Recommended Posts

Moved this from the K.A.P. Successes thread:

 

Recent research suggests that on average it takes 10000 hours of practice to begin to achieve mastery of any psycho-physical endeavor.

 

 

 

That's interesting.

 

Can you give us more details about this research? How did the research, where was this research published, etc?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

its all relative. Cause you could do 1hour of shitty meditation and get no where.

 

If you do the right thing in 5 Min it could be equal to a few hours of meditation.

 

I think 500x of anything will give you "muscle memory"

 

Santi

 

RPsDDr0n9AE

 

 

this is too funny....

 

on a side note mastery comes from just doing daily ALL the time even in "relaxed mode".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This makes a lot of sense. In the martial arts world, I believe that there is a distinct difference in skill level between people who train for a few hours a day over a long period of time and people who have trained intensively for many hours a day for a shorter time.

 

Examples -

1. The Tokyo riot police and instructor training programs in Yoshinkan aikido are one year intensive programs that really give people a very high degree of skill in a relatively short time - I think they train ~ 6 hours/day, 6 days/week for one year. People who successfully complete the course are formidable aididoka.

2. I've trained under two Asian masters (one Chinese and one Japanese) whose skill levels are well beyond anyone else I've studied with. Each of them were with their teachers for a relatively short time (by that I mean several years but not a decade) but studied 5-6 days/week and 4-6 hours/day during most of that time.

 

These are clearly limited examples but seeing the research you discuss helps me make sense of these observations.

Thanks Michael.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Shinzen also says that the best approach is intensive practice maintained by daily practice.

 

Santiago makes a good point about quality: personally, my practices improved once I put quality over quantity. There were times when I was sitting several hours a day. Now, I don't have that kind of time, but I really put an effort into the time I have.

 

I have also picked up the technique of stealing moments--- practicing in life. There are so many "dead" moments when you're walking to your car, walking down the hall, getting a drink, going to the bathroom that you could easily plug in some meditation/chi kung time. I find that these micropractices strengthen and maintain my practice far more than I would expect.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Shinzen also says that the best approach is intensive practice maintained by daily practice.

 

Santiago makes a good point about quality: personally, my practices improved once I put quality over quantity. There were times when I was sitting several hours a day. Now, I don't have that kind of time, but I really put an effort into the time I have.

 

I have also picked up the technique of stealing moments--- practicing in life. There are so many "dead" moments when you're walking to your car, walking down the hall, getting a drink, going to the bathroom that you could easily plug in some meditation/chi kung time. I find that these micropractices strengthen and maintain my practice far more than I would expect.

 

 

exactly every MOMENT is a MOMENT to Train and not everyone around you has to know whats going on. As Glenn Taught me "NINJA"

 

.

 

Santi

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I see proper practice in terms of a circle. You're shown a move. You do it, its corrected you do it again, there's correcting feedback. Once the physical movement is approximately correct you practice it over and over again w/ greater and greater awarness. After the 10,000 times you let the awareness go, the move does itself.

 

I greatly admire Michael McAllistair (of infinitesmile.org). He has said 'You want enlightenment, sit 20,000 hours'. Whats the short cut? 'That is the short cut' he says.

 

Yet the 20,000 isn't about the number, its about an attitude. Setting a practice and sticking to it, not looking for short term gain, no tricks few techniques. You sit (think 19, 648 more hours to go) smile and sit some more. There's more to it then that, thats why he has a Sangha, but its nice to know 20,000 hours of sitting will get you there, now if only it were sleep :)

 

 

Michael

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Recent research suggests that on average it takes 10000 hours of practice to begin to achieve mastery of any psycho-physical endeavor. That would imply, but not confirm that if you are starting as an absolute beginner practicing 1 hour per day it'll take at least 27 years to achieve mastery.

 

Interesting. My teacher says exactly that. 10,000 hours to start as a healer in his system, and 70,000 to be fully accomplished.

 

Regarding intensive vs regular, Daniel Ingram, at least, is a big fan of both, but says that intensive can get you over humps such that the daily is then more valuable. Obvious, I guess.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

thelerner

 

I greatly admire Michael McAllistair (of infinitesmile.org). He has said 'You want enlightenment, sit 20,000 hours'. Whats the short cut? 'That is the short cut' he says.

 

Yet the 20,000 isn't about the number, its about an attitude. Setting a practice and sticking to it, not looking for short term gain, no tricks few techniques.

 

I love that attitude, really well put. Agree 100%.

 

NW

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites