Practice
(Essay 19, Finite)
by gayla mills
I once knew a magician, a friend of the family, who’s now dead and turned to ash. He amazed us with his card tricks, which were exceptional. One night we asked about his secret.
“I file down the tips of my fingers to make my nerves raw,” Earle said, “so I’m more sensitive to the feel of the cards.” He could pick up a partial stack and feel exactly how many cards he held.
Filing down his own fingers. Years of practice counting cards with those tips. It made a profound impression, that his art required a level of pain, dedication, and practice that wasn’t apparent while watching him entertain us, smiling and seeming relaxed.
As a musician and a writer, I’m gradually getting it, the notion of practice. People have been telling me for years, but I’ve had a hard time listening, much less understanding. “Practice makes perfect”—what does that mean? It sounds so unpleasant.
But then I learned about the ten year rule. People who shine in their fields do so after an average of ten years—that’s how long it takes to put in the time, become an expert, learn something well. Ten years doesn’t seem like much to me now. It’s ironic that when I was young and had more of those decades to work with, ten years seemed like an impossibly long time. There was no way I was waiting ten years for something good to happen.
But how do you become a writer? Through hours of reading good work, analyzing its elements, crafting your own words, critiquing, noticing. How do you become a musician? Through years of listening to good music, looking for specific relationships, playing different combinations endlessly, developing your muscle memory so that complex patterns become automatic. How do you become an athlete? Through hours of training your body to make its moves without thought. When you’re in a crunch, you can’t depend on your conscious mind to do what’s needed. You’ve got to play that note, hit that ball, write that phrase, paint that stroke, deftly and unthinkingly. It’s all about practice.
And after you’ve rewired your brain, retrained your muscles, filed down your fingertips, you’re ready. Now you can play with a smile on your face and make it all look so easy, so natural.
Next
“I file down the tips of my fingers to make my nerves raw,” Earle said, “so I’m more sensitive to the feel of the cards.” He could pick up a partial stack and feel exactly how many cards he held.
Filing down his own fingers. Years of practice counting cards with those tips. It made a profound impression, that his art required a level of pain, dedication, and practice that wasn’t apparent while watching him entertain us, smiling and seeming relaxed.
As a musician and a writer, I’m gradually getting it, the notion of practice. People have been telling me for years, but I’ve had a hard time listening, much less understanding. “Practice makes perfect”—what does that mean? It sounds so unpleasant.
But then I learned about the ten year rule. People who shine in their fields do so after an average of ten years—that’s how long it takes to put in the time, become an expert, learn something well. Ten years doesn’t seem like much to me now. It’s ironic that when I was young and had more of those decades to work with, ten years seemed like an impossibly long time. There was no way I was waiting ten years for something good to happen.
But how do you become a writer? Through hours of reading good work, analyzing its elements, crafting your own words, critiquing, noticing. How do you become a musician? Through years of listening to good music, looking for specific relationships, playing different combinations endlessly, developing your muscle memory so that complex patterns become automatic. How do you become an athlete? Through hours of training your body to make its moves without thought. When you’re in a crunch, you can’t depend on your conscious mind to do what’s needed. You’ve got to play that note, hit that ball, write that phrase, paint that stroke, deftly and unthinkingly. It’s all about practice.
And after you’ve rewired your brain, retrained your muscles, filed down your fingertips, you’re ready. Now you can play with a smile on your face and make it all look so easy, so natural.
Next