| There is a better summary of the studies in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" From what I remember, the claim is that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice work best when: 1. You get immediate feedback on success and failure 2. The thing you are trying to master has a skill set that can be improved, and that improving that skill is sufficient. That #2 is tricky -- a counter example is stock picking. We have no evidence that there is a skill that can be learned that will make you better at picking stocks, so 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, even with immediate feedback, won't help. I think that Dan is following a reasonable deliberate practice plan with experts and that he does get fast feedback. What we don't know is if Golf is something that is primarily/mostly/all skill based. For example, what if there was a physical body type that made you better and Dan didn't have it -- then 10,000 hours might not help. Also, the point of the 10,000 hours is to train your intuitive mind (System 1, the fast thinker) to be as correct as your deliberate mind would be (System 2, the slow thinker) if you had time and attention. This whole thing is much better for thinking-based activities, like say, programming. I don't remember if the studies looked at physical activities and "muscle-memory". Caveat: this is all from memory -- read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" if you have interest in this. |