Thursday, August 20, 2015

Critical Mass

me:  Some food for thought here:
I have a theory.  I am calling it the "critical mass" theory, and it describes how experience makes people good at things, very generally.

Sent at 2:36 PM 

me:  This theory is one way to think about how guys get good from playing in summer league, or more broadly, get good at anything in general.

Sent at 2:38 PM

me:  Let's use strength training as an example.  Every morning Jeremy gets up and puts in a strong day at the gym.  Hypothetically, he does this for 3 years or whatever, however long it takes, and there is a point at which he reaches critical mass and is much much better.

Sent at 2:47 PM 

me:  I think this can be applied to almost any skill.  For example: running upline, making a cut, throwing a flick, playing mid in a zone, etc.

Sent at 2:50 PM

me:  The theory is that once you reach critical mass in any one thing, you improve massively. More so than you expect.

Sent at 2:54 PM

KB:  I'm into that.  I am not sure if you can speed up the road though.

me:  Sure you can, you just do more of the thing.

KB:  But time is the incompressible factor.

me:  True.  The compressibility of reps matters.  Like, if I need to improve my flick, I should throw a lot.  No question.

An additional key to critical mass is that rep quality matters. Infinite mindless reps could potentially never get you to critical mass.

So let's say the quality of a rep is on a weighted scale and falls between 0 and 1, where 0 is totally mindless and 1 is the best rep ever.  (note: the best rep ever for a rookie can look really terrible and still be a 1) And then you just add up the reps until you get to critical mass.

Question is:  what is a persons critical mass for xyz skill?  And I don't think you ever know that part of it, since its so dependent on the individual.

So for example: Walden has reached critical mass at running upline.  He can describe every facet of running an upline, every angle, when to be physical, when to clamp down, when to give cushion, etc.  His picture of the upline space is clear as day.  When we run upline, our picture is muddy at best since we are not at critical mass at that skill.

Sent at 3:05 PM

KB:  I agree

Sent at 3:07 PM

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