Stick to the Basics
Dare I say ‘who cares.’
Everything new is usually a spin on the old stuff or something old which was once forgotten. Why do the best teachers teach the basics? Could it be because they work?
I go to boxing lessons twice a week and I could spend years on the jab and straight right. Add a bit of leg work and I would be sorted for life.
Go to the best grappling teachers and they teach positions, basic escapes and pins. If you find a guy promising to teach you 20 ways to learn flying arm bars then run.
If you see a business coach teaching anything but how to create a great product with a strong sales message and an honest guarantee then run.
If you hear of a fitness guru with the latest diet which ‘literally melts fat off’ then run.
The basics are boring. You have to do the same things over and over and over again and yet when you see the truly world class fighters, boxers, business experts and sportsmen what are they winning with.
Can you guess?
Paul Browning
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Tag:The basics work
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8 Comments
Basics! 🙂
reminds me of a story i once heard – about the little boy who used to carry the pig up the mountain. The little boy had a pet piglet and everyday he would carry the piglet up and down the mountain, as days and years went by, the pig got bigger, much bigger than the pig, but yet he carried it up and down with ease. Moral: Continue to do this everyday little by litte -eventually big things become small things.
My dad related it to soccer – when you first practise kicking into the goal – don’t start by standing at a very far distance – stand as close to the goal and start kicking – making sure it goes in, and then moving back slowly , slowly making sure each kick goes in – eventually you can be at any length of the field and know just how to place the bal! 🙂
Hear! Hear!
Sometimes we like to skip some steps to make the things go faster and make our goal in no time. But, it doesn’t work that way, at the end you are not getting a good result and then what, you have to start again.
Start always from the basic and up and you will see great results.
One thing I have always tried to do was to master the basics. I really believe that if you can do the fundamental things well, you will be able to move on and build on your experience. I think that too many people ignore the first steps in order to move on and get into the more “interesting” things. They have gaps in what they can do, however, and eventually their shortcomings become obvious.
I go back to the basics when I realize that I have been complicating things. It helps to sort out what the goal is and lets me see a more refined approach to take to accomplish that goal.
Revisiting the basics is the way that I center myself. It is a good habit to get into.
Reminds me of watching international ice skating competitions on television years ago. Part of the competition and scores was the “school figures” where the skaters had to execute perfect circles, etc. By perfecting those basics on the ice, they could go on to executing ever more exciting and beautiful moves – built on the basics! But that was not exciting TV and was removed from the competition. I wonder how many youngsters starting out now only want to do the exciting quad jumps and don’t want to be bothered with the basics?
I agree with Mila. When any of us skips the basics to get to the interesting stuff, sooner or later shortcomings become obvious. Unfortunately, this is often after many problems have been caused.