This is a great Ted talk (thank you, Ben) on improvement:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about
The point is that we should spend more time in the learning zone as opposed to the performance zone: the learning zone is where we spend time improving skills and the performance zone is where we sped time executing skills.
We tend to get caught up in the performance zone way too often and we do not in fact improve there.
The learning zone is where we should use Deliberate Practice:
This is what leads to substantial improvement, not just practice.
Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi
So, the overall idea is to identify when we are in the performance zone vs the learning zone and try to spend some time in the learning zone, intently trying to improve. We need safe environments, where failure is not
In terms of skiing, if we just go out skiing, we will not improve significantly. We need to spend some time specifically trying to improve through reading about skiing, increasing our understanding and practicing technical drills etc... and this is specifically how we designed this website and the progressions here: these are the sessions you can go through in 1 hour every day, so you can improve, while skiing.
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