Why Practice?

Tillerman asks Why Practice? In the picture below, the question to ask yourself is how to get into the top right box, i.e. doing the right thing well? The answer is in the post continuation. No matter where you start, you have to do the right thing badly first. The reason why practice sucks is that a lot of the time it feels like failing. And if you're not failing you are not getting better. There is a famous story about Tiger Woods after he won Augusta for the first time. His coach is said to have told him that he got lucky that time. He had won one Masters but he was unlikely to win more. He said that there was a fundamental flaw in his swing that would stop Tiger ever being an all-time great player. Tiger agreed and he disappeared from the tour for six months. He went off to Florida with his coach to break down and then reconstruct his swing. To start with it was painful he was shanking and hooking left and right. He probably could not have won a junior 9-hole match. After six months it he returned to the tour with a new swing. The rest is history.