I believe it is useful to distinguish between different types of (or reasons for) practice:
1) Practice, or exercise, to increase one's mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual capacity to make it possible to know, understand or perform some desirable thing
2) Practice to get it. Example: learning to do a backhip circle is difficult, and the first time you make it around the bar, you got it. It may not be pretty, but you got it and then you can start working to perfect it. Another example: learning a song on the piano. Once you're able to play the song through, there may be some mistakes and the timing and rhythm may not be great, but you've got it.
3) Practice to perfect it. Once you're able to manage the basic thing, you can start working on the details of it to perfect it. Example: learning to point the toes and keep the body straight on the back hip circle; adding the dynamics to the song.
4) Practice to make it permanent. Once you've got it, and once you've perfected it, you continue to practice to make it permanent. Making it permanent is similar too, and sometimes the same as, making it automatic. It's a matter of reapeatedly performing the skill with exactness and percision so that the perfect execution of that skill begins to feel natural, and less than perfect exectution no longer feels right or acceptable.
1) Practice, or exercise, to increase one's mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual capacity to make it possible to know, understand or perform some desirable thing
2) Practice to get it. Example: learning to do a backhip circle is difficult, and the first time you make it around the bar, you got it. It may not be pretty, but you got it and then you can start working to perfect it. Another example: learning a song on the piano. Once you're able to play the song through, there may be some mistakes and the timing and rhythm may not be great, but you've got it.
3) Practice to perfect it. Once you're able to manage the basic thing, you can start working on the details of it to perfect it. Example: learning to point the toes and keep the body straight on the back hip circle; adding the dynamics to the song.
4) Practice to make it permanent. Once you've got it, and once you've perfected it, you continue to practice to make it permanent. Making it permanent is similar too, and sometimes the same as, making it automatic. It's a matter of reapeatedly performing the skill with exactness and percision so that the perfect execution of that skill begins to feel natural, and less than perfect exectution no longer feels right or acceptable.
Comments