Kotsu Kotsu

Joshua Foer , author of Moonwalking with Einstein, gave a  talk on 99u  about the techniques that experts use to become great at what they do. As a martial artist and musician, I'm always looking for ways to improve and to practice more efficiently. The OK Plateau In 1967 a much-cited textbook  was written about how people acquire skills. The authors said that we go through three phases. Think of the way we learn to ride a bicycle, learn to type, or drive: Cognitive Phase - We devote a lot of mental energy to the skill, thinking about the tasks, discovering new ways to do better Associative Phase - We start to feel that we're improving, we make fewer errors Autonomous Phase - This is when we decide we're competent. We "turn on autopilot," doing a lot of the tasks without a lot of cognitive thought.  Foer calls the third phase "The OK Plateau." It's fine to reach a plateau when I'm OK at typing or driving, but not when I'm practi...

I've been thinking lately about two ways to practice. Of course there are many ways to think about practice, but looking at things this way has helped me lately. I'll stick with a music analogy but it's easy to see how this applies to aikido, or to other things. Technique The goal of technique practice is to learn to do something correctly. Often that "something" is just a small element of the whole.  In this type of practice you usually stop when you make a mistake, fix the mistake, and try again. Or you may continue to work in rhythm without stopping, but you may slow down or simplify in some way until you can "get it right." Getting it right means not just the outer form: playing the notes or doing the correct movements, but the inner as well: remaining relaxed, staying focused, keeping good posture. Playing Through By "playing through" I mean playing the entire tune (or a significant section), keeping the beat, and not stopping...