Does practice make perfect?

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TEXT: RYAN TEHINI

DOES PRACTICE REALLY MAKE PERFECT?

WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME AN EXPERT

In his bestseller Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell posits that it takes 10 000 hours of practice to become an expert or master in any field. This means that assuming you train for two hours a day, five days a week without fault, it would take you approximately 19 years to become an expert/master of the equestrian discipline. In introducing this rule, which has gained significant popularity since the release of his book, Gladwell cites many studies from a variety of fields – including music, sport, and academia. This begs the question, does it really take 10 000 hours of practice? And if not, how does one become an expert or master of a discipline?

A PROVOCATIVE GENERALISATION

One of the studies cited by Gladwell in his book was conducted by Anders Ericsson, who later called Gladwell’s theory “a provocative generalisation”, and believes that there is far more to becoming an expert than the number of hours used to hone the craft. Ericsson noted that a number of the top musicians in his study had not put in 10 000 hours by the time they were considered masters, while others had put in significantly more practice hours before achieving the same level. As such, he dismissed Gladwell’s theory as being totally arbitrary and said that while it provided some guidance, and a broad outline of what is required, it is not based on anything substantial and is used mainly because it is catchy and easy to understand.

This however, does not entirely discredit the 10 000 hours theory, as it still nonetheless provides a decent outline of the requirements for an ordinary person to become a master at a craft. Still, if the premise of the theory is believed to be somewhat true, two of the main concerns regarding the theory remain unanswered - firstly, not all practice is equally helpful, so what kind of practice should make up my 10 000 hours? And secondly, one can overpractice and burn out, so how long should it take me to put in the 10 000 hours in a sustainable manner?

NOT ALL PRACTICE IS EQUAL

One of the main arguments outside of the 10 000 hours rule with regards to mastering a craft, is that the quality of the practice matters significantly more than the quantity. For example, imagine you spend one hour practicing your ride on your own one day, and then the next day you spend an hour practicing one-on-one with an expert coach who is giving you pointers the entire time – are these two practices equal? It is more than likely that you will get far more out of the second practice than the first. This is one of the main flaws underlying the 10 000 hours theory; a variety of practice is required in order to become a master of something. This variety includes time in competition, training on your own, general bonding with your horse, mental training, instructor-led training and an abundance of other elements, the respective weights of which are entirely dependent on your individual requirements as a rider. For example if you battle with competition anxiety, a mental training regimen will immediately make all your other training sessions far more valuable, than if you were simply to keep pushing through. Similarly, if you are struggling to decipher where in your ride things are going wrong, an instructor-led training session will ensure that further training is not in vain.

This illustrates the importance of deliberate practice within the sporting realm, it is not simply enough to put in the hours, one needs to identify the source of errors, tailor their training around fixing these, and ensure that feedback is sufficient to improve (this can be internal feedback or that which is provided by a coach).

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH PRACTICE

As we noted above, training can be effective and ineffective, depending on how it is conducted. Effective training differs from ineffective training in a number of ways, but one of the most significant differences, is that effective training is extremely cognitively demanding. This cognitive demand means that there is a finite amount of effective training that we can do per day, before it starts to

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Ryan Tehini (BA, BSocSci (Hons) Psych, MA Research Psychology (cum laude)(UP)). For Psychological Skills Training for sports’ competitions, please get in touch with me: ryantehini@gmail.com or 073 567 7387

become unproductive, or even damaging. We only have so many cognitive resources per day, and these deplete as the day goes on, and are only replenished through nutritious eating, and proper sleep. As such, how much you can train per day will depend entirely on what the rest of your day looks like, as well as how long you have been competing in the sport. Recent research indicated that, as a guideline, novice athletes who are still learning something new at every lesson should train for approximately 1 hour a day, while experienced athletes can train for up to 4 hours per day. The reasoning behind this discrepancy is that training is slightly less cognitively demanding for experienced players per minute, than it is for novice players; this is because the experienced player is in a familiar situation, has done this many times before, and is typically working on one thing at a time as opposed to multiple things.

HOW DO I GET THE MOST OUT OF MY TRAINING?

In order to get the most out of your training and to ensure that it is effective, it is important to know that emotions play a critical role in learning – our brains make use of past emotional knowledge in order to guide your process of reasoning while in the arena. As such it is very important to avoid the old adage of “keep your emotions out of it”, as the more emotion you feel during a lesson, the more likely it is to be retained in your long term memory.

Secondly, mental practice is vital, and an incredibly powerful tool. You are unlikely to meet a professional athlete, who does not engage in mental practice. In fact, the studies that explore the effectiveness of mental practice are significantly more conclusive than the studies investigating any other forms of practice.

Lastly, invest in the single biggest proponent of practice – motivation. It is not easy to bring yourself back to practice every day, particularly if you have had a bad practice or competition recently. Therefore, it is vitally important to look after your mental health, allowing yourself to maintain motivation over time. If you find yourself lacking motivation, see the January issue of HQ, where techniques to maintain motivation were discussed in-depth.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

While it might not take 10 000 hours to become an expert rider, you will surely not regret striving for that goal, and putting in that amount of work. Just remember as you do, to ensure that the training is effective, does not continually deplete your cognitive resources, and incorporates a variety of training techniques to keep you interested, motivated, and on an upwards trajectory.

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