Mnemonists are people who can remember huge amounts of new and disconnected information. Most people
believe that mnemonic talent is an innate ability. Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist, and William Chase, a p
ioneer of cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, weren't so sure. They believed they could transform any ordinary per
son into a mnemonist. To test their hypothesis, Ericsson and Chase recruited a student, whom they called S.F., to b
e their test subject. S.F. tested normal for intelligence and memory.
Figure 1a
Ericsson and Chase met with S.F. three to five times a week for an hour. S.F. was read a sequence of numbers at a rate of one number per second and was instructed to repeat this chain of numbers. If he repeated the numbers correctly, one more number was added to the sequence. If he repeated the numbers incorrectly, one number was subtracted from the sequence. After every session, S.F. was asked to repeat as many of that day's numbers as possible. Although these sessions were mentally draining and extremely intense, S.F. continued because he was seeing progress. His number recall went from seven digits, to ten, to twenty, to thirty, to seventy, and so on(See Figure 1a). After two years and over 250 hours of this incredibly intense practice, S.F. could remember over 80 digits when the experiment was concluded.
Initially, S.F. aimlessly tried to memorize the entire chain of numbers with no strategy. Since S.F. ran track, he began associating race times with strings of numbers. For example, if S.F. was read the numbers 6-3-5-2, he thought of these numbers as representing a race time of six minutes and thirty-five point two seconds. In other words, S.F. utilized a strategy that has been used for thousands of years: to assign new information to a system already in long-term memory. In his case, S.F. assigned random numbers to race times. Since short-term memory is extremely limited, S.F. changed the way he formed new memories to take advantage of his long- term memory system. In order to be sure that S.F. had not increased his capability to form memories in the short term, Ericsson and Chase tested him on his ability to memorize random alphabet letters. When tested on letters, S.F.'s memory immediately reverted to normal, since he had never learned any mnemonic tricks relevant memorizing letters.
Ericsson and Chase's memory experiment has implications for almost all types of physical and mental activities, which range from painting, to basketball, to writing music, and even to skateboarding. Here are some facts regarding deliberate practice:
deliberate practice: "practice which forces the practitioner to come up with new ways to encourage and enable themselves to reach new levels of performance"
Source for the above defintion: Wikipedia
1. When one practices deliberately, there are changes in the brain and organs to adapt to the stress that practice entails.
2. When one acquires a skill from deliberate practice, the acquired skill is extremely specific and, for the most part, doesn't carry over into other skill sets. For example, even though S.F. trained himself to memorize a huge chain of numbers, his skill became simply mediocre when he tried to apply it to memorizing letters. Mike Carroll might just have the freshest front blunt ever(watch FTC Finally), but it doesn't mean he can get the Girl pick-up basketball team to play a game with the Boston Celtics and win.
3. Practice style is crucial. To get better at anything, one can't simply reinforce his existing skills. He must practice slightly outside his boundaries to force his mind and body to adapt to the new demands.
4. To become better at anything one must practice consistently. These physical and neurological changes occur over many years of time. One can't just practice three days a week for a couple hours here and there, then not practice for months and expect to get better at anything. To get better, a person must practice many days a week every week. If executed correctly, the practice should pay off. Referring again to figure 1a, we will change the horizontal axis to Years of Skateboarding and the vertical axis to any number of things. These things could be Number of Flat ground tricks Learned, Speed at Which One Does a Trick, or Percentage of Lands of Ledge Tricks. With skateboarding, this graph should be upward sloping as well- that is, of course, until you hit 30, get a beer belly, and are content with skating mini ramp all day!
PJ Ladd is a testament to the art of deliberate practice. Many people will say PJ is innately talented on a skateboard. This is simply not the case. Do you think that PJ could just do switch tre's at Aquarium all day, the day he started skating? Of course not! Far from it. Rumor has it that PJ would wake up every morning at 4 a.m. and skate in his barn for hours before school started. After school he would skate in his barn for many more hours. Obviously, PJ displayed an extreme passion and compulsion for skateboarding to skate as much as he did in those years. This is deliberate practice to the fullest.
In the Fall of 2009, PJ spent a month in Boston and skated Eggs every day. PJ is a very courteous and kind person of few words. He skated more than anyone. The only time he would socialize was when he drank Gatorade to take a break from the session. His devotion to skateboarding is unparalleled. While many pros get caught up in drugs and alcohol, PJ's deep passion is strikingly apparent in the way he skates. He'll reinforce the ledge skills he already has by doing 100 kickflip front 5-0s in a row. In between he'll work on his new stuff. This kind of practice took place over many hours every day. I think everyone was amazed by the passion and determination shown in his skating. PJ never seemed to be satisfied with his skating, though. In fact, never being satisfied with one's current skill is a pre-requisite for all world class athletes to get better at their skill. In the same spirit as PJ, Ted Williams would arrive for practice before anyone else and leave hours after everyone else had gone home. Williams would hit 100's of balls, all the while evaluating what he was doing wrong. Skateboarding is much like this. If a skater doesn't land a trick, he will usually analyze, consciously or subconsciously, what he was doing wrong. This analysis is a key component in successful deliberate practice.
PJ wasn't always the talented skateboarder he is today. Rumor has it that, when he started, the only ledge trick he would do was a front five-0 front shove at the round ledges across from Window Sills in Boston's financial district. Do you think Rob Welsh could do fakie-back 5-0 fakie flips with a cigarette in his mouth the day he started skating? Do you think Nate Keegan could do 15 foot back nosegrind pop outs over a hypodermic needle at the China Town courts before he learned how to do back nose grinds for three feet off the end of a box? Probably 'no' to all of these questions. P.J.'s determination and passion for skateboarding have allowed him to move from the 5-0 front shove of the mid-nineties to doing whatever the fuck he wants to do on a skateboard today. Welsh, P.J., and Keegs all started somewhere to get to where they are today. You might wonder why we all can't attain the elite level of these three skateboarders. In my previous post about Gene and Environmental Interaction(In this case hard work falls under this category) environment is a big part but not the only component of one's talent limit. It is also partly genes that determine our intellectual and physical limits regarding our capacity for talent. Welsh, P.J., and Keegs may have much greater limits than you or I, but the point is to get where they are now they had to work extremely hard over years of time.
Warning: Skateboarding is an extremely fun activity and practicing deliberately with it may cause it to be extremely unfun. I am not advocating to practice skateboarding deliberately; I am just trying to draw an analogy between talent, the brain, deliberate practice, and skateboarding!
Source: The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk
Check out PJ's progress:
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