This was again discussed this year, when psychologists did more work on those that reach a high level of performance in sport, musical performance etc. At 10,000 hours of dedicated application, you should be moving from skilled novice to high level practitioner, to superlative performer.
If you do the sums, it's the reason why most of us will be good, but not superlative, skiers after a few seasons (read weeks) of skiing. I count my hours. I am getting there....slowly.
Scroll back to early this winter. It's Christmas and I am shutting up the garage in Switzerland after sorting out the pile of family ski gear at the end of the day. It's dark, and it's started snowing. As I pass our neighbours' chalet I see an enormous pair of new Black Crows outside. And I do mean big. Long and very very fat. The sort of skis that you need to give two weeks' notice to when wanting to go from one edge to the other. Curious, I ring the bell and am immediately welcomed in for wine and general chat with family and four guests. After general intros to the newcomers I twig that the very willowy, athletic 20-something woman is the owner of the Black Crows. She's the same height as me - and so the skis will tower over her head, and she could hide behind one of them with no problem at all, and be lost to the world. '...I like deep powder...' she states, in a heavy German accent. No kidding. You could get flotation on a bed of feathers on those things, but you need a lot of skill to wield them. Turns out she's been chasing hidden powder stashes off the back of Mt Bonvin. '... OK ..' , I ask, '...when did you learn to ski...'. 'Last year' She replies. I laugh politely...'no...seriously, when did you start skiing?...'. She also laughs....'I told you...last year...'. So she's progressed to seeking out powder on some of the hardest hard-core skis going. The sort that need serious piloting. And so I probe further, now REALLY curious. Who did you train with? Where? She laughs again. Her partner explains. She is a good general athlete, and decided to learn how to ski...and ski well. And she has a job which allows her to take months off at a time. So she simply gets a plane to Canada, in deepest powder season and, for the first time in her life, gets a ski lesson. And then gets one every day, all day for the next three months. Deep play. Deep immersion. And one way of racking up a lot of hours towards the magical 10,000.
Never give up on lessons, rack up hours but as progress towards 10,000, get as much immersion as you can. Quantity can also be, under certain conditions, quality.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
valais2, great post. Note however, the key word, "dedicated". It's not 10k hours of actvity, it's 10k hours of focused practice. An entirely different thing, a difference that explains why so many recreational skiers complain of hittin a plateau...
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:
Quantity can also be, under certain conditions, quality.
OK, but those conditions are actually quite demanding.
I have heard this for playing the guitar, but then it was 50000 hours!
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Some have spent 10,000 hours spouting rubbish in this forum and they still don't know where apostrophes go.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Bode Swiller,
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in response to Bode S: are you pointing out a misuse here...I can't spot one...
neighbours' = possessive, more than one neighbour = correct
it's started snowing = missing letter = correct
two weeks' = possessive, time belonging to the week = correct
All in line with Oxford usage.
Pedantic? Me?
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valais2, no, not aimed a you, just a general observation. Although you do use ' when " might be better.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
valais2, I don't know about Bode Swiller, but it wasn't your post I was thinking of in my response above
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Bode S - phew...had to do a careful check on apostrophes...and yup, you're right about " rather than '. Must press that u/c key more often....
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
10,000 hours.
Suppose we ski for 5 hours per day with "dedicated application", then we need 10000/5 = 2000 skiing days.
Suppose we do all one week holidays then we need 2000/6 = 333 weeks of skiing.
Suppose we do all two week holidays then we need 2000/13 = 154 skiing holidays.
And, I think 5 hours per day is being generous. It may well be twice the correct value. How much of our skiing is just ambling along? How much of our skiing day is queuing for and riding lifts? So the above numbers could well require 600 weeks of skiing. That is a lot of weeks of skiing whether it is 300 or 600. Would any of the ski instructors here care to guess how many weeks skiing they did before getting their teaching qualification?
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Adrian, the basic requirement (on paper at least) for a BASI Level 1 is at least 16 weeks.
That's a bit far off even the 333 weeks you've calculated!
Language is for communication, if anything written communicates, then the job has been done!
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but this was about "superlative performers". Highly improbable that anyone who just skis on holiday - even if they have several each year and take lots of lessons - will ever become a "superlative performer". Yer average Austrian or French ski instructor would probably not see themselves as superlative performers either - one Austrian instructor who took us slowly and carefully down a black run used as a men's downhill told us there was a bigger difference between his level of skiing (godlike, to our eyes) and that of the downhill racers than between his and ours.
Like the difference between a basic level professional musician (a higher level than most good school musicians with their grade 8s would aspire to) and a concert pianist. Just huge. Top musicians are already godlike but they still practice hours and hours most days.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
pam w, Spot on. It took me about 1500 hours to get to Grade 8 (failed) Clarinet... My friends who became pro-musicians did way more...
One thing is that doing 10,000 hours does not guarantee that you will become great at anything... But it is rare (not impossible) that in a technical skill based discipline you will become brilliant without putting a lot of time in.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I have a student doing the Building Blocks program who just started skiing last year. He's been training intensely, and has made remarkable progress. He already skis better than many life long skiers. I also have students who've been skiing 40 years, who with a bit of training have learned new skills that have completely transformed their skiing and taken them to a new level. Time clearly brings expertise when it's a structured program of skill building. Its less common that it happens by just spending hours participating with no real plan for improvement. That generally just embeds limited and inefficient technique, leaving the person stuck on a plateau, well short of realizing the potential that dwells within them.
FastMan, would it be fair to say context is vital and (to paraphrase an overused phrase) 'practice doesn't make perfect but it can make permanent' and therein lies the problem for many recreational skiers who reach that plateau you mention!
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
pam w, I agree entirely with your post, except for the opening word, ie the "but". After reading this thread and thinking about it I realised that 10,000 hours was "a lot" but I had no feeling for how long it really was. So I did some simple sums and get "a lot" of weeks. I have an idea of how many weeks skiing I have done and both my skiing and my number of weeks put me at the novice end of the scales. rogas note about the basic BASI requirement of 16 weeks and pam w's note about an Austrian ski teacher's comparison with a dowhill racer serve to give me a greater understanding of what 10,000 hours means.
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After all it is free
Interesting example, but she has 'experienced' light fluffy powder, send her to Scotland, or some breakable Euro crust with pockets of fresh, see how she copes then
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roga wrote:
FastMan, would it be fair to say context is vital and (to paraphrase an overused phrase) 'practice doesn't make perfect but it can make permanent' and therein lies the problem for many recreational skiers who reach that plateau you mention!
Exactly, roga. Well put.
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I'm just coming to the end of a season training for the ISIA, mostly in Courchevel. We worked out that this season I've put in about 105 days with at least 4 hours a day of solid training. My entire training group is having to work extremely hard to even approach the level required for the BASI ISIA tech exam! I'd say that 10,000 hours of improvement and practice is a hell of a lot! Just as an aside, it takes a lot less hours than that to develop a ridiculous goggle tan too...
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matthew Syed's book"How Champions are made" is a great read on this subject, and he also goes onto teh other facets that go to make a champion - the hours are v important component , but so are having focussed practice, plus a few other things..
Exceelent article on how to plan to make a champion from pre-birth (the polgar family)
Wish i could remember who i lent the book to
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Son of Tinyman, interesting - were you all L2s before you started training for ISIA? What does the course consist of and who have you done it with?
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
roga, Yeah, everybody on the course is a L2, some with 20 years of experience teaching at that level, and some having only just passed the L2 exam. We're training with New Gen all over the 3 Valleys, but mostly staying in Courch and Meribel. The course is the 10 week ISIA pre-exam training, consisting of training for the 5 strands, as well as work towards the ISIA Teach, the mountain safety and a few elements of ADC. Seems that this season we've had a big focus on Piste Performance and Bumps, working with several trainers. We've done a couple of days with Tom Saxlund developing teaching technique, days touring with Roy Henderson as well as some bumps workshops with Simon Bates. The course is awesome fun though, been a great way to spend a season out here!
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
son of tinyman ... that means you've met Dave Morris? Finest beard in Courchevel and excellent training technique.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
...remember once when Dave had given an extremely detailed diagnosis of a problem and what to do - all very sound, biometric stuff - he then assumed a genuinely serious face and said - indeed in all seriousness ... '...and keep your skis underneath you, where they're useful....' - b****y good advice, that.
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valais2, Hahaha! Yeah, Dave Morris is a great guy. Got told a story about the level 2 course assessment last year, where Dorris eventually failed a guy, saying "I would have passed him if he'd just stood on his skis properly!"
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Eric Clapton didn't pick up a guitar till he was 13 and didn't really put the practice in for a couple of years after that. He joined the Yardbirds when he was 18. Don't think he put in 10,000 hours, not at that point anyway.
And valais2, you didn't see your skinny plank-wrangler actually riding the Crows, did you? I mean, we all know "strong intermediates" who can't hack a mogul field.
Reckon 10,000 is just a nice round number and in fact it's probably a lot less than that, more so if you've got an aptitude or transferable skill.
I wonder what the real agenda of that article is. More likely, spending 10,000 hours reading books by Malcolm Gladwell will take him into the elite...
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
andyph - there are indeed exceptions. I went to school with Andy Shepard. He practised on guitar for years, that's true. In fact almost every hour of the day. But then he picked up a saxophone on a tuesday and was playing it in a gig on the following thursday - and I'm not joking (he was voted 'best jazz soloist' 15 years later). Leo Holding put on a pair of rock shoes two sizes too big and went straight onto a 5c. But this is exceptional, as most of us know. Plastering, playing an instrument, skiing, climbing, the 10,000 hour rule comes into play - and there's enough independent validation of this now.
re the skinny plank wrangler - no, I didn't ski with her (since I was chaperoning my five and seven year old children around the hill) - but I know where she went, and you'd have brown trousers or broken limbs doing the routes which she was on. You couldn't even struggle down them, they're rather committing...
10,000 hours is ridiculous - 100 days is a dedicated season (factoring in general recovery and general injuries), and with five hour days you'd need 20 seasons to hit it. I should try and get some film of 8 year olds skiing GS that definitely haven't skied more than 1,000 hours in their lives and I can pretty much guarantee ski better than 99% of the skiing population.
From my own, and people I've trained with for the last three years, anecdotal evidence, I'd guesstimate that 3-4 seasons with enough focused training to keep on track for your own goals should be enough to reach ISIA level from being a dodgy black run skier. I should note that my own background is being an IT nerd that didn't go anywhere near sports at school, and have never had anything resembling natural talent in anything physical.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
DaveC, ...I did say 'superlative' in the original post - and then gave an example of someone who had gotten to a highish level in an intensive spurt, which is a very heartening and encouraging thing. A few things to mull on. Read the biographies of people like Klammer, Zurbriggen, Cuche, their experience is closer to the 10,000 hrs than you might think. I have indeed seen 8 year olds skiing GS, and skiing better than 99% of the population - but to get to the top of the top 1%.....
And after all, we Brits now do SO well in internationals in skiing....
DaveC, ...actually...hang on....Cuche is 36 years' old. He started when he was 3-ish. That's 33 years of skiing. Less 13 since he won his first olympic medal in '98. That makes 20 years. As you say, 100 days is a dedicated season, five hour days - 20 seasons. OK he will have skied a bit less when he was at school and a bit more when he reached top competition. By your own calcs this makes 10,000 hours. I rest my case.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
valais2, so long as you're resting it somewhere out of sight. Your logic is strained at best, and the fact that you can fudge it for one (a few/half the fis circuit) skier to fit your magic number doesn't exactly mean much. I'm suprised you didn't bust out flatland/NZ training to prop it up though.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Its not rocket science is it - obviously more focused practice for professional athletes who already have demostrated natural aptitude and have relevant physical attributes will better than less but 10,000 hours just sounds like an arbitrary soundbite.
But how relevant is this to the recreational skier? - I'd say clearly 6 days a year isn't really enough to progress significantly except for the extraordinarily gifted and cruising blue runs with little focus in a "comfort zone" won't help but equally I'm not sure it makes for a manifesto that every leisure skier "needs" intensive structured coaching.
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To be really good (without being world class) IT, Law, Building (plastering et al) to quote three examples of the "trades" you are talking about 5 years at, lets say 6 hour days for 200 days year. So what does that give us?
.......... yeah ok 6000 hours. so close to your rule, add another 3 years at Uni/Law School and you get close to the 10,000 hr rule. 10,000 hours is still a lot of skiing though, I suspect Gladwell doesn't think it should all be high level "coaching" stuff just that (as in the Cuche example), if you start at 3 you will be approaching the 10,000 hour level by the time you get to be world class.
That is probably why apprenticeships used to last 7 years or thereabouts.
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Sport is a little different from "trades" or "professions" and not to be snobbish they amount to pretty much the same thing, you learn loads more from experience and cocking things up than the academic/thoretical side. I think natural talent is far more relevant to sports together with a bit of courage and a certain "feel" e.g. you'll get rugby players who may be fantastic athletes but never quite have ball handling skills such as Martin Offiah.
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