On the Mat Day 751: Deliberate Practice

I've noticed that sleeping with the correct pillow setup has made an improvement to the health of my neck. I got up this morning and it felt great. The muscles are still weak but it seems to be slowly improving. I just need to control myself and not go crazy when sparring. Case in point. After Sunday morning drilling, a few of the guys started sparring and a young white belt kept looking over at me and I knew he wanted to spar. Since there was nobody else to partner with him I obliged. Despite the fact that seconds before I had told myself that I had to not spar to let my neck heal some I went ahead and sparred. Sometimes I think I have no self-control. I hate it. Particularly, when it comes to food.

I went ahead and joined the Yoga class this week. I actually enjoy the discomfort. Yoga is a good compliment to BJJ.

Hamstrings about to explode..arrgh.

I've also been interested in something called Deliberate Practice after starting to read a book called "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. I'm only a short way in but the footnotes seem to be:

1. There are no real geniuses or gifted people.
2. Most people are proficient but not amazing at their jobs, even though they may try to come across as being so. There is little difference in say the decision making ability of a new entrant to a company over his boss.
3. There is a practice method that creates efficiency to achieve better goals than average in sport, your job, a hobby (playing the guitar, etc.) - I've yet to reach this in the book

For many years I've been thinking about how to improve BJJ efficiently. I'm starting to come to some conclusions.
1. Drilling is just as important as any other aspect of training if not more
2. A training partner to give feedback is essential
3. Tools are excellent to analyze and improve your skill level (i.e. filming or watching videos, writing out notes or even simply talking about techniques)
4. You do not have to constantly exhaust yourself in training (boxers do not have to slug it out with sparring partners and likewise you do not have to spar constantly at every lesson until you are a bloody mess on the floor, although, it is good to do that now and again)
5. For over 40s, sleep, diet and recuperation are important. You have to listen to those aches in your body and rest accordingly.

I'm still looking into Deliberate Practice and hope to have some more input on this with tangible examples somewhere down the line. Stay tuned.