Deliberate, Focus and Purposeful Training

I have been teaching now for over 5 years in my full time job as a computer lab teacher in a middle school and as a part time martial arts instructor (I teach over 20 hours a week in different after school programs, cardio kick boxing class and at my own martial arts school).

What I notice is that the students who do well, who achieved mastery quickly and who can internalize their learning have several conman traits.

They are…

Deliberate

…. it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2

By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2
Focus

Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2
Purposeful

….. would find a mentor who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance from the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. …..She is ingraining habits of thought she can call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2