E is for EFFORTLESS

"The price of excellence is discipline.  The cost of mediocrity is disappointment."  - William Arthur Ward

How EASY is EFFORTLESS?

My mother used to say:
"Practice makes perfect -- but only if it is perfect practice." 

Only one Olympic competition do I enjoy watching:

Women's Skating
It's a guy thing perhaps.

But there is such grace, poise, and effortlessness to those ladies.

Effortlessness?

It takes 20 years on the average 

for each of those competitors to reach the skill level to make it to the Olympics ...

starting in preschool!

In an average week, the typical elite figure skater trains six days.   

She spends the majority of each of those days focused on her craft.   

A typical day includes two or three training sessions on ice, one or two off-ice sessions, warm-ups, cool-downs, 

calculated nutrition, visualization and mental training.



Think of Concert Pianists
Besides Luck, a person needs  around 18 years of training to achieve the technical fluency 

and begin to to have some semblance of a repertoire. 

You need an impeccable musical memory:

most concert pianists that I know have at least 4 full programs of music 

that is ready or needs only the slightest polishing to be concert ready, and this is minimal. 

Sviatoslav Richter had a ridiculously large repertoire before he decided to stop playing concerts only by memory.


But This Is The MicroWave Culture
Frozen dinners taking 8 minutes are thought to take too long.

Hour Long Documentaries bore -- only sound bites attract attention.  

 Novels completed in 30 Days are applauded across the internet.


What do you think?
Do Short-cuts to Excellence  Lead Anywhere? 
Hibbs Says:  Never Give Up!