Skill versus Knowledge

 My other problem in life is golf.  Sadly the Master can shed no light on that topic.  Perhaps an auld Scottish caddy might be the way to go...

Back to the topic at hand.  One might summarize it simply as, "I knew I needed to stop before I hit the ball, but didn't."  We have here a case of knowledge, but not enough skill.

Skill might then be thought of as the incorporation of knowledge into one's play and its application in a useful way. 

There are several paths to skill production and there is a lot of scholarship out there in re this.  For example using drills as a path to skills.  Research has found that drills ain't so good.  The skill takes longer to be absorbed into the apperceptive mass, but along the path from knowledge to skill, it's been found harder to remember.

Remember?  I hear you say.  If I can return to golf for a moment, a sport that is less dynamic than PB, still requires a few movements in a certain order.  But try to remember the simple 45 steps and their order and see how well you do.  Dave Pelz is a golf researcher and his expertise was in data and quality control.  His research suggested that for something to become second nature or fully integrated, you needed 20,000 repetitions.  So if you are trying to copy my backhand roll, don't start unless you are still young.  :-)  Now you can do these things after just a few reps, but in the heat of the moment and in times of stress, it's really hard to think of doing the "new" thing.

I'll argue with that a bit.  For example you stumble across a better path, and it hurts less and the ball goes better, I think  a lot of minds would incorporate that solution to the problem quickly.  Will it toss the old way?  Maybe, but I think that's a struggle too.  Things you want to remember and things you want to forget.  It would be nice to have better control over these things.

So what to do?  You are a player who wants to get better.  I think the emotion of desire will help you remember the new thing.  But let me start in on the official second part of this post.

How to become a master?  When I was working there was a lot of training of customers, whether they knew it or not.  My co-worker Bob and I saw a lot of this.  We had a definition of a genius as someone who made every mistake, but only make it once.

The path to skill that all children take is try stuff.  And deliberately try the wrong thing.  This is just a boundary search for the truth about something.  They learn how far to go by going too far.  Watch a baby move those arms and hands.  They start off with a lot of excess movement and soon become more efficient, smoother, and faster.

Think of a top spin shot at the net.  You need to hit it hard enough to get enough spin.  Hit it too soft and it goes long because of the lack of spin.  It's really difficult to say, "Well it's going out, so maybe I need to hit it harder?"  But that well be the answer.  A kid might just keep banging the ball and find the answer by exploring the "wrong" answers and getting past them.  

But as adults we don't do much of that type of learning.  We can relate what we already know to new things.  But we rarely explore, go past, or push boundaries like a kid would.  We could probably hit a ball harder or with more spin, but we rarely try.

The converse is also true.  In occasional moments where the ball puts me in a awkward spot I've managed to return it with some unreal spin.  I therefore know that a lot more crazy, other worldly, shots are doable, but do I seek to figure it out?  Sadly no.  Even when we are aware of secret knowledge, it's hard to explore it.

In a more obvious example, there are people who cannot dink.  Everything is a hit and it's very hard for them to address the lack of a soft game.  Even if it would bring an immediate boost in ability.  I think it's a bit of fear and of looking foolish or not getting it right immediately.  Kids don't have those problems.  They've failed at everything they've tried initially, but somehow managed to gain skills on the way out.  If you struggle with this, you have to grit your teeth and be willing to take a short term hit to pride or fear and concentrate on the long term benefits.  What's the worst case scenario?  Someone laughs at your dink?  Golly, everyone misses dinks and by everyone, I mean all players from the worst to the absolute best.  Go be brave!  Think of your partner!

This post gets long...  What have we learned here?  The path to skills is built on the experience of failure, testing, retesting, being brave, and showing no fear.  Book learning is fine, but time in the trenches is still be required.  OK, a post about exterior thinking next time.