
Practicing 2000 hrs (The Dan Plan: a 10,000 hr deliberate practice experiment) - losvedir
http://thedanplan.com/blog/?p=910
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losvedir
Briefly, Dan is testing the hypothesis that 10,000 hours of deliberate
practice is what it takes to become an expert (in this case, at golf).

I've been following his blog with interest, and he's now crossed the 20% mark.
Honestly, I'm pretty impressed with where he is, given so much time to go.

Previous discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2438300>

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greenail
Golf may be a terrible example for trying to prove out this rule. There are
many folks with near perfect golf swings who never make it in the sport. Golf
is largely a mental battle, and if you can't hold up under pressure you are
not going to be able to compete. I'm not sure how he is practicing, but I'm
guessing he has no where near the pressure you get in competition, and unless
you have the experience he would likely crack in a competitive situation. In a
tour event a single bad judgment or mental lapse can ruin 4 days of hard work.
That's if you caused the issue, golf is not a fair game and a bad bounce could
also ruin your day. It is a very tough game mentally, and most recreational
golfers are not prepared consistent performance required for competitive golf.

The other thing most people don't realize is how much exponentially better the
different levels are. A club champ is not much compared with a mini tour
player. Mini tour players are no where near the nationwide tour guys, and the
PGA players who can win, or finish top 10 consistently are really really good.
If you look at the difference between the #1 world ranked Luke Donald vs John
Daly currently ranked #652 there is a very small difference in key stats.
Lukes scoring average is 69.47, Daly's is 72. Greens in regulation has Luke at
67.04% and Daly at 61.36%.

One big event in your personal life could totally shake up your ability to
compete at these highest levels. Sergio Garcia had to take a year off after
being dumped by Natalie Gulbis, and look at the downward spiral of Tiger. He
may never gain the confidence to compete again.

I wish him luck but I would bet he couldn't break par on a reasonably tough
course from a respectable tee after his 10k hours.

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dpark
> _The other thing most people don't realize is how much exponentially better
> the different levels are._

I hate that people so abuse the term exponential, but putting that aside,
you're looking at this wrong. The skill gap between levels is smaller as you
progress. The effort to hit the next level may grow drastically, but the
acquired skills diminish.

Think about someone who's never played teeing off against a casual golfer. How
horribly will they lose, while they struggle with the basics? Now the casual
golfer against the serious amateur. How will the casual golfer fare? Now
serious amateur vs club pro. And so on. At each stage, the more advanced
person has a major advantage, but that advantage decreases as the levels
advance.

As someone progresses through the learning process, they go from learning the
basics, through competence, and eventually to mastery. During this they
initially learn gross skills and finally learn the most delicate refinements.
It's this way with every skill. If you had to wager on the underdog in a
casual golfer vs club pro face-off or a club pro vs a national pro face-off,
who would you pick?

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greenail
If his is not playing a lot, the problem with his approach is that the
"mastery" component of the game has a lot to do with non mechanical aspects.
It is hard to practice good course management on the range. It is hard to
practice getting up and down to save par. It is hard to practice finishing,
and this may be the hardest thing to practice.

I've played 14 holes of golf at even par, and once you start to approach a
place you've never been before you tend to put immense pressure on yourself
and make mistakes. The self awareness of achieving a new best score can
prevent you from doing it. This gets harder over time as you improve. Breaking
80, breaking 75, breaking 70 are difficult not only because it is a tough
game, but because it is easy to change the way you play depending on the
circumstance and it is very hard to practice scoring, harder to practice not
making a stupid triple bogy.

If you think i'm using exponential poorly, take a look at the USGA percentages
for golfers better than scratch.

[http://www.usga.org/handicapping/articles_resources/Men-s-
US...](http://www.usga.org/handicapping/articles_resources/Men-s-USGA-
Handicap-Indexes/)

~~~
kerryfalk
He is practicing on course as well, not just the range. Part of starting from
the hole backwards and not bringing a driver to the course _is_ teaching him
course management.

This argument doesn't make much sense to me, though. Why do you feel that the
mental side of the game can't be taught or you can't practice getting better
at strengthening that part of your game? Simply recognizing that there _is_ a
mental side to the game (like every sport) means that you can to try and
control it and thereby practice managing it. This can be learned, every
athlete learns it for every sport they play. The mental component is a large
part to every sport. I have played several sports competitively and I can't
think of a single sport that it isn't a component. One major failure caused me
to be mentally timid in one sport I competed at a very high level in - could I
have progressed past it? Yes, and I did at times but it still required work.
But I _could_ get passed it and perform.

For anyone with both passion and time I am sure they can achieve expert
status. People are adaptable, if they really want to do it and have the time
to spend they will do what it takes to succeed. That includes finding their
own way to cope with the mental pressures.

He has a lot of time left and nothing I've seen seems to indicate he couldn't
get it done - minus the one thing I'm still unclear on, if he truly has a
passion for the game.

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kerryfalk
Just watched a few of the videos and I think I've been able to answer my own
question. He doesn't have a real passion for the game as he states in one of
his videos. For that reason I don't think he will, or _can_ become elite (on
Tour) but I don't doubt that he can still get to expert level after a few more
years of dedicated practice.

I think that passion part is key to becoming truly great. The passion drives
the desire to practice, and practice _well_ with large gains. During his time
Hogan was known for practicing more than any other golfer, when he began to do
really well on tour the other golfers started joining him so they could keep
up. When asked how he was able to work so hard and practice so much he replied
that he hard a hard time getting to sleep because he couldn't wait to get to
the range in the morning to practice. Hogan was and still is known as the
greatest ball striker ever.

Again, I believe that Talent = Passion + Time Spent. A component of passion is
dedication and perseverance which he seems to have but there's something else
that really drives it. Without it I think he's limited to what he can achieve.

Perhaps it's idealistic but I don't think anyone who lacks passion can hit
like Hogan no matter how much time they spend. I'm sure they can become very
good, but not like Hogan.

For the uninitiated, art: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Nw__K1myQ>

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ckuehne
Interesting experiment. But the 10,000 hours rule is a myth [1]. The variance
in deliberate practice needed is huge: some top performers need 3,000 hours
while others need 24,000 hours. Some never get to the top no matter how much
they practice. Success is probably due to many different factors. Just
focusing on the deliberate practice is neither necessary nor sufficient.

[1] [http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-
and-...](http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-
performance-secrets.html)

~~~
0x12
That is exactly what makes this interesting. He is going to be one fairly
accurately measured datapoint.

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grantbachman
This is amazing. It's hard to believe someone is capable of being that
dedicated to something they've never really done before. I could understand
how an amateur golfer who is in love with the game might set this lofty goal,
but it seems Dan really had no feelings toward the game either way. More or
less, he's doing it just to see if he can do it. And he's willing to dedicate
5 years of his life to this!

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nimblegorilla
If his experiment works out moderately well I could see a great consulting
business in training and self-improvement. If it works out really well he is
now a professional athlete which seems pretty cool too.

I really wonder how being an amateur golfer would change the 10,000 hours -
would it be a head start or would it hold someone back?

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jonnathanson
In theory, it might be a detriment. The brain is fairly plastic (i.e., can be
reshaped and rewired constantly), but reinforced behaviors get pretty firmly
hardwired. This is why "old habits die hard," and "you can't teach an old dog
new tricks." Quite literally, the neural pathways we use most frequently and
automatically become the hardest to rewire.

Ergo, if you've learned the game up to a certain skill level -- and then
coasted at that skill level for decades -- you're going to need to rewire
significantly engrained neural pathways in order to relearn the game and break
through your plateau.

It also helps to be able to start young. Not only do you have more time on
your hands when you're younger, but you learn more quickly. Your brain is much
more plastic in childhood. Interestingly, in most of the "10,000 hours" case
studies I've seen, the subject started practicing as a young kid. It's
entirely possible that the learning curve is steepened or elongated for people
who start as adults. A child might be able to go from beginner to master in
10,000 hours, but an adult might need many times that number of hours.

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GreenNight
Kudos to him. Only 1 year and 5 months to reach 2000 hours! I'm impressed.

I began dancing Lindy Hop on 31st August 2009 and have been counting my hours
(swing classes and dancing, not just lindy but also related styles) and I am
not yet at the 1000 hour (almost there). I'm one of the most active dancers in
the local scene and at 2nd or 3rd tier of the local dancers, the first being
really good, so I have still lots of room to improve (not counting that I also
go abroad).

He does about 4 hours a day of practice, that's 28 a week. Only in the most
intensive workshops I have made those hours, and that wasn't deliberate
practice.

I'll have to follow him just to motivate myself a bit more :D

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the_cat_kittles
This is a fantastic idea, and I have enjoyed following it. I just hope Dan
knows that there are lots of people who put in 10,000 hours and don't make it
to the highest level (sports, music, math, art, anything...), despite becoming
veritable masters. Its always a suprise how many people are amazingly good at
something, without being the best or among the best. In my experience, there
are such things as innate gifts. But hey, maybe I'm wrong! I hope so :) Makes
this project that much more interesting.

~~~
roel_v
Worth to note that it's not about 10000 hours, it's about 10000 hours of
deliberate practice. The amount of people who do that is far smaller.

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rubashov
This is why the "10,000 hours" thing is stupid. It's unfalsifiable. If this
guy fails people will just make various excuses like "his practice wasn't
'deliberate'."

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ctdonath
No, it's pretty clear (if you've been following this story) that this guy is
being about as deliberate as anyone can be within reason. If he fails, the
"10,000 hours" claim will indeed be in serious jeopardy. One data point, sure,
but if the first data point is hard-won and correlates to "theory==wrong", few
will take it seriously enough to make the second data point happen.

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pheaduch
I'm doing something similar with trying to learn how to program. I call it
Brute Force Learning which is not exactly deliberate practice but more akin to
just doing it and hoping it sticks. The reason is because I've always wanted
to learn how to program, going back to wanting to build my own BBS door back
in the day which gives you a reference of how long I've been around computers
without learning to program. I know the reason was never an issue of mental
capacity but just a question of will, which is why I'm now carefully keeping
track of my learning time log.

I just started the experiment and do not have much online but if you're
interested you can follow at <http://theoutliers.com>

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bradfa
Another neat side of this is that as he gets better, the people he will be
competing with will be able to dedicate more of their lives to practice. For
example, I'd imagine PGA pros practice at the same level (time and dedication)
as Dan is, but they've been doing it for years already and have a big head
start on him. Beating his competitors will get exponentially harder as he gets
better even with the amazing work ethic he seems to be putting in. That's
cool.

Also, now I'm slightly inspired to work harder at getting better at things I
care about by using deliberate practice. Granted, I won't stick with it even
for 1000 hours. I'm very impressed with what he is doing.

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kitsune_
I should try this, I'm stuck in Platinum @ StarCraft II.

~~~
sliverstorm
At the higher levels of play, StarCraft II is both skill and strategy. If your
skill is what's holding you back, then yes, all you need is more practice. If
it's your strategy, you could grind for a lifetime without improvement.

~~~
shadowfox
Couldn't strategic skill be improved? (Serious question. Don't know much about
Starcraft. But for a game like chess, it was considered very possible to
improve your skill in strategy)

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arkitaip
Such a inspiring initiative. This could really become a seminal experiment in
learning.

~~~
hvs
Unfortunately, no matter how successful he is, this is still just a single
data point.

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arkitaip
True, but the entire self help industry and large portions of the business
literature is based on single or very few data points, and they are thriving.

~~~
hvs
Which should be very depressing.

That said, I'm not trying to downplay what he is doing, I think it's pretty
amazing.

