Thanks for the post—skill acquisition does seem like an area lacking attention from the rationalist community in general.
I wonder if these learnings would apply to sports. “Stop after win” doesn’t seem like a productive idea if you are trying to get better at, say, shooting a 3pt shot in basketball—the traditional approach is “reps reps reps”. Thoughts?
BTW I could learn something even more useful than “stop after win” with another month of metrics; maybe “immediately redefine more sophisticated win condition and work towards that” is the real key. But the data I’ve got now suggests that just repeating something you’ve already practiced to a defined win condition is counterproductive.
If you define your win condition and achieve it, your next step is to define a new win condition and achieve it as well. That means you could go from “play passage all notes accurate from memory” to “play passage all notes accurate from memory without curling 5th finger.”
I’m going to write a post on Tuesday about reps reps reps vs. mindful repetition, and why a rep where you pay attention to why you’re failing is just as valuable as a win.
I think the real question is whether the traditional approach to shooting a 3-pointer works. Do people who shoot shoot shoot shoot land more 3-pointers than people who prep, define, shoot, evaluate, prep with new information, etc.? And do the best players do all of that so quickly (and so integratedly) that it looks like rep rep rep?
So I looked into this, and the ‘refine win condition’ seems to be an actual technique that some of the best 3pt shooters do employ! I looked up some interviews with some of the best basketball shooters (Steph Curry and Ray Allen) and they mention playing little games with themselves while practice. They will do things such a define win condition as a swish instead of just making the shot, or employing some particular type of rhythm or footwork, or slightly altering the angle of their shot.
But on the other hand, they also mention plenty of repetitive drilling, and watching the available footage of them practicing, it is hard to see a ‘stop after win’ approach in action. There are videos of Steph Curry practicing with a coach who passes him the ball—it looks pretty repetitive to me (although maybe he’s playing some mental games with himself that are hard to pick up?).
Thanks for the post—skill acquisition does seem like an area lacking attention from the rationalist community in general.
I wonder if these learnings would apply to sports. “Stop after win” doesn’t seem like a productive idea if you are trying to get better at, say, shooting a 3pt shot in basketball—the traditional approach is “reps reps reps”. Thoughts?
BTW I could learn something even more useful than “stop after win” with another month of metrics; maybe “immediately redefine more sophisticated win condition and work towards that” is the real key. But the data I’ve got now suggests that just repeating something you’ve already practiced to a defined win condition is counterproductive.
If you define your win condition and achieve it, your next step is to define a new win condition and achieve it as well. That means you could go from “play passage all notes accurate from memory” to “play passage all notes accurate from memory without curling 5th finger.”
I’m going to write a post on Tuesday about reps reps reps vs. mindful repetition, and why a rep where you pay attention to why you’re failing is just as valuable as a win.
I think the real question is whether the traditional approach to shooting a 3-pointer works. Do people who shoot shoot shoot shoot land more 3-pointers than people who prep, define, shoot, evaluate, prep with new information, etc.? And do the best players do all of that so quickly (and so integratedly) that it looks like rep rep rep?
So I looked into this, and the ‘refine win condition’ seems to be an actual technique that some of the best 3pt shooters do employ! I looked up some interviews with some of the best basketball shooters (Steph Curry and Ray Allen) and they mention playing little games with themselves while practice. They will do things such a define win condition as a swish instead of just making the shot, or employing some particular type of rhythm or footwork, or slightly altering the angle of their shot.
But on the other hand, they also mention plenty of repetitive drilling, and watching the available footage of them practicing, it is hard to see a ‘stop after win’ approach in action. There are videos of Steph Curry practicing with a coach who passes him the ball—it looks pretty repetitive to me (although maybe he’s playing some mental games with himself that are hard to pick up?).