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After 15 years of practice..

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Re: After 15 years of practice..

#61

Post by starkfist »

BRadmin wrote: post #59
starkfist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you watched pro basketball since the NBA legalized zone defense in 2001? Most of the shots taken in games these days are 3 pointers. The days of Dikembe Mutumbo (or even Shaq) hanging out in the paint and doing tiptoe dunks ended about 8 years ago. Even 7 foot guys like Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett take 40% or more of their shots from 3 point territory. Wallace shoots 35% on three pointers (30% is the "he's…

I like what you're saying but there's some pretty gross hyperbole going on here. You cite zone defense as though it's drastically changed the NBA - but it's rarely deployed. You say most shots taken in games are three pointers, but they actually make up 18-22% (over the last decade) of them. And you say KG and Rasheed take over 40% of their shots from three. Kevin Garnett takes 3.3% of his shots from downtown. For Ra…

Well it's the internet, i reserve the right to hyperbolize. I guess i was pretty far wrong about KG though... my bad.

But, threes are up like 40% over the past 10 years. Over the past 5 years the games have been more shooting oriented than ever before. The WSJ had an article a while back suggesting that the real reason is because the league hasn't been doing that great financially, and it's cheaper for teams to get a set of 3 point shooters vs. one LeBron or KG.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#63

Post by jimmyjim »

jobeirne wrote: post #51
cowmoo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yes it takes practice to become a good singer, but any number of hours of practicing poor technique won't do much good." Yes, this is true and oft-repeated mantra on YC News. But it begs the question, how does one practice the "proper" technique (I mean after all, doesn't everyone want to follow the correct form of shooting hoops/strumming a guitar chord, but most people don't have a dedicated shooting coach/guitar…

You're not using ``begs the question'' properly.

What is with your style of quotation marks? I've seen them before, but I just don't understand why anyone uses them. Care to explain, please?

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#65

Post by b0b0b0b »

jimmyjim wrote: post #63
jobeirne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not using ``begs the question'' properly.

What is with your style of quotation marks? I've seen them before, but I just don't understand why anyone uses them. Care to explain, please?

tex makes them pretty

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#66

Post by srgseg »

trafficlight wrote: post #45
srgseg wrote: post #32

I've long been fascinated with why people decide to do their 10,000 hours of practice. Many people I know have talked the talk but then never really had the motivation to walk the walk and put in the effort. Any ideas on what gives people the internal motivation and strength to follow through with practice in the first place?

It's not a conscience decision. People put the time in because they genuinely enjoy what they are doing. My thing is bowling. I've been doing it since I was 6 (I'm 26 now). I went to the bowling alley as often as possible, I'd ride my bike down after school whenever I had money. In high school, I bought monthly memberships and would bowl 10-15 games a day, every day. I just couldn't get enough of it. The past few yea…

I wonder if there are any particular initial conditions that led you to genuinely enjoy it.

For example, a lucky streak or parental encouragement might have led you to make "I'm awesome at bowling" part of your identity, creating a virtuous circle of getting better and being proud and wanting to get even better.

If you had a friend or older brothre that had been doing it for 6 months that was with you when you first tried bowling, you might have decided that you simply weren't any good at it, and therefore why waste your time practising something you're clearly no good at?

I wonder how much of what we all decide to dedicate our lives to is simply down to random initial conditions.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#68

Post by wazoox »

zefhous wrote: post #18

I think there's truth to this, but I also disagree strongly with the idea that if you're not good at something you haven't practiced enough. Especially in certain fields — music, design, and programming all fit I think — there is a huge amount that many people just seem to get or not. I have a degree in music, so I've seen a lot while I was in school. Yes, some people can work really hard and eventually get it, but I…

I've just read a biography of Martha Argerich. Though she actually did work a lot at time, the fact is that for instance, she played a whole concerto entirely after having heard it /once/. I don't think this kind of ability comes with hard work, unfortunately.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#69

Post by jasonkester »

Nice.

There's also something to be said for picking something you're naturally good at an running with that. I, for example, had perfect pitch as a kid and with no practice managed to find myself in the church choir doing solos. I suspect that had I decided to follow up on it, I would have had an easier time than the author making it into a career.

In contrast, I can't dance. And it's not from lack of trying. I've taken classes (like college classes even), salsa lessons, you name it and I still just plain suck. Like the author says, I'm sure I could stick with it for 15 years and get good, but shy of that I'm always going to suck at it.

Other datapoints for me include rock climbing (naturally good), surfing (naturally bad, but on the 15 year path), basketball (naturally bad and gave up early), and computer programming (naturally good and making a career of it).

If you pick something you're naturally OK at and choose that as your focus, I think you'll get a lot faster results than the author.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#70

Post by sireat »

zefhous wrote: post #18

I think there's truth to this, but I also disagree strongly with the idea that if you're not good at something you haven't practiced enough. Especially in certain fields — music, design, and programming all fit I think — there is a huge amount that many people just seem to get or not. I have a degree in music, so I've seen a lot while I was in school. Yes, some people can work really hard and eventually get it, but I…

Derek's point is of "practice makes perfect" variety.

It is true to some extent, however there is one big caveat.

You have to do some of that practice at the right age.

What is the right age? For most skills/professions/hobbies it is under age of 20 and the most critical is age 12-16 or so.

Thus, Derek got some of that singing practice at the right age and got the basics. Unfortunately, he will be disappointed at the progress he can make at programming, because brain is not good at making new pathways at 30 compared to 15.

I am speaking from experience, I did not do enough programming in my teen years and it has definitely hurt my progress after age 30.

Even with today's title inflation, I am yet to find a chess grandmaster who started after age 30. Sure, someone can probably reach a low expert/master, but even those are not common.

On the other hand, I have known quite a few people with the disposable income AND time, who tried to get better at chess and managed at most 100-200 ELO point increase.

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