Years ago, at the height of his performance as ranking as one of the best players in baseball, Albert Pujols stepped into the batters box against All-American softball pitcher Jennie Finch and whiffed repeatedly. The speed of the ball (in terms of time to the plate, given that the distance was shorter) was no different than a major league fastball. And yet he could not time the pitch. Why?
Scientific studies have shown that elite athletes on average don't have better reflexes than any of us sitting on the couch. They have just come to possess a finely-honed sense of what (in baseball, for example) a pitch is supposed to look like. Subconsciously, they are taking in data like the pitcher's arm angle, shoulder position, rotation of the ball. Digesting that data in a few milliseconds is what some might call "pitch recognition."
Training the mind to respond so instantaneously is the by-product of hours of practice. Actually, as further studies of musicians have showed, around ten thousand hours of practice. It's become more popularly accepted and has spurred the movement toward children starting their sports careers earlier.
Naturally there is application in many areas outside of sports, too.
The 10,000 hour rule might say that if you want to build a skill to exceptional levels, it would take ten years of 20-hour weeks. Which means coming home from work and putting in four hours a night for the next decade.
What do you love enough to try?
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