Don't forget square one...

"When you're done with square one, pick it up and take it with you."
Horse trainer Linda Parelli says that, and her take on amateurs-vs.-experts is that the amateurs forget the fundamentals. Her husband Pat, founder of Parelli Natural Horsemanship (the most successful example of passionate users I've ever seen), says the same thing. (In the Parelli training system, the fundamentals are called the Seven Games.)

My trainer Darren went to an expert-level workshop with Pat and a dozen other top horsemen. Pat asked each in turn what they were hoping to improve on. Each one gave an elaborate description of some very advanced, elite thing they were struggling with. Pat listened intently and when they had all finished, he shrugged and said to all of them, "Get your games better."

The problem the Parelli's see in those trying to transition from skilled amateur to expert virtually always comes down to something from the fundamentals that they either never quite mastered, or that they forgot over time. So, perhaps that's one more thing the superior performers do better than the rest of us--they keep practicing the fundamentals. This fits with the notion that experts practice things that aren't necessarily fun, which can include both the things they still don't do well, AND the non-exciting basics.

Bert Bates (my co-author) is a blackbelt level go player, one of the best amateur players in the state. But when a visiting expert--four belt levels above Bert--showed up at the local go tournament, Bert was surprised to see the guy reading a book on fundamental go problems that Bert had read much earlier in his learning. The expert said, "I must have read this at least a hundred times. My goal each time is to see how much more quickly I can solve all the problems in the book than I did the last time."

Some of the best athletes never forget the fundamentals--whether it's Tiger Woods practicing the basics, or a pro basketball player working on free throws. A good musician might still practice arpeggios. A programmer might... I don't know, actually. What would be the fundamentals that a good programmer might forget? I'll have to think about that one.

But the Parelli's have another piece of advice that I think is equally important--that you shouldn't get stuck trying to perfect the fundamentals before moving on. There's a girl at my barn who has been taking dressage lessons on and off for the last ten years. Both her and her horse are bored out of their minds because the trainer won't let them progress to anything interesting until they are virtually perfect on the basics. The Parelli approach is, "Keep moving forward, because you'll gain new tools that you can use to go back and perfect the fundamentals." But this is where the "don't forget square one" message comes in--the problem is with the people who do NOT use their new "superpowers" to fix what might be lacking in the basics.

I've been struggling with the same thing in skiing. I've been an intermediate/advanced skier for frickin' ever. I have a ton of fun, I can waltz down the steepest blues and the occasional light black. But... there has always been a flaw in my basic form/technique that has slammed me into a brick wall. The only way I can ever go further is by going back to correct and redo a part of the fundamentals... the way I weight shift. So all of last year, I pretty much sucked. I had to go through what Keith Ray mentioned in the comments: conscious incompetence.

And while we're here... Cleve brought up a great point in the comments to my previous how to be an expert post: how does "work on the things that suck" fit in with the whole "play to your strengths" thing? There are some great comments discussing it, but here's my take--I think the "work on the things you suck at" is within the domain you've already decided is something you WANT to get better at, as opposed to a weakness that just doesn't seem like you. In other words, I suck at about a million things which I am weak in and have no interest in pursuing. But... I love skiing, so if I want to get better, I have to be willing to work on my weak spots so that I can have more of what I want (fun, flow, etc.).

So choosing the thing you would like to be expert in is probably not going to be in an area where your nature/personality/interests are "weak". But within the thing you choose to pursue, you have to work on the less fun things, which include both the things you're not as good at, AND the basic fundamentals.

Are you helping your users take square one with them? Are there areas where your users may be missing some fundamentals they'll need? I guess we all have to figure out how to make the fundamentals less boring--apparently that's what the experts know how to do. And if you see me struggling and swearing down an intermediate slope at Copper Mountain, yell out "lift your inside ski!" as you fly by.