“Ultimately the only power to which man should
aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”
Here’s
a great way to become perfect at just about anything: When you practice, don’t
ever do it wrong. If you practice perfectly, you will become perfect.
I
want to propose this to you as an ETR Big Secret.
Here’s
the background of the Jazz Master’s Secret: I was talking to TH, a colleague
who plays a very good blues guitar. He told me that about 20 years ago he
attended a small seminar given by legendary jazz guitarist Howard Roberts. Roberts
told TH the secret of his virtuosity: “Never practice a mistake.”
According
to Roberts, most musicians, in their eagerness to play complex pieces, move too
fast. What he had always done – and the secret to his success – was to practice
only what he could do perfectly.
His
theory was that any learning – and guitar learning in particular – is the
biological process of creating neural networks in the brain. Every perfect
repetition beats a good path – one that you can travel on later. Every
incorrect repetition beats a parallel but incorrect path – one that you can easily
slide onto if you aren’t careful.
The
more you practice the right moves, the deeper the memory path. The trick is to
make the correct paths as deep as possible and the incorrect paths shallow or
nonexistent.
The
faster you eventually perform a task, the more likely it is that you will make
a mistake, unless, that is, you have cut only one path for it – a perfect one.
Likewise, when you are performing a task under stress or in association with
other tasks, it is easy to bungle it unless you have no neurological way to screw
it up.
The
trouble with most guitar students, Roberts said, is that they rush themselves.
They are fixated on completing a movement rather than on performing it well. They
figure the sooner they can simulate the completed movement, the better they are
doing. But the truth is quite different.
I
make the same mistake with Jiu Jitsu. When I learn a new move, I want to master
it quickly. Instead of taking each part slowly and surely, I rush myself. The
result? I learn an imperfect movement.
BW,
a great Jiu Jitsu player, has been telling me to slow down for as long as he has
known me. Now I understand why.
Most
things worth learning are complex. That’s why we learn them in pieces. Whether
it’s guitar playing, dancing, or public speaking, the ultimate performance is a
complex combination of many simpler tasks.
Thus,
to make the performance perfect you need to perfect each of the simpler tasks.
Most learning systems are based on this understanding.
To
do a task perfectly – even a simple task – usually means slowing down. You
should slow down as much as you need to in order to make the movement perfect.
Don’t
worry about your progress. Doing a repetition at half speed does not make the learning
process twice as long. It makes it faster, because you are creating just one
neural pathway – and none to cause you to deviate from your course.
The
fundamental rule is this: Do it right every time you try and you will learn
faster and perform better. It may be possible that the secret to virtuosity
itself is not some mysterious preexisting natural capacity for a particular
skill, buta natural inclination to practice it correctly.
Isn’t
that what imaging is all about? Isn’t imaging just a visual way to improve the
quality of the repetition?
ETR
readers know the secret of accomplishing any goal: 1000 hours to achieve
competence and 5000 hours to achieve mastery. I’ve talked about how you can
shorten that time by being coached well. Now I see that being coached well
means having someone who can show you the “perfect” way. By learning perfect
form and practicing it perfectly, the time it will take you to master a task –any
task – should be considerably shorter.
I’m
convinced. From now on I’m going to slow down and get it right. When I put
aside, say, fifteen minutes to practice something, I’m not going to try to do
as many repetitions as possible in sixty minutes, but to do as many perfect
repetitions as I possibly can.
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This
is a very easy business. You get a call. You spend 15 minutes on the Internet.
You send out a report. And you collect $50 to $500.
All
the information you need is available on the Internet. Prices. Costs. Technical
specifications. Do some local advertising. Pass out a lot of cards. Award
referral bonuses and your business will grow.
MMF
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