He was young and strong and had been training hard for a few months.

Little did he know that I had trained since before he was walking. It began when I was 15, and I loved spending hours in the hall, relentlessly asking questions of my instructor long after the class had finished. So when I hit him, he was pretty surprised

When I step back into one of those same classes today, I remember most of the techniques but my skill level has suffered – perhaps more than I would like to admit. But I’m still not your average beginner.

In my first session back, it’s best if I just watch, or pair up with a beginning student. In my second session back, I can pair up with someone who has been training for a few months. And after a few weeks, I’ll expect to match it with the guys who have been training for a year or more.

But why? Why can we get so much better so quickly?

It’s the same with older experts. After playing at the top of their field, they will stop doing so much deliberate practice. The sportsperson won’t be competing so they won’t be training – at least not as much. The doctor won’t be studying and maintaining their skills through regular patient contact. The linguist will struggle in a language after not having used it for a while. We all get ‘rusty’.

If you’ve been reading much of what I’ve said before, you’ll know that deliberate practice is important for skill acquisition. But deliberate practice is also important for maintaining those skills.

(So if you find yourself competing with someone who seems to be ‘past it’, you might want to check how much practice they have been getting lately.)

It’s like there is a ‘trait’ component and a ‘state’ component of skill. The ‘trait’ component is how good you are at your worst – when Lleyton Hewitt plays tennis at his worst, he’s still much better than most of us. But there is also something else: “How good are you today?” We could call that part our ‘state’ skill level because it depends upon our state in any given moment. To compete with the best, you might need to have a high level of “state skill” and combine that with being at your best on that day with a high “trait skill”.

As you get better, you not only polish your performance skills, but create mental and physical adaptations. When you start driving, it’s hard work to keep the car in the right gear, to check the mirrors, steer and keep a safe distance from the cars around you. After a while, you just need to think “turn right” and you can. Some of this comes from tasks becoming automated so they require less attention, some of it comes from using a better strategy and having better technique. But even the best of us can have a bad day – so there is a ‘state’ component and a ‘trait’ component.

The great thing about deliberate practice enhancing our ‘trait skill’ level is that once you have developed a high level of performance, you can take those adaptations with you without too much effort.

It’s the ‘hard work’ of deliberate practice that creates a context for these adaptations. It’s hard work because we are learning to do things differently. Rehearsal or playing the game can give you ‘experience’ but this polish doesn’t improve the stone. Deliberate practice upgrades the quality of the underlying stone.

So, as you begin 2010, I hope that you can find ways to upgrade your skills, not just getting a little better.

Originally from TheGeniusProject.com: Genius as a choice.

1. Geniuses solve problems that novices cannot.
2. Geniuses solve problems that novices can solve but much more rapidly and accurately.

We also observe that the thinking process used by genius to solve problems is briefer, reflecting that more subprocesses have been automated.

I have taught martial arts since 1998. Last week, I was doing some punching with one of my students, Kenny. I wanted Kenny to throw a left jab then a right cross. A novice would need to be told “left punch, right punch” – or something even more simple. Someone who had trained with me for a while could be told “double head punch”. However, Kenny had done quite a bit of boxing training; for him “one-two” was enough. Indeed, even after a few minutes, if I used the term “left-right” or “double head-punch”, he would internally translate that as “one-two”. Kenny is skilled, but he is not an expert or a ‘genius’.

My original fascination in genius came from the contrast between Jack and Barry. Barry studied hard. Jack didn’t. But they got similarly outstanding results.

When we were 16, they completed an examination in advanced mathematics. Here, they were asked to show a proof. However, the proof was impossible. Each identified that the question was flawed and so in a sense ‘solved’ the problem. To gain marks for the problem, Barry provided six pages of working. Jack only provided three pages.

At the time, we thought that Jack was smarter – after all, he had worked it out in half the time that it took Barry. However, while Barry was granted full credit for his six pages of working, Jack was only granted half-marks.

One more thing to remember (that has relevance to the self-help goal setting world):

1. Experts work forward, noticing and reporting consequences of the ‘givens’ until a solution appears, at least on problems that are easy for them.
2. Novices work backwards from the problem goal.

Make your life easier: Frame your questions. Through finding the right framing, you increase your chances of finding the models and strategies that can give you the answer you seek.

From TheGeniusProject.com

Have you ever been really scared or really angry or really intensely aroused in some way?

Things get messy, don’t they. Our vision narrows and our logic gets lost.

Once your heart rate hits about 175 beats per minute, you can’t think and your body starts shutting down. It’s not your fault: People stop being able to think with our forebrain gets taken over by our midbrain – the part that’s the same as your dog’s (all mammals have that part of our brain).

Under extreme pressure, you might not even be able to dial the emergency services phone number!

You need to rehearse your key skills to the point that you are ‘hard wired’.

I am contemplating returning to teaching martial arts. And, as I looked at my potential group of students on Tuesday night, seeing their struggles and noticing their strengths, I was reminded of the fundamental parallels between martial arts.

We need to be present in whatever we are doing – totally focused on the task at hand – rather than thinking about the past or imagining the future. Planning is necessary and good, though the time to plan and the time to act are distinct; when it is time to plan, plan, and when it is time to execute, execute. Too many great plans fail due to sloppy execution and I have found that something that we can do – now – is to focus on whatever your task happens to be in this moment.

How do you perform under pressure?

He was acting as though he could take on the world – that he was indestructible and violent and felt no pain. In short, he acted crazy! And by acting crazy, he communicated to the world that they didn’t want to rumble with him. Along the way, he was an obnoxious creep, but if you can choose to behave just a little bit crazy at the right times, you might manage to psych-out potential problems.

As I thought about it a bit more, I came across this article talking about how to handle bullies. One of the highlights is to be aware of what you communicate to a potential aggressor. To avoid a conflict, when the potential aggressor comes into your presence, you will want to be calm and focus on what you’re doing; don’t keep looking back at him (or her) and certainly don’t just steal glances before quickly looking down from time to time – that just makes you into a victim.

When you drop your ego down, you can effectively go into a ‘stealth mode’ that will make you less attractive to potential aggressors.

Still, when push comes to shove, you might want to make sure that you remember how to drop him with a punch to his chin, forearm to the throat or elbow across the jaw… don’t make a mess, but get the job done.

Applied self defence techniques, especially on Tuesday. Focusing upon fundamental defences, especially against basics like frontal attacks.

Thursday, Paul led through punch routine, kick routine and five one-on-ones before focusing on ido kihon waza. We then focused on purposeful movement: Projecting energy in the direction of motion while keeping the head level so as to drop the weight into the technique. A few laps of the dojo in zenkutsudachi and shikadachi helped cement the movement.

Ran through naihanchin as it was taught in 1993, then sanchin, tensho and seinchin.

Yaksuko: based upon the defence against double head punch from the start of tensho, slipping into the snake position.

We train to test what we have learned and where we still need to grow. Being ‘thrown’ or making mistakes is part of learning: If you aren’t stuffing up, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. So be kind to yourself, remembering that your mistakes are the key to your improvement.

Thursday is likely to focus more on yaksuko. Remember the criteria: Fast initial response, Robust and effective techniques, Degree of difficulty. Double grab from behind: Step out and away, turn with the hands high into trapping their arms. Sleeper: Flip-top head.

• Footwork provides the foundation. Remember that the full motion shuffles, changeovers etc are not the ultimate outcome in mobility, as usual, they are tools for training… moving is the purpose. JKD would teach more just half shuffles, front, back and side to side.
• Using focus mitts, working on our straight punches and roundhouse kicks; singles and in combination. Another technique that we haven’t worked on as much is the low jamming side kick.
• Defending against punches by using heavy gloves… next thing will be to train some more with focus mitts to get use to slipping punches.
• Defence against weapons, especially knife and gun.
• Think of your punch as a weighted iron chain rather than the iron bar that our karate punching can often train us in executing.

Be like water – form yourself to your environment and use whatever you have to best effect.

Then pivot 180degrees shikodachi.

In the kata it becomes: catch the elbow. Vertical punch, retract, 45degree punch, hidden punch, groin strike in shikodachi.

Then pivot 180degree backwards shikodachi. Remember inline then pivot at the end.

• All kicks begin with a high vertical knee lift then pivot for side or roundhouse remember foot inline pointing backwards as well as whole body in one line.
• Remember the hip thrust on all kicks and knees.
• Best stretches are inline splits, and leaning forwards so head tries to touch your ankles.
• Stretch after warming up for best results.
• Remember pressure points, inside arm above elbow, inside wrist, outside of forearm, solaplexes.
• Use a rope to pull the foot up to stretch or a partners shoulder.