[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
making even a familiar skill seem strange and fresh.
TIP #28
MIME IT
At talent hotbeds you will see people swinging golf clubs and tennis rackets at empty air, playing the piano on tabletops, and skiing imaginary
slalom courses with their feet fixed on the floor. It looks crazy, but from a deep-practice perspective it makes sense. Removing everything except
the essential action lets you focus on what matters most: making the right reach.
TIP #29
W HE N Y OU GE T IT RIGHT, MARK THE S P OT
One of the most fulfilling moments of a practice session is when you have your first perfect rep. When this happens, freeze. Rewind the mental tape
and play the move again in your mind. Memorize the feeling, the rhythm, the physical and mental sensations. The point is to mark this moment this
is the spot where you want to go again and again. This is not the finish it s the new starting line for perfecting the skill until it becomes automatic.
As Kimberly Meier-Sims of the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies says, Practice begins when you get it right.
TIP #30
TAKE A NAP
This is one of my favorite tips. Napping is common in talent hotbeds, and features both anecdotal and scientific justification.
The anecdotal: Albert Einstein was good at physics, and he was really good at his daily post-lunch twenty-minute snooze. Other famous nappers
include Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and John D. Rockefeller.
Spend time with any professional athletic team, and you ll find that they re also professional nappers.
The science: Napping is good for the learning brain, because it helps strengthen the connections formed during practice and prepare the brain
for the next session. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that napping for ninety minutes improved memory scores by 10
percent, while skipping a nap made them decline by 10 percent. You need sleep before learning, to prepare your brain, like a dry sponge, to
absorb new information, said the study s lead investigator, Dr. Matthew Walker.
TIP #31
TO LE ARN A NE W MOV E , E X AGGE RATE IT
Think of the way parents teach their babies new words they stretch out each sound, overemphasize it, overdo it. There s a good reason for this.
Going too far helps us understand where the boundaries are.
To learn a new move, exaggerate it. If the move calls for you to lift your knees, lift them to the ceiling. If it calls for you to press hard on the guitar
strings, press with all your might. If it calls for you to emphasize a point while speaking in public, emphasize with theatricality. Don t be halfhearted.
You can always dial back later. Go too far so you can feel the outer edges of the move, and then work on building the skill with precision.
TIP #32
MAKE P OS ITIV E RE ACHE S
There s a moment just before every rep when you are faced with a choice: You can either focus your attention on the target (what you want to do) or
you can focus on the possible mistake (what you want to avoid). This tip is simple: Always focus on the positive move, not the negative one.
For example, a golfer lining up a putt should tell herself, Center the stroke, not Don t pull this putt to the left. A violinist faced with a difficult
passage should tell himself, Nail that A-flat, not Oh boy, I hope I don t miss that A-flat. Psychologists call this positive framing, and provide
plentiful theories of how framing affects our subconscious mind. The point is, it always works better to reach for what you want to accomplish, not
away from what you want to avoid.
TIP #33
TO LE ARN FROM A BOOK, CLOS E THE BOOK
Let s pretend that one week from now you will take a test on the next ten pages of this book. You have thirty minutes to study. Which practice
method would help you get a better grade?
A) Reading those ten pages four times in a row, and trying to memorize them.
B) Reading those ten pages once, then closing the book and writing a one-page summary.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
