10,000 hours rule

[malk103]

Just been reading about this rule, apparently to be really good at something you need to practice it for at least 10,000 hours.....

That's several more thousand hours needed by me then, some of the guys that train for 1 hour a week will retire first! Although their character may be slightly better by then. ;D

Can anyone say that they have clocked up anywhere near these hours? I'm assuming that any self training or even teaching could be involved in the total.

[th0mas]

Hmmm....

Lets say I have trained on average 4 hours a week. That means that after 26 years I have only achieved 5408hrs.

Looks Like I'm going to have to train for another 26 years to get really good... i will be 67 by then.

[Rob S]

2012-1968 = 44 years
44x 50 = 2200 (average weeks )
2200 x 8 = 17600 (average hours)

And I am still no good!

But then we practise lots of things, not just one repeatedly.

So maybe it the system of training that is wrong. Perhaps I should have just spent that on gyaku zuki, then moved off to oi zuki?

[th0mas]

Lol

... clearly I bow to your single punch expertise, I am only half way through Yoi

[Bob Davis]

Trouble is that 10,000 hours of bad practice won't make you good at something, all you become is a master of how to do something incorrectly. It still comes down to quality of practice rather than quantity (although practice is still needed .

Take Gyaku Tsuki as an example, even if you break it down to it's component parts and really focus on the detail of the movement you'll spend approximately 3 seconds on a repetition, which would work out at 12,000,000 repetitions over 10,000 hours. I suspect you'd have got as good as you were going to get long before that (and also the the damage and wear to the joints from that many repetitions would probably remove your ability to perform the technique at all).

I've read elsewhere that it 10,000 repetitions is about what it takes to implant the technique to your best ability. If you take the same 3 second rep' for gyaku tsuki that calculates as about 8 hours 20 min's of total practice to "master" the technique (multiply that by 2 if you want to be able to do it both sides). So by that theory, you will be as good as you are going to get at gyaku tsuki with around 17 hours of practice. Just multiply that by the number of techniques you know (probably between 60 and 100) and you start to get to a point where you should have a competent grasp of the basics of technique. This works out at between 5-7 years with a nominal 5 hours a week, (a good grasp of the basics in 5-7 years, does that sound at all familiar? )

This assumes that you are not practicing anything else of course, learning kata, combinations, kumite, or any of the other things we add into the mix, and that you are not spending "maintainence" time on the techniques you've already learned.

The moral really is of course if you want to be good at something you need to practice, as we are fond of saying our group, "dojo is where you come to learn, at home is where you get good!" (not that many seem to listen of course :

[nathanso]

Nov 8, 2012 14:03:33 GMT malk103 said:

Just been reading about this rule, apparently to be really good at something you need to practice it for at least 10,000 hours

This is a misquote or misinterpretation of what Malcolm Gladwell writes about in his book "Outliers".
He really is talking not about people who are really good at something or even probably an "expert" at something, but those who are the best of the best. To put it in context, the examples he gave were of people who averaged a thousand hours a year for 10 years.

[malk103]

Plus 1..... another tomorrow.....

True, I think going by the examples they are all exceptionally good at what they do, so good means really good!

I've used examples of the Olympic athletes before, they don't become Gold medal winners by practicing for a couple of hours a week for a short time, they train several hours a day for years.

Guess I can chuck out that book called "Mastering Karate in 24 hours" now........ ;D

[kensei]

here is my issue with the the whole thing....My sister is a dancer (was a dancer now) and she is gifted at learning movement skills. She watched me do Heian Yondan and repeated it move for move when I did it.

Does being gifted at mimicing count?

I agree also that doing something wrong for 10,000 hours wont make you good at it!...unless you want to be good at being bad at it.

[tomobrien]

I don't know I've been doin this for about 41 years now & it's still "Sometimes chicken - sometimes feathers"!

Thanks,
Tom

[Deleted]

I do not subscribe to any rule that says 10,000 hours or 10,000 reps.

I believe it just takes as long as it takes and it depends on a mixture of your instruction, your understanding of that instruction, your motivation, dedication, commitment and determination to master something.

A little bit of mental and physical talent to help you do what you want. eg. body structure, fitness, flexibility and coordination and the ability to evaluate what you have achieved so far.