went from complete novice to winning the world championship in Tai Chi Push Hands within two years. It's a pretty good memoir for anyone interested in chess, martial arts, or just learning in general.

It is an interesting book and I know people who know him since they trained in the same gym, but along with the solid substance (meat) that he proposes, my impression is that he throws a lot of smoke at the problem (see for example the few interviews he gave to Tim Ferris). He is a smart guy and the book is one I recommend, but he overcomplicates what should be pretty straightforward.

I met many high-level, sometimes world-level practitioners of various sports and at the risk of coming across as glib, I have yet to find one with higher-than-average intelligence (there are, I just have not met them). That's why when some NFL or NBA players are presented as semi-savant, it makes me chuckle and want to say to the interviewer or commentator, "that's what you want to believe, not what it is. They are simply much better, but very rarely in an intellectual way".

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#69

Post by glangdale »

borroka wrote: post #67
glangdale wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this approach. I always wanted more positional sparring and less free sparring. I've noticed that high pressure "expected to win" situation (which, frankly, I love in mount/side control as I've got a better game, relative to expectation of a submission, while my back control/submissions game underperforms). I've noticed the defender from 'bad positions' does better in specific training than they do in sparring…

Yes, I have found positional sparring to lead to the quickest improvement from blue to black (novices have different needs, typically) "I've noticed the defender from 'bad positions' does better in specific training than they do in sparring in the same position" - It varies, but my rationale is that when somebody is passing your guard and then mounting you, you are typically dog tired and mentally you go from bad pos…

Thanks, good thoughts there. I'm off BJJ for a while (lockdowns in Australia), and won't be getting to decide how classes go for a long time if ever, but it's good to hear people thinking about it rather than blindly replicating "what I saw in Brazil once".

Re: The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

#70

Post by fuzzfactor »

nurbl wrote: post #58

The article seems to mix up "expert" with "world class" a bit. I do think that becoming one of the best in the world in any popular field probably requires suitable genes. But, to me, "expert" is more like someone who's usually the best person in the room at something. Quite different goals.

10,000 hours is enough for someone having extraordinary talent to be able to realize a small portion of that and have it come out completely astonishing.

It's also enough for a mediocre performer to reach a plateau early then end up becoming somewhat of an authority without anything astonishing, and with no talent to spare.

It takes a lot of perseverance either way which can truly blur the lines but these are two opposite ends of the spectrum.

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