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Fran Ortega Post 1

• 25 January 2016, 12:42 PM

Ericsson´s deliberate practice Theory

According to Ericsson, performance and enjoyment don´t come always together. I think that from all the factors of deliberate practice, this one might be the most controversial. 

Generally, those who want to achieve a high level of expertise in any sport assume that deliberate practice is occasionally tedious and not very funny. For example, an athlete who performs any component of his technique analytically and isolated will never consider it as an enjoyable activity but by the contrary the athlete understands that it is needed to improve his performance, being eventually that reason the real source of motivation to keep practicing that way.

Ericsson does not leave any gap for innate talent, so then, does it mean that anyone could become an expert? That is, carrying out an adequate deliberate practice, anyone could become an exceptional tennis player like Andy Murray or Serena Williams, a sprinter like Usain Bolt or Shelly Ann Fraser or a football player like Messi?

My first ever 'Robin Hood'

Grahame Cotterill Post 2 in reply to 1

• 25 January 2016, 3:34 PM

Fran my problem with this is what is inate tallent? Virtually every individual even a monozygote twin will have an upbringing part of which will be unique. I think this predisposes some people to excell in an area but they will only achieve superstar staus if they train for it.

If I had 10000 hours and 10 years there is no way I would win Olympic Gold. My history of running training, gym work etc is keeping me at a higher level of fitness than many other old fogies my age however I know that at my gym there are others older than me who are fitter.

Similarly training can be tedious especially when you are working on something and performance gets worse while the new technique is learned. It is really hard with an archer who is shooting good scores but unhappy with their form who comes to training and finds their scores get worse when they modify their form. Or during training due to an injury/ illnes or loss of concentration form and scores drop off.

What about the psychological issues with training as well?

BW

Britta Wenn Post 3 in reply to 2

• 25 January 2016, 11:58 PM

Innate talent it was is existing from birth, also inborn potential, but what outcome can be reached  with the talent is by training ,  environment etc. and in opposite we can say that  that without talent you can work as hard as you can, but you don't reached the elite performance. Would be easy to become an Picasso only through hours and hours of training/ painting. 

My first ever 'Robin Hood'

Grahame Cotterill Post 4 in reply to 3

• 26 January 2016, 11:09 AM

Britta my point was . Is this innate talent something that is there or something that has been developed because the child/parent has been told they were "good at it" and so put more effort into training?

A few years ago we were on holiday in the Med and a team of local divers would run a free session in the pool every other day. Their sales pitch was always "You are a natural at this! You will be very good if you take up diving! You should book our sea diving experience tomorrow and do our PADI course!"

I am suggesting that some coaches possibly oversell ability that inadvertantly leads to the client putting extra effort in and becoming very good.

Christine Nash

Christine Nash Post 5 in reply to 4

• 26 January 2016, 2:01 PM

Some really interesting points in this area. Ericsson's view is that if you practice enough you can overcome any limitation - not sure I completely agree with that though. There are some who wholeheartedly 'buy into' the whole concept of 10,000 hours and DP and obviously, those who consider it a waste of time.

I'm very interested in the whole notion of expertise as you may know but I sit somewhere in the middle here, 'on the fence' so to speak. Definitely practice helps and the quality of practice is both important and informed by the coach. 

DS

Daniel Scott Post 6 in reply to 5

• 26 January 2016, 7:08 PM

I'm in a similar position to you Christine. One of my issues with the nature argument is that as a coach if a kid comes to me and says he wants to be a pro basketball player and he'll do anything it takes but is under 6 foot I'm not going to turn round and tell him he'll never make, he's wasting his time. I'll train him as best I can and do everything I can for him. It is possible to make it to the NBA at that height, it's been done before. On the flip side there are a lot of people who had dreams of making it in something and really put in the work and for whatever reason (often the genetic gift wasn't there) it never happened. 

The quote that has stuck with me from the readings is Pinker, S (2004) "The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known universe. No doubt hypotheses that pit nature against nurture as a dichotomy or that correlate genes  or environment without looking at the intervening brain will turn out to be simplistic or wrong."

I found the studies on twins interesting, with measurable differences in identical twins even with same genes and largely the same environment. I wonder if this will be difficult to answer without first understanding exactly what consciousness actually is. There are identical twins at the club I coach at and while to look at them I can't tell them apart they do behave noticeably different. There is something different within everyone and I wonder if it is in the rather abstract/vague notion of individual consciousness. Probably not very helpful within the nature/nurture, deliberate practice is everything/nothing debate.

BW

Britta Wenn Post 7 in reply to 4

• 26 January 2016, 8:39 PM

Hi Grahame

a PADI Scuba diving.

I have been a Scuba Diving instructor  and certified through Padi in 1984. Long time ago, as PADI  was just in the starting shoes in Europe and I stopped around 15 years ago. so I know very well there philosophy.

Unfortunately so many professional/ let's say commercial coache/ trainers/ instructors using the term" You are a natural talent' for commercial issue. I think they don't know what means natural talent. But they like to spoil  their clients. 

I don;t think that the clients are putting more effort to be good, controversy the clients will  overvalue themselves, as they think they are talented and don't need to make effort. but the reality is another and accidents will happen easily, as the clients don't recognized their limits.  The coaches are using "talent" to convince clients that they are able to do the sport activity they are selling.