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http://www.combativemind.com/general-self-protection/12-tips-for-learning-combatives-or-any-other-skill-better-faster-and-
more-easily-through-deep-practice/
by Neal Martin
12 Tips For Learning Combatives (Or Any Other Skill) Better,
Faster And More Easily Through Deep Practice
Have you heard of deep practice?
Deep practice is a term that was coined by Daniel Coyle in his
ground-breaking book, The Talent Code: Greatness isnt
born. Its grown .
Deep practice will transf orm the way that you practice. If you
train Combatives, applying deep practice methods to your
training will make you better and more skilled in less time.
Deep practice is not achieved by merely turning up f or
practice and going through the motions.
Deep practice, although embodied by many dif f erent
methods, has what Coyle calls a tell-tale emotional f lavour
which can be summed up in one word: struggle.
Deep practice, also called deliberate practice, is the f orm of learning marked by:
1. The willingness to operate on the edge of your ability, aiming for targets that are just beyond your
reach.
2. The embrace of attentive repetition.
This is the opposite of shallow practice. Shallow practice is marked by a lack of intensity, vagueness of goal
and/or the unwillingness to reach beyond your current abilities.
Shallow practice is indulged in when there is an aversion to making mistakes, which nearly always results in
vastly slowed skill acquisition and learning.
As John Wooden, the American basketball coach says:
Never mistake mere activity for accomplishment.
So deep practice is about f inding your sweet spot, the zone on the edge of your current ability where learning
happens f astest. This zone is marked by the f requency of mistakes, and also by the recognition of those
mistakes.
Making mistake af ter mistake can be trying, but make them you must if you wish to progress beyond your
current abilities.
With that in mind, here are some tips that will bring about deep practice and put you in your sweet spot.

Tip#1: Dif f erentiate Between Sof t Skills And Hard Skills
One of the f irst steps towards building a skill is to sort out exactly what type of skill you are building. Every skill
(not just Combatives) will f all into two categories:
Hard, high precision skills are skills which are perf ormed as correctly and as ef f iciently as possible every
single time. They are skills that have an ideal result and which you could imagine being perf ormed by a reliable
robot.
Hard skills are about repeatable precision. An example would be a right cross, or a leg sweep or an elbow
strike. Any of the physical tricks and skills.
The goal here is to build a skill that f unctions like a Swiss swatchreliable, exact and perf ormed the same way
every time, without f ail.
To quote Coyle:
Hard skills are all about ABC Always Be Consistent.
Soft, high flexibility skills on the other hand are those that have many paths to an ideal result.
Sof t skills, such as awareness or verbal de-escalation are about being agile and interactive; about instantly
recognising patterns as they unf old and making smart, timely choices.
To quote Coyle again:
Soft skills are about the three Rs: Reading, Recognizing and Responding.
Hard and sof t skills use dif f erent structures of circuits in our brains so dif f erent methods of deep practice
must be used to develop them.

Tip#2: Become A Watcher
Watch whatever skill you wish to perf orm, closely and with great intensity, over and over, until you build a high-
def inition blueprint of it in your mind. This method has been proven to increase your chances of picking up the
skill in question quicker and more correctly.
When I wanted to learn how to throw a good pre-emptive right cross I looked to Geof f Thompson, whose
short-range punching ability is second to none. I spent a lot of time studying video f ootage of Geof f doing
that punch. I analysed his every move. Then, when I eventually came to train with him, I got the chance to watch
him do the punch right in f ront of me. Once again I studied his f orm, his movements. I took note of how relaxed
he was when he threw the punch, almost arrogantly so.
All this watching and studying really helped me build a good mental blue-print of what a good right cross should
be. I then worked of that blue-print in my own practice of the punch, the result of which was (along with
thousands of reps), I developed a killer right cross that could do the business whenever I needed it too.
If there is a particular technique you want to get good at, f ind someone else who has already mastered it and
then study them intensively to see exactly how they do it, right down to the last detail.
Watch their perf ormance over and over until you know every last movement, then try to do the same in your
own practice. Even as you watch, try to f eel what it must be like to move just like the person you are watching.
To make this technique more ef f ective, watch videos of the person doing the technique you desire to get good
at just bef ore you practice and bef ore you go to sleep. This will help imprint the blue-print deeper into your
mind.

Tip#3: Be Willing To Feel Stupid
As Ive already said, dont be af raid of making mistakes and the f eelings
of stupidity that comes along with them.
No matter how skilled you are, you should always be willing to improve
and push the boundaries of what is possible. The only way to do that is
to build new connections in the brain, which means reaching, f ailing and
yes, f eeling damn stupid.
I remember when I f irst started teaching to a class. I f elt incredibly stupid
standing there in f ront of all my f ellow students, bumbling my way
through some technique or other. I made many mistakes as well.
However, af ter a bit of time I began to f eel less and less stupid when I
was teaching, and I made less mistakes as well.
Even now I sometimes get those f eelings of stupidity, especially when I
make some kind of mistake.
But I also understand the process at work, the learning curve that I am on.
I know that if I keep at it, despite what I may be f eeling, Ill keep improving.
So dont let f eeling stupid scare you too much. The f eelings lessen over time.

Tip#4: Be A Precision Engineer When It Comes To Building Hard Skills
To develop reliable hard skills you need to connect the right wires in your brain. That means working slow and
being especially attuned to errors. You must work like a precision engineer, caref ully building the structure of
the skill.
Precision matters greatly early on when you are learning a new skill or technique because the f irst reps
establish the pathways f or the f uture. Neurologists call this the sled on the snowy hill phenomenon.
The f irst reps are like sled tracks on f resh snow. On subsequent tries, your sled will tend to f ollow those
tracks.
Our brains are not very good at dismantling connections once made (hence bad habits) which is why it is so
important to get the movements right in the beginning.
It is also important you pay close attention to errors and mistakes and that you f ix them as soon as possible
to prevent bad connections f orming (bad habits).
This kind of caref ul practice can seem boring, but believe me, time spent learning a new skill in this way is the
most important investment you can make f or the f uture.
Building the right pathways in your brain can save you a lot of trouble down the line.

Tip#5: Be A Daring Explorer When It Comes To Building Sof t Skills
While hard skills are best put together with precision engineering, sof t skills are built by playing and exploring
inside of challenging and ever-changing environments.
By encountering and responding to dif f erent situations over and over, you are building a network of sensitive
wiring that you need in order to read, recognize and react.
Take awareness, f or example. You cant learn awareness skills the way you learn a punch. To learn awareness
you must operate within an ever-changing environment and respond to many dif f erent situations bef ore you
can begin to recognize patterns of behaviour and changes of environment ahead of time.
This kind of practice also demands that you coach yourself . When you work on a sof t skill, be it awareness,
verbal de-escalation or recognizing violence dynamics, ask yourself af terwards: What worked? What didnt?
And why?

Tip#6: Ignore The Time
Deep practice is not measured in hours or minutes, but in the number of high quality reaches and reps you
makebasically how many new connections you f orm in your brain.
Instead of saying you are going to train f or half an hour or an hour, say to yourself that you will complete 100
reps of your right cross or 50 knee strikes each leg.
This will f ocus your practice much more. It becomes about doing high quality reps rather than just going till your
time is up.

Tip#7: Chunk Every Thing Down
A really simple and ef f ective way to learn any new skill is to break the movement down into smaller chunks, a
process which is called chunking (dont know what it is about that word but it makes me think of throwing up!).
Chunking works because it accurately ref lects the way our brains learn. Every skill is built out of smaller chunks.
To begin chunking, f irst ask yourself :
1. What is the smallest single element of this skill that I can master?
2. What other chunks link to that chunk?
Practice one chunk by itself until you have mastered it, then connect more chunks one by one until you have
the complete movement.

Tip#8: Embrace Struggle
Most of us instinctively avoid struggle. It f eels like f ailure. But it isnt.
Struggle is a biological necessity when it comes to developing your talents and skills.
The struggle and f rustrations you f eel at the edges of your abilitiesthat uncomf ortable burn of almost but
not quite getting thereis the sensation of constructing new neural connections, a process known as
desirable dif f iculty.
Your brain works just like your muscles: no pain, no gain!

Tip#9: Take Five Minutes A Day Over An Hour A Week
Training f or f ive minutes a day is actually more benef icial than training f or one hour a week.
The reason being is because our brains grow incrementally just a little each day, even when we sleep. Daily
practice will nourish this process, whereas training once a week will f orce your brain into playing catch-up.
By training f or short periods each day you are also exercising your self -discipline muscles and helping to build
a new habit into yourself (which research suggests takes about thirty days).

Tip#10: Practice Alone
A recent study compared world class perf ormers in music with top amateurs. The researchers f ound that both
groups were almost the same in every practice variable except one: the world class perf ormers spent five times
as many hours practicing alone.
Practicing alone will build self -discipline. It is also the best way to seek out the sweet spot on the edge of your
ability.
As the soccer coach Anson Dorrance has said:
The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of
exhaustion, when no one else is watching.

Tip#11: Slow It Down
When we learn a new technique our instinct is to always do it with as
much speed and power as we can muster, also known as the Hey!
Look At Me! ref lex.
Training this way, especially in the beginning, can lead to sloppiness
however, which is why it is a good idea to slow your movements right
down.
Super slow practice works like a magnif ying glass: it lets you sense
your errors more clearly so you can then correct them.
So its not how f ast you can do it, its how slowly you can do it
correctly.

Tip#12: Close Your Eyes
Closing your eyes while practicing is a quick way to nudge you to the edge of your ability.
Doing so will sweep away distractions and provide you with new f eedback. It will help engrave the blue-print of
a skill on your brain by making even a f amiliar task seem strange and f resh.
This also why sensitivity drills work so well.
For more learning tips you should check out Daniel Coyles other book, The Little Book of Talent
If you can think of any more helpf ul learning tips, leave them in the comments section below and dont f orget
to share this article on Facebook only if you f ound it helpf ul.

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