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The Expert in a Year Challenge

experttabletennis.com

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Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#21

Post by dpark »

zotovas wrote: post #15
dpark wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your issue with the word "expert"? The guy was trying to land in the top 250 in a year. That would comfortably place him in the "expert" player category (had he succeeded).

My issues is that top 250 in England doesn't make you an expert of table tennis. It makes ok at table tennis. It might give a privilege to say that I am an expert at table tennis in England but definitely not within the sport itself. Ben Larcombe, the author of this wonderful piece, is not an expert at table tennis either. Can he teach someone to be an expert? Maybe, he can, but as a player he is not. "My England ran…

What constitutes an expert in your opinion? There are some 2.4 million people playing table tennis in the UK[1], so the top 250 is pretty elite. Just looking at membership in Table Tennis England, there are nearly 25 thousand players[2], making 250 the top 1% of people who care enough about the sport to spend money becoming a member. I'd call that expert. It's certainly not just "ok at table tennis".

[1] http://tabletennisengland.co.uk/news/table-tennis-facts/

[2] http://tabletennisengland.co.uk/etta_website/annual_report/a...

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#22

Post by frogpelt »

aidos wrote: post #7

Related is The Dan Plan in which a chap is trying to become a pro golfer by dedicating 10,000 hours to it (from zero experience) [1]. I seem to recall it was after Malcolm Gladwell claimed that it takes that long to achieve mastery in a discipline. Dan's almost at the 5 year mark now. I check back a couple of times a year to see how he's getting on. [1] http://www.thedanplan.com

Gladwell's 10,000-hour-rule is, at its core, anecdotal.

The 10,000-hour-rule seems like more of an observation that people who are really good at things are likely to have spent a lot of time doing them.

My anecdotal observation: The people I know who are masters of things, were very good at those things early on and that encouraged them to practice more and more.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#23

Post by [deleted] »

taybin wrote: post #9
aidos wrote: post #7

Related is The Dan Plan in which a chap is trying to become a pro golfer by dedicating 10,000 hours to it (from zero experience) [1]. I seem to recall it was after Malcolm Gladwell claimed that it takes that long to achieve mastery in a discipline. Dan's almost at the 5 year mark now. I check back a couple of times a year to see how he's getting on. [1] http://www.thedanplan.com

It will be interesting to see how well Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing.

[deleted]

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#24

Post by zotovas »

dpark wrote: post #21
zotovas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issues is that top 250 in England doesn't make you an expert of table tennis. It makes ok at table tennis. It might give a privilege to say that I am an expert at table tennis in England but definitely not within the sport itself. Ben Larcombe, the author of this wonderful piece, is not an expert at table tennis either. Can he teach someone to be an expert? Maybe, he can, but as a player he is not. "My England ran…

What constitutes an expert in your opinion? There are some 2.4 million people playing table tennis in the UK[1], so the top 250 is pretty elite. Just looking at membership in Table Tennis England, there are nearly 25 thousand players[2], making 250 the top 1% of people who care enough about the sport to spend money becoming a member. I'd call that expert. It's certainly not just "ok at table tennis". [1] http://table…

I play table tennis so I guess it constitutes me as a table tennis player. In order to become a member of England Table Tennis Association you just have to pay a fee. They don't check whether you even can hold a racquet or not. So out of people who pay the fee it makes you "elite". But out of 1000 people who are ranked it makes you average even in England.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for these experiments and finding out that you don't have to work on a skill for 10,000 hours to be an expert, but, please, don't say that 250 in England is an expert at table tennis. It is just a lie.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#25

Post by dpark »

zotovas wrote: post #24
dpark wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes an expert in your opinion? There are some 2.4 million people playing table tennis in the UK[1], so the top 250 is pretty elite. Just looking at membership in Table Tennis England, there are nearly 25 thousand players[2], making 250 the top 1% of people who care enough about the sport to spend money becoming a member. I'd call that expert. It's certainly not just "ok at table tennis". [1] http://table…

I play table tennis so I guess it constitutes me as a table tennis player. In order to become a member of England Table Tennis Association you just have to pay a fee. They don't check whether you even can hold a racquet or not. So out of people who pay the fee it makes you "elite". But out of 1000 people who are ranked it makes you average even in England. Don't get me wrong. I am all for these experiments and findin…

If you're in the top 250 out of 1000, that doesn't make you average. By definition it's well above average. Moreover, the 1000 ranked players do not represent the continuum of players overall. They are all significantly better than the actual average, which is why they are ranked.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#26

Post by loumf »

lazyant wrote: post #20
taybin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be interesting to see how well Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing.

It wasn't his claim originally; he took a paper and summarized it in the 10,000 hour rule, even the original paper author has denied the claim stated as such.

There is a better summary of the studies in "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

From what I remember, the claim is that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice work best when:

1. You get immediate feedback on success and failure

2. The thing you are trying to master has a skill set that can be improved, and that improving that skill is sufficient.

That #2 is tricky -- a counter example is stock picking. We have no evidence that there is a skill that can be learned that will make you better at picking stocks, so 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, even with immediate feedback, won't help.

I think that Dan is following a reasonable deliberate practice plan with experts and that he does get fast feedback. What we don't know is if Golf is something that is primarily/mostly/all skill based. For example, what if there was a physical body type that made you better and Dan didn't have it -- then 10,000 hours might not help.

Also, the point of the 10,000 hours is to train your intuitive mind (System 1, the fast thinker) to be as correct as your deliberate mind would be (System 2, the slow thinker) if you had time and attention. This whole thing is much better for thinking-based activities, like say, programming. I don't remember if the studies looked at physical activities and "muscle-memory".

Caveat: this is all from memory -- read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" if you have interest in this.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#27

Post by stupidcar »

taybin wrote: post #9
aidos wrote: post #7

Related is The Dan Plan in which a chap is trying to become a pro golfer by dedicating 10,000 hours to it (from zero experience) [1]. I seem to recall it was after Malcolm Gladwell claimed that it takes that long to achieve mastery in a discipline. Dan's almost at the 5 year mark now. I check back a couple of times a year to see how he's getting on. [1] http://www.thedanplan.com

It will be interesting to see how well Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing.

What is it you imagine Gladwell's "claim" to be?

Because he's repudiated the idea that he or any other informed researcher claimed 10,000 hours was some magic number, or that practice alone is a substitute for talent: http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/complexity-and-...

It would have been more accurate to say "It will be interesting to see how well a gross mischaracterisation of Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing".

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#28

Post by zotovas »

dpark wrote: post #25
zotovas wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play table tennis so I guess it constitutes me as a table tennis player. In order to become a member of England Table Tennis Association you just have to pay a fee. They don't check whether you even can hold a racquet or not. So out of people who pay the fee it makes you "elite". But out of 1000 people who are ranked it makes you average even in England. Don't get me wrong. I am all for these experiments and findin…

If you're in the top 250 out of 1000, that doesn't make you average. By definition it's well above average. Moreover, the 1000 ranked players do not represent the continuum of players overall. They are all significantly better than the actual average, which is why they are ranked.

Great spin off on the word average here. It makes you average at table tennis. But we are talking about being an "expert". So 250 in England does not make you an expert at table tennis. Also if you knew what you were talking about then you would know that if I want to get ranking ( just for the ranking sake) I would craft my schedule in a way so I play weak tournaments just to get ranking. Ranking and expertise correlation is very flawed. Ask any athlete about this and they will tell you that there are a lot of players that would play weak tournaments just to get ranking. They would be even top 50 in the country but it doesn't make them experts.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#29

Post by komaromy »

Retric wrote: post #6
espinchi wrote: post #4

Definitely, an inspiring story. Comparing "how much of an expert" you can become after a full year of good training in different activities would be a great experiment. Anyone dares to create a ranking with some? (Say tennis, chess, web development, ice hockey, ...)

I think this has a lot more to do with people’s expectations than inherent difficulty. EX: Becoming a chess expert takes what?

The US Chess Federation title directly below Master is Expert. It'd be a bit more nebulous in other countries.

Re: The Expert in a Year Challenge

#30

Post by arca_vorago »

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.” - Bruce Lee

I think that attitude is how you get 'expert'. In the military for example, you train your muscle memory such that in combat, when your adrenaline is at an all time high (no drug touches it IMO) your body just tends to do what it needs to do because you have trained it so. This also ties in with Bruce Lee's view on forms. You have to learn the form, and practice it, until you forget it... if that makes sense.

The bottom line is that practice makes perfect. In todays world though, with athletes who have the ability to do nothing but train, I think it's harder and harder for a layman to compete. When I was a kid I went to the national junior olympics without even trying. If I that same kid today, I doubt I could make it past state.

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