The Power of Positive Practice by Matt Fury

Last week I wrote about 10,000 hours of practice. Today I'm going to write about the power of positive practice or the power of repetition - and how many to do if you want to move ahead.  Now, let's say you're a martial artist and you want to know how 10,000 hours of practice applies to you. Well, in order to become legendary, you'll still need 10,000 hours. But in order to master a number of different skills along the way, you may be better off concentrating on overall repetitions. In Chinese martial arts, for example, it's common for the old masters to say, "Do 1,000 repetitions of this movement everyday and you'll own it."

 And if the student will commit to 1,000 reps a day, within a year he'll be a force to reckon with in that particular skill.  Why? Because the average person won't even commit to 100 reps a day, much less 10. If you're the person who'll do 1,000 - you'll be so smooth and quick that even if the person knows what you're going to do, he still won't  be able to stop it.

When I had my school in California it was common for me to teach a move that I had worked on for 10-20 years. It was also common for the non-champion student to go off and practice the move two or three times, then turn to me and say, "What's next boss?" "What's next? WHAT'S NEXT??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

Check back next week for the continuation of this great article about the power of repetition.