(This applies to most skills in general, be it e-sports, physical sports, music, etc. and even architectural thinking, competitive programming, software engineering and whatnot)
Really, how does the body actually do that?
“I actually consciously look at the falling notes and think to myself that I must press down my right ring finger then my left index.”… Says nobody ever. NOBODY.
So, you want to be a Pokémon master? Well well, let’s talk about…
- Conscious vs unconscious mind
- Crystalized vs liquid intelligence
- Progressive overload
- Break down and drill
- Fresh vs tired
- Repetition
- Speed vs accuracy
- Bored vs surprised
- Promises
- Resting
- Rewards
Conscious vs unconscious mind
Conscious mind is general purpose (think CPU).
It can do everything, but it is slow and requires mental effort.
Skill output from conscious mind often has low parallelism (can’t multitask well), and is inconsistent and unreliable.
Unconscious mind is purpose-built (think GPU, or more accurately FPGAs or ASICs).
It can’t do most things, but whatever it can do, it does them really well and effortlessly.
Skill output from unconscious mind often has high parallelism (can multitask well), and is consistent and reliable.
(Unconscious mind is used interchangeably with subconscious mind)
Key Takeaways:
To master most skills – we first understand its intricacies and learn the right form with the conscious mind, then shift / drill it into the unconscious mind for execution.
Crystalized vs liquid intelligence
Crystalized intelligence determines how much you already know. In general it breaks down over time, but is relatively permanent with periodic refreshing.
Liquid intelligence determines the rate at which you can learn and adapt. In general, it decreases with age, but having more crystallized intelligence can also help you crystalize liquid intelligence more efficiently.
As an example…
On average, a younger person picks up new dance moves faster than an older person – Liquid intelligence decreases with age.
However, an older dancer with more moves under his belt can pick up new dance moves faster than a younger person who knows fewer dance moves – Liquid intelligence crystalizes more efficiently with more crystalized intelligence.
Key Takeaways:
“The more you know, the faster you learn. The faster you learn, the more you know.” – Kelvin Ang
Aim to learn broadly, even if it’s a bunch of easy skills. It will eventually aid you in learning the harder skills. Move on and learn something else if you’re stuck with something.
Progressive overload
While it is difficult to change the amount of liquid intelligence a person has, you can directly and artificially boost the amount of crystalized intelligence by focusing on the lowest hanging fruits first. This in turn allows liquid intelligence to crystalize more efficiently.
In other words, having a strong foundation in easier skills allows you to learn harder skills more quickly and with greater quality than if you were to jump straight into the harder ones.
Key takeaways:
When learning any skill, focus on the low hanging fruits / easier skills and learn and master as much of them as possible to allow you to learn the harder skills more easily.
Build your own learning list in terms of difficulty, and learn them in order (remember to rearrange if you find that some tricks are harder than you initially thought).
Break down and drill
When learning a skill, we are usually motivated by the end result (watching a very cool trick, a very skilful execution of something, etc.), and we’re usually tempted to jump straight into attempting the end result.
Most difficult skills are usually a compound of many constituent skills, and their original inventors usually discovered them after knowing the constituents.
It is very important to keep this in mind, and be able to break down a complex trick into discrete small steps that you can practice with drills, which you can later combine back into the whole trick.
An example of breaking a trick down:
- A [full cab no-comply] is just a [backside 180 pivot] followed by a [frontside no comply 180] so you can drill those first.
- A [backside 180 pivot] is simply a larger [backside kickturn] so you can drill that first.
- A [frontside no comply 180] is just [stepping off to the right with the front leg], followed by a [frontside 180 pop with the rear leg], followed by [hopping back onto the board with both legs], so drill those separately.
Other than drilling broken down steps of a trick, it is also important to do fundamental drills. Think of a pianist or a singer doing scales.
Key takeaways:
Break down tricks into smaller steps and drill them separately before combining them back.
If a particular step is too difficult, continue breaking it down or do a nerfed version of it first (e.g. doing steps on grass, doing on flipped board, etc.).
Remember to drill foundational skills for widespread general benefits, much like how a pianist or singer practices scales.
Fresh vs tired
Doing something while mentally fresh (like in the morning, or in the beginning of a session) naturally allows you to use more of your conscious mind.
Doing things while mentally tired (like at the end of a tiring work day) naturally forces you to rely more on unconscious mind for application of skills.
Alcohol artificially inhibits your conscious mind (causing you to use more of your unconscious mind), so you might find that alcohol may allow you shoot better in a game or have better game sense or “gut feeling” in a game you already know, but cause you to suck badly in a completely foreign game or task.
Caffeine on the other hand artificially boosts both your unconscious and conscious mind, allowing you to squeeze in some extra progress.
Key takeaways:
When you’re mentally fresh, your conscious mind dominates, so aim to learn new skills and find more details.
When you’re mentally tired, your unconscious mind dominates, so aim to solidify your existing skills.
Repetition
There are two goals to repetition.
Initial repetition with conscious mind helps you understand intricacies of something and to be “able to do it“.
Further repetition trains your unconscious mind to take over tasks from the conscious mind, to be “able to do it without thinking“.
Be wary when using repetition. Repetition eventually trains things into your unconscious mind, even if it is not done correctly. This negatively impacts the learning and causes progress to plateau – “I attempted this 500 times, every day, but still making very minimal progress“.
Key takeaways:
Do repetitions early in the session to learn new tricks, and focus conscious effort on building the right form.
Do repetitions later in the session to master new tricks, but avoid long-term repetitions with the wrong form.
Speed vs accuracy
Once a particular trick is possible (but not perfect), it is easy to forget about accuracy and jump straight to doing it fast.
However, it is important to remember that repetitions with bad form causes the bad form to stick, and doing it faster just causes it to stick harder.
Unless a skill is inherently speed oriented, it is most important to focus on form and accuracy first, and only increase speed if you can do it while maintaining form and accuracy.
Form and accuracy comes from conscious effort. Speed is naturally achieved from unconscious effort.
If needed, use a spotter, video recording or mirror to ensure that you are keeping up with or progressing towards the right form.
Key takeaways:
Focus on form and accuracy over speed unless the particular skill requires speed, and never intentionally increase speed while forgoing form and accuracy.
Have a spotter, or use video recording, to ensure that you are always using the correct form.
Bored vs surprised
When you repeatedly do something, you start to get bored. Your conscious mind is disengaged. As a result, you stop noticing details, leading to less improvements.
Repetitions in boredom causes bad habits to stick if you’re not already doing the right thing.
You can repeatedly trick yourself into a surprised state by doing circuits. This allows you to learn quicker.
When doing each set of repetitions, your conscious mind is usually more engaged in the beginning of a set, while it gradually disengages towards the last few reps in a set.
Therefore, within each circuit, use shorter sets help to learn, and longer sets help to remember.
Key takeaways:
To improve quickly and avoid bad habits, always shake things up to keep your mind engaged. Use circuits, rotations, challenges, etc. to “surprise” your mind, and add new tricks into your mix. Avoid letting yourself feel “bored”.
Within each circuit, use shorter sets to learn, and longer sets to remember.
Promises
Pushing your limits is important, but it is often very easy to cut yourself some slack and give up too early, especially when it gets tough.
Making promises helps to push you past your limits, and keeps you focused on achieving more than you normally would.
You can make yourself a promise by setting a target repetition count (“I’m going to do 100 of this trick now“), or better yet, a training schedule or strategy.
You can reinforce promises by telling it to someone else, and it works especially well if you also tell the person when you’ve completed the promise.
An intermediate strategy, almost as effective as making a promise to someone else, would simply be to say or announce your repetitions verbally when you’re doing them.
Key takeaways:
To push yourself past your limits and keep yourself focused, declare what you want to do before you do them, count out load verbally, and tell someone else exactly what you want to do before and after you do them.
Resting
It is common to be surprised by unexpected improvements whenever you go for a short break, or when you try something again the next day.
Neurons make new connections over time, even when resting, to prepare for the next encounter. Coupled with being fresh and surprised after a rest, you’ll usually get a boost in performance and learning rate.
In general, practicing 1 hour per day over 5 days yields greater results than practicing 5 hours in one day. Spreading a difficult trick over a few sets or days lets you improve more quickly than stagnating on it for an entire session. Effectively, we can combine the advantages of resting, surprise and freshness.
If you want to learn a manual, throw it in occasionally during your sessions, and do it often and across many days, instead of focusing entire sessions on the same manual.
Key takeaways:
Spread difficult tricks you want to learn throughout your session, and across many days. Mixing in 5 difficult skills that you want to learn into your sessions often yields better results than focusing on just one in an entire session.
Rewards
No matter how good or how fast of a learner you are, there will eventually be a time when it becomes a grind towards minuscule improvements.
Without something internally or externally motivating you, you’ll eventually dry out and stop.
Let’s be real here. Most skills and talents are meant to be shared, witnessed, or used competitively.
The easiest way to keep yourself on fire is to incorporate social aspects to your game – post videos of yourself in social media, have friends or communities that share the same interest, get your friends to play, compete in ladders and leagues, etc.
Key takeaways:
Unless you already have some really strong and permanent internal motivation for training, it is important to integrate social aspects in your game to keep yourself motivated.
Post on social media, be part of a group or community or create one, rope your friends in, compete in ladders and leagues, etc.
