Super-slow practice and skill development

May 1, 2010

Members may enjoy reading:

One question that pops up often: why does super-slow practice work so well?

After all, we see it over and over in the talent hotbeds, where it's used to

learn everything from algebra to tennis to writing. And yet slow practice grates

against our instincts. Speed is good, right? Shouldn't we always push ourselves

to go faster, faster, faster?

Here's the deal: super-slow practice works because practice is about

construction. We are literally building a neural circuit — connection by

connection. Slowing down lets us pay deeper attention to those connections; it

lets us fire the circuit more accurately. Super-slow practice allows us to not

only perform the action, but to also simultaneously observe that performance; to

coach ourselves. When we go fast, on the other hand, we are only performing.

I just came across a interesting new book: Slow Practice Will Get You There

Faster, by Ernest Dras. Dras points to the above video, where we can watch

all-time-great Ben Hogan perform his super-slow golf swing (check out the

incredible fluidity and control Hogan displays at 1:45 and beyond; it looks like

the film is slowed down, but as the waves in the background prove, it's pure

Hogan). Dras points out that Mozart and his father did essentially the same

thing.

The elder Mozart would place ten dried peas in his son's left coat pocket, and

for each successful attempt at a difficult passage, Mozart would move a single

pea to his right pocket. When he failed on any piece, even if it was the tenth

repetition, all the peas had to be placed back in his left pocket — Wolfgang had

to begin anew. What usually happens when using this method is that the student

slows down his tempo in order to play the passage perfectly.

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Carruthers

Wakefield, UK

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