Monday, February 1, 2016

The Art of Practice

I was listening to some speakers on TEDx who were talking about motivation, confidence and being results-driven in all areas of life.  What struck me is the importance of not only practice, but the Art of Practice.  So, in this blog I will present my thoughts on the subject and I hope you find some useful application.

First of all, for the sake of this post, I want to make some distinctions between "Training" and "Practice":

1.  Training - Activities centered around a topic or subject, in a class environment or tutiledge under an instructor or coach.  New ideas, strategies and techniques are explored and learned.

2.  Practice - The mindful development of a specific skill or set of skills through repetition and refinement.

I know these definitions are broad and both Training and Practice can be the same thing.  But, I want to define them in this way in order to take a look at each seperately and how they are connected, like two sides of the same coin.

When you attend class with your teacher, you are in a room with other students, the teacher is introducing new ideas, techniques and strategies and every gets to work on them in the manner laid out by the teacher.  Through the training, you learn new skills, new concepts and such, which add to your understanding.  However, without actual practice of those things, through repetitive action, you won't build any sort of ability.  The things you picked up in training won't stay with you and become ability without the practice that it takes to integrate them into you.


But, I want to back this up even further.  We can attend all the classes, but without gaining the ability to practice, we fail in the development that comes from quality practice.

In other words, before we can practice, we have to first learn how to practice.  Before practice can build ability, we need to build our ability to practice.  Make sense?

Having the ability to practice well involves some very key components:

1.  Discipline - This is the ability to be able to focus on very specific things and repeat them over and over without derailing by wandering thoughts and external distractions.  Discomfort is the biggest enemy when it comes to maintaining the discipline to stay focused.  Things like pain, even boredom, can creep into the mind and destroy discipline.  External things like your cell phone, computers, television shows, even other people, animals and things can pull your mind away from it's centered focus.

2.  Commitment - This is part of discipline, but it is the part that means you back up your thought with action.  You tell yourself you're going to practice and you actually do it.  It's your follow through.  Rocking out one good practice session means little when you stop there, or wait until you "feel like it".  Know what you want and what you need to do, then do it until you get what you want.  That is commitment.

3.  Plan - Have a goal, a plan.  This means defining a result, asking questions and gaining knowledge of how to get it.  Set a time table to achieve that result.  Write it all down and have it in your face.  Don't leave it to memory, otherwise it will be crowded out of your mind by the rest of life's clutter.

4.  Research - Really learn how to do things correctly.  This is key.  Be a good student, ask questions, write things down, do your due diligence in making sure what you are going to practice is being done well.  Perfect practice is practicing perfectly.  Strive for correctness.  Form before resistance.  You get the idea. Practice means to repeat a specific skill or lesson, not just do whatever you want.  That's not practice, that's just playing (which is also fun and rewarding, but on a different level).

5.  Timing - Know when it's time for practice and time for training.  Don't miss out on bigger lessons because you want to just practice some small detail or skill.  At the same token, don't get caught up in exploration in training when you really should spend time practicing some critical piece to get it right first.  In other words, don't try to run when you still need to practice walking and don't waste time walking when you need to start running to get somewhere important.

Those are just a few and certainly you might come up with others, or describe these a bit differently.  But the point is that there is a relationship between training and practice.  Separately, each one is key and has it's place.  But, without the balance of them both together, there will be no real results.  That's not hard to understand.  What is hard, however, is in the application, especially when one doesn't really have developed their ability to practice with any real quality.  What usually happens is that people tend to show up to class for training and then leave without ever actually practicing what they've learned.  In their mind, they think they were practicing, but they really weren't.  At least not enough.  So, they come to the next class and begin training again, often on entirely new or different skills than what they practiced last time. 

At best, they become a Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

Gaining the ability to practice is a skill.  So, how do you learn it?  The answer is both simple and incredibly difficult.  You have to pick one thing, just one thing, so simplistic that you can know exactly how to do it, down to detail, and be able to repeat it over and over again.  Keep it basic, like a Tsuki or thrust.  Basic doesn't mean simple, but a Tsuki is just one thing.  Learn how to do it correctly on a basic level, the alignment of the body, direction and angle of movement, use of the knees, targeting and staying on track through the thrust, etc.  Your goal is to do it correctly for a thousand repetitions and you have set a time frame of one month to complete it.  Doing the math (and I *hate* math!), you commit to practicing 50 repetitions (25 right, 25 left sides) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, for the four weeks in the month.  At the end of the month, you will have done 1,000 repetitions of a Tsuki.

The following month, you decide to do a Tsuki with a Bokken from Seigan no Kamae and use the same math.  The next month, you do it with a Hanbo.  The next month, you do it with Rokushakubo.

That is now four months of practicing a Tsuki, for a total of four thousand repetitions.  If you train correctly, you know that a Tsuki is done the same way, whether with fist or weapon.  So, even though you've done 1,000 Tsuki reps with different weapons, you've actually done 4,000 Tsuki reps with the same taijutsu.

Assuming you practice mindfully, slowly and with focused discipline to keep fixing any errors, how good do you think your taijutsu will improve?  Would it have been worth the time and effort?

Now compare that to going to a class once, twice or even three times per week, always training on different things, only getting in maybe a handful of repetitious practice of a singular skill set.

To go even further, think about the mental focus and discipline it would take to practice fifty repetitions in one session, or to do repeat that session M-W-F-S-S.  Imagine the mental focus and discipline it would take to keep going to complete that one thousand reps at the end of the month, then to start again with the next.  Your practice shapes and builds so much more than just technical skill.  It also builds your strength of character, resolve, mind and spirit.  That impacts every aspect of your life.

Creating a Practice Plan as a supplement to your training is vital in building reliable, quality skill.  Yet, so many stop short of this by only going to class.  Many want to practice what they've learned, but because they don't set up a plan and commit to it, the usual tendency is to abandon it.  When they do take the time to practice, often it many be some technique, done so few times to only make it a mental reminder than a skill building forging of the body and mind.  Unless there is a teacher or partner to help push the person, they lose focus quickly, become bored or jump around in topics so much that nothing is actually practiced to any degree of improvement.  This is a clear example of someone not having much ability at the art of practicing.

But, the good news is that, as with any ability, the quality of practice can be developed and improved!  It takes the same things as any other ability.  Practicing how to practice will boost the quality of practice for anything you want to develop strong ability with.  It starts with the mind, then with a plan, and lastly with committed, correct action.

Then, go to your regular classes and weekend seminars to train, learn and pick up new things to practice!

The best part is that the more you practice well, the better your training will be!  Take the Tsuki, for instance. Most of the formal attacks in the dojo are in the form of a Tsuki.  The better the Tsuki, the more the defender is challenged to receive and counter correctly.  Everybody benefits.  At the same time, executing a good Tsuki as the attacker affords you another opportunity to practice your Tsuki.  It's a win-win all around!

But, you won't have a strong Tsuki if you don't practice it well.  So, it all starts with practice.  Not just any practice, but one that is built upon a strong ability at practicing.

So, what would you like to practice?  What result or goal do you want to achieve and what is your plan to get there?  Are you ready to commit to it?  Great, then when will you start?

Hajime!

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