3.31.2009
No reason to throw your clubs.
Wow! Here at FSU, there is a professor well known for not subscribing to the idea of natural talent. Anders Erikson says anyone can be an expert; all it takes is at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is different from mere play, experience, or practice without purpose and focus. But this little boy certainly didn't have any deliberate practice before his first perfect swing. And the parents' nurturing cannot account for it. They profess they knew nothing about golf, owned no clubs, and only chanced upon discovering the boy's talent when he happened to be playing with the remote and saw it on TV.
I really like this story because it isn't just about a prodigy and what he might be able to do. It puts sports into perspective. While we could be jealous, we end up rooting for this little guy, whether or not he's better at 5 than we are at our old ages, and whether or not grows up to be great. We just want him to grow up.
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Talent is merely a physical and maybe a mental understanding, a natural understanding, of how something is supposed to feel or be. It is a combination of physiological factors, a kinesthetic sense, and feel for what works. An old coach once said, "practice can make a person swim great, but some people are just great swimmers."
ReplyDeleteVery interesting conceptualization. This raises the idea that talent can be a natural or born propensity for excelling at an aspect of a sport. A swimmer without kinesthetic talent may have psychological talent, and even these can, of course, be broken down into smaller units of talent. What we normally think of as talent is one unit leading to easy success in a sport. This idea implies talent can be particular to a sport, so it seems reasonable to suggest talent can be particular to an aspect of sport as well.
ReplyDeleteOn a different track, does the quote above imply that people who are "just great swimmers" need not practice?