Feature
It’s very clear that elite sportsmen spend far more time in
practicing technical skills and it is this deliberate practice
which distinguishes them from others who practice hard
but plateau out early. A Roger Federer too would not be a
champion if he didn’t engage in deliberate practice.
problems with kids who were driven to
pursue excelling in a single skill. The
enviable success of girls in South Korea
for example, apparently has a darker side
to it – There’s a higher incidence suicides
among those who don’t make it.
David Epstein (highly acclaimed author
of ‘Sport Gene’ and ‘Range’), does
point out that for every Tiger Woods
story, there’s also a Roger Federer story.
Roger’s parents did not think that he
was the chosen one and his mother a
tennis teacher herself, refused to coach
him so that he could enjoy himself.
Roger Federer played football, Squash,
Table Tennis, Basketball, Handball
and also Tennis as he himself said – ‘I
got interested in any game which had
a ball involved’. Make no mistake –
Roger was good enough Tennis player
to get interviewed by a local paper as a
teenager but when his coaches decided
to shift him to an older age group to
compete with better players, he came
right back because ‘he was having so
much fun with his age group friends’.
By the time Roger Federer gave up other
games to focus on Tennis, other kids had
already moved on to strength trainers,
sports psychologists, travelling coaches
etc. It didn’t seem to matter though;
Roger Federer became World No 1 in
few years and probably the greatest of
all time, while his contemporaries had
either vanished or retired.
There is no doubt that ‘Expertise
Development’ requires hours and hours
of ‘Deliberate practice’ though 1000-
hour rule seems symbolic rather than
an accurate measure. It’s very clear that
elite sportsmen spend far more time in
practicing technical skills and it is this
deliberate practice which distinguishes
them from others who practice hard but
plateau out early. A Roger Federer too
would not be a champion if he didn’t
engage in deliberate practice.
Scientists have researched extensively
Tiger Woods
on the development paths of elite athletes
and have found that in the early years,
the eventual elites spend very little time
in deliberate practice of the skills which
they become expert at later in their lives.
Typically, they undergo a ‘sampling
period’ where they try their hand at
many different sports and generally in an
unstructured or lightly structured way.
They develop skills and understanding
from which they draw upon later when
they specialize. Research also shows
that highly specialized experts were
prone to becoming so narrow minded
that they became worse while becoming
extremely confi dent at the same time,
which is a dangerous combination.
We now live in a world which
seems to incentivize high levels of
overspecialization but we would do well
to listen to lifestyle coaches who often
advise some slowing down. Science
clearly shows that learning is best done
slowly to accumulate lasting knowledge.
Parents would do well to remain patient
even if it means that their wards are not
doing well on tests of immediate progress
and look like falling behind. And as
Epstein says – While it’s true that there
are areas which require Tiger’s precocity
and clarity of purpose but in general, we
require more Rogers: people who start
broad and savor broader experiences
and perspective while they progress. The
world is full of remarkable people who
became very successful not in spite of
their diverse interests and experiences
but because of them.
Finally, we would do well to remember
that excellence in golf only defi nes a
skill which your ward has and it in no
way defi nes the character or the kind
of person he or she is. Perhaps, in this
world of cut throat competition and
hyper specialization, Roger Federer may
be the way!
GolfPlus Junior November-December 2019
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