How Much Practice is Enough?
How much do you practice? How much should you practice?
Last month, we raised this much-debated issue when we cross-posted a thought-provoking guest blog from Dr. Noa Kageyama. Adding another perspective to this discussion, the article below draws some very interesting connections between sports and music. Read on to see what young string players and young soccer players have in common.
Manchester United, Malcolm Gladwell and The Importance of Starting Young, By Roger Domeneghetti
This interesting story shows how soccer programs in Europe are developing new training programs to assure that the young soccer players can get their 10,000 hours of training before the age of 18. Malcolm Gladwell‘s theory that 10,000 hours of practicing is needed in order to reach elite level performance in any field from sport, music, art to software engineering was inspired from research done by psychologists Anders Ericsson who based his study on violin students at the music Academy of West Berlin.
Of course, it’s important to understand that quality can matter just as much (if not more) than quantity. That said, from my own experience of teaching it is clear that a combination of steady sustained high quality practice over a number of years is what is needed in order to reach elite level status. Some things must be learned over time and experience.
Psychologist Anders Ericsson’s study on violin students:
The basis for his theory is research conducted in the early Nineties by psychologist Anders Ericsson which looked at violinists at the Music Academy of West Berlin. Ericsson divided the violinists into three groups – the outstanding students destined to become international soloists; extremely good students destined to join top orchestras; and the least able students simply studying to become music teachers.
Ericsson discovered that all the students, no matter what group they were in, had remarkably similar backgrounds and none deviated greatly from the standard pattern. They started playing at more-or-less the same age; they decided to become musicians at more-or-less the same age; they had on average 4.1 music teachers and so on. However, the one stand out difference was in the amount of practice time. By the age of 20, the top performers had practiced an average of 10,000 hours; the good violinists an average of 8,000 hours and the least able only 4,000 hours.
Furthermore, practice was the only differentiating factor. No one reached the elite group without putting in the hours and no one put in the hours and failed to reach the elite group. As Ericsson wrote: “[…] the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long persistence of deliberate effort to improve performance.”
Six times more touches per minute:
Simon Clifford, who runs the Brazilian Soccer Schools talks of how Brazil produces better players because their “kids are practising three, four hours every day.”
Not just that, but the particular type of football young Brazilians play – futsal – which involves a smaller pitch and heavier ball than normal football, has been shown to lead to six times more touches per minute thus honing ball control and vision. So, not just hours more practice but a much higher-quality practice than that on offer in England.
Natural genius, right? Well, no… Rory McIlroy the youngest winner of the US Open since 1923
Rory McIlroy is the most exciting young golfer around having just become the youngest winner of the US Open since 1923 and doing so with a record-low score to boot. Natural genius, right? Well, no.
His father was a keen golfer himself, playing off a scratch handicap and he started training Rory from when he was about 18 months old. By the age of two, Rory could hit a 40-yard drive. His parents dedicated themselves to earning enough money to fund his development. At the age of seven he became the youngest ever member of his local golf club. Hell, he even used to sleep with a golf club in his hands – the correct grip in place. So, by the time he became a 22-year-old Major-winning sensation he had hours of practice behind him.
Thanks a lot for sharing this with all folks you really realize what you’re talking about!
Bookmarked. Please additionally visit my website =). We may have a link trade agreement among us
Very good write-up. I absolutely love this site.
Thanks!
WOW juyst what I was looking for. Came here by searching for fitness and weight loss guide
É importante ter em conta que, embora não existam grandes diferenças entre
os três medicamentos em termos de eficácia, mecanismo de acção, contraindicações e efeitos
secundários, Cialis, Viagra e Levitra diferem no formato em que estão disponíveis, na dose, na forma de ingestão e sobretudo na duração da sua eficácia.
hello!,I really like your writing so much! share we communicate more approximately your article on AOL?
I need a specialist in this house to resolve my problem.
May be that is you! Taking a look ahead to peer you.
I feel this is one of the such a lot important info for me.
And i’m satisfied studying your article. However wanna remark on some normal things, The site
taste is perfect, the articles is actually great :
D. Just right task, cheers
Excellent goods from you, man. I’ve have in mind your stuff
previous to and you’re simply extremely fantastic.
I really like what you’ve obtained here, certainly
like what you are saying and the way in which in which you are saying it.
You make it entertaining and you still take care of to stay it sensible.
I can not wait to learn much more from you. This is really a great website.
Hi, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your blog in Ie, it looks fine but when opening
in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted
to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, wonderful blog!
Raw fish tend to fetch higher prices than cooked fish,
due to the high demand of players who want to train Cooking Therefore,
it is recommended that you should leave your fish raw
if you want to gain maximum profit.
Hi therte colleagues, its wondderful piece of writing on the topic of tutoringand fully defined, keep it up all the
time.
Hello! Would you mind if I share your blog with my myspace group?
There’s a lot of people that I think would really enjoy
your content. Please let me know. Thank you
You can certainly see your enthusiasm in the article you write.
Thhe sector hopes for even more passionate writers such as you who are
not afraid to say hoow they believe. All the time follow
your heart.
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this web
site’s content everyday along with a mug of coffee.
LeBron by could be particular JORDAN Idaho the
other day, jump a discharge or the southland view pertaining to equal tints LeBron 10, previously having cyan content seem to
be sold-out, foreign you precisely put right Mache transformers predicated
on JORDAN recognition towards hercules option, coming from running shoes complement colorization to
the decepticon icon among language enjoys persistent improvement is definitely hair
color-within-initially the-woodwind.
Gakusen Toshi Asterisk
Amazing! Its truly amazing paragraph, I have got much clear idea about from this article.
Normally I do not learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up very compelled me to check out and do
so! Your writing taste has been surprised me. Thank you, very nice article.
excellent points altogether, you just gained a new reader.
What would you recommend about your post that you made
some days ago? Any sure?
Moreover, these days there is also the unlimited availability of phone apps for top newspapers, which can be
accessed when you are at work or at home with ease. WWE Smack –
Down Spoilers For this coming Friday show on Sy – Fy. Steve Jones is a diehard sports enthusiast and has been his entire life.
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though
you relied on the video to make your point.You obviously know what youde talking about, why waste your
intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could bbe givijg uus
something enlightening to read?
This is definitely the trick behind million-dollar mobile
app developers. However, many other businesses can also benefit from
an Lords Mobile Hack store. While a store can showcase the goods and services
a business offers, the virtual shopping cart is the way for
a customer to actually purchase these items.
For hottest news you have to pay a quick visit the web and
on world-wide-web I found this web site as a finest web page for latest updates.
This design is wicked! You certainly know how to keep a reader amused.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Great
job. I really enjoyed what you had to say, and more than that, how
you presented it. Too cool!
You could certainly see your skills within the article you write.
The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to say
how they believe. At all times follow your heart.
Just desire to say your article is as astounding. The
clearness to your submit is simply spectacular and i can assume
you are a professional on this subject. Fine along with
your permission let me to clutch your feed to keep updated with approaching post.
Thank you a million and please keep up the rewarding work.
Howdy, i read your blog from tijme to tkme and i own a similar one aand i was just curious if you get
a lot of spam feedback? If sso how do you protect against it, any
plugin or anything you can suggest? I get sso much lately it’s driving me crazy so
any support is very much appreciated.
I’ve to confess, I had been looking forward to seeing Hotel Transylvania 2 ever since I heard that it
was being done by them. Along with the film definitely doesn’t disappoint.
Amex visa mastercard online generici levitra puo donna fare cosa disfunzione somministrazione la cialis erettile
of course like your web site however you have to test the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to tell the truth nevertheless I will definitely come back again. pgslot168