>...need to get results distorts dialogue learning
>...action learning without the drive for results
>...SF coach's practice environments not the real thing
Hypothesis: To get results in activity A that requires learning, practice
in related activity B will often achieve the learning required, while
practice in activity A will not.
These are some arguments that favor the hypothesis:
1. Activity A is complex, and Activity B, if simplified, removes
inhibitions to the development of aspects of Activity A.
2. Activity A is a performance that loses freshness and player interest if
overrehearsed. (Comedy bits are often funnier in rehearsal.)
3. Activity A is punishing, while B is not. (Bud Grant had no hitting
drills during the football season, yet his players were viscious on game
day.)
4. Attention to the results takes attention from the process, leading to
poor results. (Happiness ensues, it is not directly achieved.)
These are some arguments that do not favor the hypothesis:
1. All training is specific. Activity B will have to be quite similar, or
learning specific to activity A will not occur. (You do have to practice
your primary sport. Yet cross-training in another sport is proven to help
the primary sport.)
2. Only in Activity A is the performance fully integrated. Everybody has
seen players who are good in drills but bad in games. For them, more
games might be better training than more drills.
3. The trick is to try but not press. If you don't press, Activity B is
useful, but less useful than Activity A.
Some questions: Perhaps we are only talking about larger scale learning,
or learning as opposed to polishing. Isn't spelling drill the best way to
learn spelling? Perhaps not, since many claim that Latin is the key to
their spelling success in English. Did Bird and Marovich shoot so well in
games because they practiced more than anybody else, or because they
played a lot? We probably need a longer period to detect a learning
pattern. Greg Lemond kept changing major parts of his style. Some
authors who continue to be vital players willingly contradict prior work,
or they may even choose not to publish a book that they have outgrown in
the process of writing it.
-- Kent Myers kent_myers@smtplink.sra.com