Friday, February 29, 2008
The meaning of practice
While our aikido club is training in the evenings, the other side of the gymnasium is being used for acrobatic gymnastics.
They practice the same routines over and over again. And I mean over and over again. Most weekday evenings for hours and hours. I must have heard the each music track a thousand times, and the noise can get a little distracting.
Sometimes a pair will get it slightly wrong, and they'll have to stop and start again. Seeing it so often, you can forget quite what they are doing. Even though some of them are world junior champions, and a lot of them are British champions.
I stumbled across some clips on YouTube of the gymnasts, which reminded me how impressive they are at their sport.
This is a clip of two of the boys in the gym we use:
It's a salutory lesson that it's not practice that makes perfect but "perfect practice makes perfect". Their effort and concentration is terrifying and inspiring all at the same time. ¶ 3:01 AM
They practice the same routines over and over again. And I mean over and over again. Most weekday evenings for hours and hours. I must have heard the each music track a thousand times, and the noise can get a little distracting.
Sometimes a pair will get it slightly wrong, and they'll have to stop and start again. Seeing it so often, you can forget quite what they are doing. Even though some of them are world junior champions, and a lot of them are British champions.
I stumbled across some clips on YouTube of the gymnasts, which reminded me how impressive they are at their sport.
This is a clip of two of the boys in the gym we use:
It's a salutory lesson that it's not practice that makes perfect but "perfect practice makes perfect". Their effort and concentration is terrifying and inspiring all at the same time. ¶ 3:01 AM
