Deep Practice

As long as I’ve been singing and teaching I’ve struggled off and on with the issue of practice. 

It seemed like some days I could practice and see excellent improvement that I could build on and other days things seemed to stand still or get worse.  I noticed the same thing happening with my students. 

I’ve found many helpful ways to practice from books like Timothy Gallway’s Inner Game of Golf but it wasn’t until I read the information in The Talent Code that I felt able to insist on teaching the nitty gritty of practicing well to my students. 

Here is the information that really struck me:

When we do any task and repeat it several times, myelin begins to grow and wrap itself around the nerve fiber that is firing to accomplish the task.  That’s what you are looking at in the photo on the 1st page of this blog.

This wrapping acts like insulation and keeps the nerve impulses from “leaking”.  With a lot of wrapping, a kind of super highway is created for the impulses—and that is when a task becomes automatic. 

In order for it to stay automatic you have to keep practicing that task so the myelin will stay wrapped.  You can see how important it is to know what you are doing when you are repeating tasks so that you will wrap myelin around a good habit, not a bad one. 

Next, we’ll talk about the importance of feedback and desire.