The reality of “practice makes perfect” is much more than human willpower. It involves real scientific data and discovery.
An article in Psychology Today* offers a good place to begin to grasp an understanding of the science of “practice makes perfect” – an article well worth reading. This article tells the story of a young tennis player growing up in Montana who learned both tennis and life from his father:
“Although being a state tennis champion is technically what got my father a college scholarship, that ‘trophy’ is secondary to everything else that he learned on the tennis court that stuck with him for the rest of his life. His brain was rewired through his daily workouts. He was able to transfer his ‘eye for the ball’ into ‘focus’ and remain intellectually sharper than the rest. His daily tennis practice gave him the physicality, dexterity, and stamina to be a world-class surgeon.
My father wanted me to be the next Björn Borg. I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed from a very young age. I wanted my father to be proud of me and I worked very hard on the tennis court. When I was growing up, tennis was our only real alone time and we played every Sunday. His coaching was based on an understanding that muscle memory is stored in a part of your brain called the “cerebellum” (Latin: little brain). My dad’s mantra to me as a kid was: ‘Carve the grooves into the cerebellum, Chris. Think about hammering and forging your muscle memory with every stroke.’ The cerebellum is the #1 reason that practice makes perfect.”
Sadly, the same science that teaches that “practice makes perfect” in learning desired skills is also the science that leads to an understanding of the process of abuse and addiction. This will be the focus of several coming posts, but let us open the door for consideration by turning to one of my favorite and most read volumes, Addiction and Grace** by Dr. Gerald May:
“We human beings are the most adaptable creatures in God’s creation. Our adaptability has allowed us to dominate the world. But our very capacity to create new normalities for ourselves also makes us vulnerable to countless attachments. As every attachment forms, a new normality is born. With each new normality, addiction exists.” (78)
I offer one more important bit of reading to conclude this post and move us toward future days and weeks. This is from another book that everyone should have and read – often, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning*** by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham:
“The ‘language of recovery’ that is storytelling involves not dogma or commandment, not things to be done or truths to be believed, not theory, conjecture, argument, analysis, or explanation, but a way of conversation shared by those who accept and identify with their own imperfection. Following the tradition of Western spirituality, Alcoholics Anonymous aims to convery experience rather than to ‘teach’ concepts. Always truthful to experience, the language of recovery makes it possible to see – and thus to understand – reality differently. And it is in this different vision that spirituality begins.” (160)
The journey continues – please join the conversation.
*http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201110/no-1-reason-practice-makes-perfect
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