Have you heard the saying, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect!”
A big part of perfect practice is being deliberate about your practice.
That means having a plan. Knowing why you’re training that day, what you’re going to be working on, and how long you’re going to be working on it.
The idea is to break down your training into chunks small enough so that you have a very decent chance of coming away from a training session being quantifiably better at that one small thing than you were before.
In this rant from my Instagram (@stephankesting) I give you a concrete example of how to break down a skill into small chunks.
Today, because wilderness canoeing is my second love after martial arts, I’m talking about how I’m working on the technique for precisely planting my paddle in the water at the beginning of a power stroke. That might seem obscure but this approach really does apply to any skill in any sport, including landing single leg takedowns, passing the guard, and finishing the triangle choke in grappling.
Deliberate Practice in Podcast Form
As you may know, I host a podcast (The Strenuous Life Podcast) on which I have a lot of guests but I also do the occasional solo episode.
Today’s discussion of deliberate practice made it into the podcast as episode 284 which you can listen to on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and Google Play.
If you don’t have a preferred podcast player you can can listen on the Grapplearts BJJ Master App which you can download for free for iPhone and iPad in the Apple App Store here or for Android devices in the Google Play Store here.
Or you can stream the audio below…
Good luck with your training. Get granular. Be deliberate!
Stephan