Tuesday's Blog- December 20

"That loss, in manner and timing, would become a nine-month-long hornet sting." (Thomas, 1)

This week I started reading the book, Remember Why You Play, by David Thomas. In the first chapter I read it started off with the sentence, "There was really no off-season." After that sentence the author took us through the journey of certain members on the Faith Christian Lions' football team. Chance Cochran, a running back on the Lion's team, always had football easy to him. Youth games, he would break free for long runs, opposing teams could not stop him. His coaches even had to take him out of the game so he wouldn't embarrass the opposing team. Freshman year on Varsity, the first five times Cochran touched the ball, he scored touchdowns. Each touchdown was in different fashions- (running play, interception return, kickoff return, etc.) He would come off the field smiling from ear to ear saying, "I love football." Everything was going great, until the first scrimmage of his sophomore year season. He was carrying the ball left and had one defender on him, he planted his left foot to cut back to the right, however, the cut

back never came. His left knee buckled, and he collapsed to the ground. And just like that, his sophomore season ended. Determined to get back on the field, he did so junior year, but nothing was the same. He was still having trouble with his ability to move laterally to create space for different plays. He admits he is a different person. The happiness, the love of playing football, had been replaced by doubt about his ability to recover and uncertainty about his future. Head coach of the Faith Christian Lion's team, Kris Hogan, had been head coach for eight seasons. Six of the last seven have been playoff seasons, and those six seasons ended in a loss in the playoff round.

Junior year, here they were few minutes until the finals game would end. Lions' had no time outs and it was the fourth down. If the ball was spiked, Lions would loose possession of the ball and the game, and the season would be over. Anderson, the quarterback decided to sprint left as his linemen scrambled to catch up and block the defenders. As he was looking for an opening, a player on the opposing team was there, he brought down Anderson a half a yard short of a first down. And just like that, the season was over. Anderson, being a junior would have another chance to win that first football championship, but the other five seniors would not. Anderson said, "Seeing their high school careers just trick away, it was like five, four, three, two, one..it's a really sobering feeling. It's the kind of feeling like you've let them down."

Alex Nerney, another player on the Lion's team felt this feeling like no other. As far as he was concerned, his team had lost because of him. Three months earlier, he suffered a dislocation of his right hip during a game. He took it easy here and there and gradually grew closer to were he was. During that game, he was on his way to another long touchdown when an injury occurred. He was crying on the field waiting to be carried to the ambulance. Since Nerney was also a junior he had that chance of winning senior year too. He was lucky enough that his bone had a small crack, but didn't chip. Three weeks after his injury he was cleared to play and was going to be able to play his senior year. But at that moment when they lost the game, he suffered a different type of pain- the pain of believing he lost the game. To each senior, he embraced his "I'm sorry" in tears. Head coach Kris Hogan was devastated about this particular loss. Unlike previous years when it was disappointment that dominated his face, this year it was sadness. It really hit him how close they were.  As the juniors returned back for their last season, they walked in to the locker room with the mindset of- there is work that needs to be done. Five days after the loss, Curtis Roddy, another junior on the team, turned in four days in the weight room. "Don't take a day off" he said. "You take a workout off, and Trinity Christian (the opposing team of the game) will beat us again. You don't want to have to regret that." The seniors-to-be said they are trying to get into every one's head that every single moment matters. "No matter if you're in the weight room, if you're on the field practicing, if you're at home working out, what you're doing right then is preparing for football." This is where I found my quote to fit in perfectly, "That loss, in manner and timing, would become a nine-month-long hornet sting." Because of all the injuries, the milestones, the sweat, the tears, the I'm sorry's, the hour long practices, it was what made the soon-to-be seniors stronger. They took that loss that made them so frustrated and angry, which later "stung them like a hornet" into consideration and wanted to train themselves harder so they could win that upcoming year. Over the nine months between the end of the season to the next season they were not going to take a day off and it is times like these where you have to think, "remember why you started."

This connects to me because of cheerleading. Recently, doing these blogs I have found myself connecting to cheering more often, which in a way surprises me. When I first started cheerleading, eight years ago, I was incredible. Each practice I would learn something new, whether that be gaining a new skill or becoming more confident. I remember I would be so excited to attend each practice and it was all I ever talked about. As the years went on, I started to develop more and more injures. Now I can't put all the blame on cheerleading because my freshman and sophomore year I did three sports in high school. Eventually I suffered tremendous back problems, and to this day my back has been getting worse. Last year, I had to take three months off of cheerleading because I ended up getting very sick and hurt. Now this is where I connected to Alex Nerny, because I had felt like I let my team down. Because of back problems and all my other injures I felt as if I was not going to get better. This is where I connected to Chance Cochran, "the happiness, the love of playing football, had been replaced by doubt about his ability to recover and uncertainty about his future." turned into "the happiness, the love of cheerleading, had been replaced by doubt about my ability to recover and uncertainty about my future." After I was out my junior year, there were days where I thought and I thought, "why am I ruining my body for a sport?" and then I thought "remember why you started." I started because I loved this sport. I gave up all of my high school sports for cheerleading. I gave up being with family for cheerleading. I gave up going out with friends for cheerleading. I gave up my time for cheerleading. Everything I've done has been for cheerleading, and I am not going to let something affect that love I have for this sport. As it is my last year of cheerleading for an all-star team, given I am a senior. I have been training tirelessly to gain back my strength, my courage, and my confidence. Nothing is impossible, it is just a matter of how you take the steps to where you want to be.

Friday's Blog- December 16

This week I finished my book, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, which was pages 150 to 232. 

Vocabulary Words

Presuming (pg. 151)- to take for granted, assume, suppose. 

Deliberate- (pg. 155) carefully weighed or considered; studied; intentional. 

Nirtoglycerine- (pg. 159) a colorless, thick, oily, flammable, highly explosive, slightly water-soluble liquid. (how the bank robbers blew ope the vault)

Lucrative- (pg. 160) profitable, moneymaking, remunerative. 

Eloquence- (pg. 161) the practice or art of using language with fluency and aptness. 

Libretto- (pg. 169) the text or words of an opera or similar extended musical composition. 

Virtuoso- (pg. 170) a person who has special knowledge or skill in a field. 

Matrix- (pg. 188) an environment  or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure. 

Conceptualize- (pg. 191) a form of concept or idea of something. 

Trellis- (pg. 194) a framework of light wooden or metal bars, chiefly used as a support for fruit trees or climbing plants. 

Matrix

Thursday's Blog- December 15- Four Virtues

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." -Henry Brooks Adams

In my last blog, we learned what master coaches are. Great teaching is a skill like any other. It looks like magic, however it is a combination of skills- a set of myelinated circuits built through deep practice. Ron Gallimore, a professor at UCLA describes this skill as, "Great teachers focus on what the student is saying or doing and are able, by being so focused and by their deep knowledge of the subject matter, to see and recognize the inarticulate stumbling, fumbling effort of the student who's reaching toward mastery, and then connect to them with a targeted message." The three words highlighted are the key words. Master coaches are the human delivery system for the signals that fuel and direct the growth of a given skill circuit, telling it with great clarity to fire here and not there. Coaching is a long intimate process and conversation. It is a series of signals and responses that move toward the coach and that certain individuals goals. A coaches true skill is not just their ability to communicate, but rather the ability to locate the sweet spot on the edge of each individuals ability, and send the right signals to help the student reach toward the right goal, over and over again. With any complex skill, there are several different qualities involved. Daniel Coyle calls these different qualities "the four virtues".

The First Virtue
Most of the people Coyle met and talked to were in their sixties or seventies. They all had spent decades intensively learning how to coach.  A great teacher has the capacity to always take it deeper, to see the learning the athlete or student is capable of and to go there. Years of work go into myelinating a master coach's circuit, which contains knowledge, strategy, experience, and practice instinct ready to be put into use to take the athlete and students to where they need to go. People are not born with this ignition and deep practice. One does not become a master coach by accident. For example, coaches in the NFL did not just become coaches on accident. They loved football and most likely played it growing up and then grew a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill and wanted to pass it on.

type of knowledge, it's something they grow, over time, through the same combination of

The Second Virtue
Eyes are a giveaway. They are usually sharp and long, unblinking gazes. Several master coaches told Coyle that they trained their eyes to be like cameras. Though the gaze can be friendly, it's not about making a friendship. Yeah, it is important to be friendly and on good terms with your coach, however it is there job to pass on the information and get you to where you're suppose to go. One person Coyle met was a coach named John Wooden, he said " I am not going to treat you players all the same. Giving you the same treatment doesn't make sense, because you're all different. You are different from each other in height, weight, background, intelligence, talent, and many other ways. For that reason each one of you deserves individual treatment that is best for you. I will decide what that treatment will be." I feel like this is hard for some coaches to realize. Sure I have only had a few coaches in my lifetime, but I feel like a lot of coaches now-a-days are more focused on trying to get their athletes to win or to try and be successful right away. Those may be good goals to reach, but it is important to get to know each individual because treating a bunch of people the same could be difficult on the athletes because they could not all be on the same page physically and mentally. Most master coaches Coyle met sought out details of their athletes personal lives such as, finding out about family, income, relationships, an motivation.

The Third Virtue
"You gotta give them a lot of information," said Robert Landsorp, a tennis coach. Shock will be an important word toward this virtue. Most master coaches deliver their information to their students and athletes in a series of high-definition bursts. Coaches never start a sentence saying, "Could you please" or "Do you think this...", instead they say "Now do this... Do that." Basically saying "you will do what I tell you". They are not trying to be rude or mean, but delivering in a way that sounded urgent. Most master coaches change their input. If A didn't work, they tried B and then C; if they failed it would go on to D and E and so on. As soon as a coach sees their student or athlete accomplish something they would add difficulty. Small successes were not stopping points, they were stepping stones. Push is another important word. The second they accomplish something it is important to push them to a new goal or spot even if they are struggling.

The Fourth Virtue
Many coaches Coyle met radiated a subtle theatrical air. Theatrical honesty works best when teachers are performing their most essential myelinating role: pointing out errors. It is important to point out their errors because you don't want they doing something wrong continually. Coaches should be warm and encouraging instead of making them feel like they are doing everything wrong. This is where experience from the coach steps in. In order to understand what that individual is doing wrong, the coach has to be able to connect with them because they know what they are talking about.

Being a master coach is hard work and it takes a lot of dedication. The quote I added in the beginning, "a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Once someone is a master coach they are always going to be a coach at heart. For example, when I did track, my uncle would come to some of my meets and help me correct some errors I had (fourth virtue) and even thought he was no longer a track coach, he still had that knowledge to help me. A teacher affects individuals for eternity. Some coaches could even change lives. It is incredible what coaches can do.

Tuesday's Blog- December 13

"It's not about recognizing talent, whatever the hell that is. I've never tried to go out and find someone who's talented. First you work on fundamentals, and pretty soon you find out where things are going."
- Robert Lansdorp, tennis coach of former world number-one players Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin, and Lindsay Davenport. (pg. 159)

So far in the book, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, he has addressed skill as a cellular process that grows through deep practice (myelin) and how ignition supplies the unconscious energy for that growth. The chapter I am currently reading, I will meet the rare people who have the mysterious talent and gift for combining those two forces to grow talent in others. He starts of the chapter by getting us intrigued into what we were going to learn. With that being said, the first sentence of the chapter is American bank robbers weren't very skilled. Gangs followed a simple plan: they picked a bank,

waited until nighttime, then blew open the vault with dynamite. By the early 1920s the banks had caught up, bringing in alarm systems and blast-proof vaults. The bank robbers then simply became more skilled. They worked day and night, and it was as if bank robbers had suddenly evolved into a more talented species. Stealing hundreds and thousands of dollars, this evolution could be traced back to the man who lead the gang; Herman "The Baron" Lamm. He was the teacher of the modern bank-robbing skill. He was the "master coach". Lamm organized each bank rob, visiting the bank, sketching out blueprint maps, and holding rehearsals. After his death, (he was shot to death by police) it was taught to John Dillinger. Lamm's system is still employed today because he was able to communicate his ideas and translate them into the performance of a difficult task. He inspired through information and was a master coach.

When we think of a master coach, we think of someone who is a great leader, someone who is committed, battle-tested knowledge, and someone who has power to influence someone else. In the beginning of the book, Coyle says he began visiting tiny places that produce Everest-size amounts of talent. "My journey began at a ramshackle tennis court in Moscow, and over the next fourteen months it took me to a soccer field in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a vocal stuido in Dallas (when he visited Clarissa, the musician who accomplished a months of work in six minutes), Texas, an inner-city school in San Jose, California, a run-down music academy in New York's Adirondacks, a baseball-mad island in the Caribbean, and a handful of other places so small, humble, and titanically accomplished that a friend dubbed them "the chicken-wire Harvards." " He called these hotbeds. When Coyle visited the hotbeds that contained people who have the mysterious talent and gift of combining the two forces to grow talent in others, he found teachers and coaches that were quiet and reserved. They were mostly older, and many had been teaching for forty years. They also were "steady, deep, and unblinking". They listened more then they talked, and when they did talk they were either giving pep talks or inspiring speeches. After Daniel Coyle met all these people, he suspected that they were all related in a way. They were all talent whisperers. They posses deep structure of knowledge, adding to mental work of growing which they have no control over. Basically, coaches are just there to help guide athletes into the right direction and help they get the knowledge they need to grow.

The quote and this blog connects to me, not because I have robbed a bank before, but it connects to me because all of the coaches I've had throughout the years have one plan, to teach me and make me successful. They've never screamed at me (only sometimes), but they have listened to me and look at what I need improvements on and then they teach me more knowledge of that certain sport. My cheerleading coaches always tell me they can't make me better. I have to be dedicated and work hard towards bettering myself. They will guide me to get better but they can't physically make me better. Cheering coaches in college don't go looking for people and scouting out individuals. They make try out dates and each person has to come in and try out for the team. It is like working on the fundamentals and then seeing where things go. Like working up the skills to doing that sport in college.

Friday Blog- December 9

This week I have been ahead of my reading schedule, so I just read pages 100 to 160 of the book Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. 

Vocabulary Words


Insurmountable- (pg. 101) incapable of being surmounted, passed over, or overcome; insuperable.

Incremental- (pg. 101) increasing or adding on, especially in a regular series.

Clamor- (pg. 118) a loud uproar, as from a crowd of people.

Fluke- (pg. 124) the part of an anchor that catches in the ground, especially the flat triangular piece at the end of each arm.

Oxymoronic- (pg. 126) a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in "cruel kindness" or "to make haste slowly".

Environs- (pg. 127) the surrounding parts or districts, as of a city; outskirts; suburbs.

Glint- (pg. 130) a tiny, quick flash of light; gleaming brightness; luster.

Exquisitely- (pg. 136) of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence, as a face, a flower, coloring, music, or poetry.

Innovate- (pg. 141) to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.

Jalopy- (pg. 141) an old, decrepit, or unpretentious automobile.

Thursday's Blog- December 8- Ignition

Ignition

Recently, I have learned a good amount as to what deep practice is. However, deep practice is not so easy. It requires energy, passion, and commitment. It also requires motivational fuel. Remember that word, motivational fuel because it will be very important given it is the second element of the name of the book, the talent code. In the section of the book I am currently reading, I learned how motivation was created and sustained through something called ignition. Ignition and deep practice work together to produce optimum skill. Ignition supplies the energy while deep practice converts the ignition over time into progress (myelin). Deep practice isn't easy and takes time. An example the author uses to describe how deep practice takes time is through an Oxford medical student named Roger Brannister who was the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. He earned headlines around the world and lasting fame for what many professional illustrators called the single greatest athletic accomplishment of the twentieth century. As time went on, another runner, an Australian named John Landy, also broke the four-minute barrier. The next season a few more runners did too. And then the next season more runners did also. Within three years more than seventeen had matched the greatest sporting

accomplishment of the twentieth century. Nothing extreme or intense had changed. The training was the same and the genes were the same but what did change was how the athletes were responding to something outside of themselves. The seventeen plus runners had received a signal saying, "you can do this too". This is how ignition works. Deep practice is a conscious act while ignition is an awakening. "Ignition works through lightning flashes of image and emotion, evolution-built neural programs that tap into the mind's vast reserves of energy and attention." Ignition leads us to the thoughts of "you can do this" or "this is what I want to be", it creates our identity. Sometimes individuals say to themselves, "if she can do it, why can't I?"

Another example the author used to show us readers is through his family. The author, Daniel Coyle's has a family of six, his daughter, Zoe is the youngest and the speediest. Her foot speed seems natural, yet this is how Coyle started learning and reading about myelin. He was wondering how much of Zoe's foot speed was inborn, meaning natural, and how much of it stems from the combination of practice and motivation she gets from being the youngest.?

Below, Daniel Coyle gives us the birth-order ranks of the world-record progression in the 100-meter dash, with the most recently set world record first, then second, third, and so on.

1. Usain Bolt (second of three children)
2. Asafa Powell (sixth of six children)
3. Justin Gatlin (fourth of four)
4. Maurice Greene (fourth of four)
5. Donovan Bailey (third of three)
6. Leroy Burrell (fourth of five)
7. Carl Lewis (third of four)
8. Burrell (fourth of five)
9. Lewis (third of four)
10. Calvin Smith (sixth of eight)

Of the eight men on the list, (Burrell and Lewis appear twice), none of them were firstborn, and only one was born in the first half of his family's birth order. On average, history's fastest runners were born fourth in families of 4.6 children. We also find a similar result with the top ten of all time NFL running backs in rushing yards. Here we see a pattern. This pattern may strike many as surprising because speed most times looks and feels like a gift, however it not just a gift but a skill that grows through deep practice, and that is ignited by primal signals. In this case the cue is: "you're behind-keep up". Myelin also plays a role in this because myelin connects to impulse speed- the more you have, the faster your muscles can fire and it is useful for sprinters to fire your muscles faster. This does not mean being born last or late into a big family automatically makes that individual fast, but it does say that being fast involves a bunch of factors that go beyond genes, but directly related to motivational signals that provide energy to practice deeply and produce myelin. As I continue reading, I will learn more about  ignition and how it can be triggered, but as of now I have learned about primal signals.

Tuesday's Blog- December 6

"Just take it one step at a time" (Coyle, 80)

Back to Clarissa the average musician who in just six minutes, accomplished a month's worth of work, we are going to dig a little deeper into how this happened. In my last blog, we were introduced to myelin, a microscopic substance that is "the key to talking, reading, learning, skills, and being human."

Myelin is built on three simple facts:
1) Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a timed electric signal traveling through a chain of neurons- a circuit of nerve fibers.
2) Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy.
3) The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our movements and thoughts become.

Many researchers especially Fields, who is mentioned in my last blog, are attracted to myelin because it provides insights into the biological roots of learning and of cognitive disorders. Clarissa couldn't feel it, but when she was deep-practicing she was firing and optimizing a neural circuit- and growing myelin. Myelin and deep practice is what helped her focus and get a month's worth of work done a short time period.

Myelin operates by a few fundamental principles:
1) The firing of the circuit is paramount- myelin is not built to respond to fond wishes or vague ideas. It is built to respond to actions. It responds to urgent repetition.
2) Myelin is universal- one size fits all skills. Myelin doesn't care who you are- it cares what you do.
3) Myelin wraps- it doesn't unwrap- myelination happens in one direction. Once a skill is protected, ou can't un-insulate it (except age or disease). That's why habits are hard to break.
4) Age matters- in children, myelin arrives in a series of waves, some of them are determined by genes, some are dependent on activity. We continue to experience a net gain of myelin until around the age of fifty, when the balance tips toward loss. This is why majority of world-class athletes/experts start young. The study of myelin can be confusing, but according to Dr. Dogulas Fields, "it's early, but this could be huge."

There are also three rules of deep practice:
Rule 1) chunk it up- how do we know we are deep practicing? What does it feel like?
Deep practice feels a bit like exploring an dark and unfamiliar room. We start slowly, we bump into furniture and run into walls, we stop, think, and then start again. Slowly, we experience the space over and over and where everything is place, building a mental map until we can move through it quickly. The instinct when we are approached with something unfamiliar is to slow down

and break skills into their components. It is universal (myelin is universal). We are "taking it one step at a time" This is where I found my quote. As we are faced with something we are not used to, we take it one step at a time until we are able to fully understand it.
Rule 2) repeat it- repetition is irreplaceable. Spending more time is effective- but only if you're still in the sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities. Today, we are seeing younger kids practice up to three hours a day, every week because repetition is something that can help us improve.
Rule 3) learn to feel it- myelin is sneaky. It is not possible to sense and feel myelin growing along our nerve fibers. The author asked many people to describe the sensations of their most productive practice and this is what they said: attention, connect, build, whole, alert, focus, mistake, repeat, tiring, edge, and awake. This list as the author says, evokes a feeling of reaching, falling short, but getting back up and reaching again. The more willing individuals are to endure it and to permit themselves to fail- the more myelin they build and the more skill they earn.

This quote connects to me, because as a kid my mom and especially coaches when ever I was frustrated trying to learn something they always told me, "take it one step at a time." No matter what I was doing, my parents and coaches wanted me to slow down and take time to accomplish what I was doing in that moment. I can say I am someone who wants to get something done right away, for example, in school when I learn something and I don't understand it, I get frustrated because I want to be able to know what I am doing right away. Another example, in cheerleading, when I am learning a new skill and I fall each time, yes I get frustrated and I want to keep on going and going until I get it, but I have to realize that I have to take it step by step because nothing is going to work right away.

Friday Blog- December 2

The Talent Code- Daniel Coyle 

This week I read pages 1 to 90. And I am currently on a good path following my reading plan. 

Vocabulary Words

Hotbeds- (pg. 13) a bottomless, boxlike, usually glass-covered structure and the bed of earth it covers, heated typically by fermenting manure or electrical cables, for growing plants out of season. 

Transcendent- (pg. 14) going beyond ordinary limits; surpassing; exceeding. 

Quintessential- (pg. 14) of the pure and essential essence of something. 

Trifecta- (pg. 15) a type of bet, especially on horse races, in which the bettor must select the first three finishers in exact order.

Imperceptible- (pg. 17) very slight, gradual, or subtle. 

Scaffold- (pg. 19) a temporary structure of holding workers and materials during the erection, repair, or decoration of a building. 

Prehensile- (pg. 22) adapted for seizing, grasping, or taking hold of something.

Charisma- (pg. 25) a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.

Cajoled- (pg. 25) to persuade by flattery or promises; wheedle; coax.

Myelin- (pg. 30) a soft, white, fatty material in the membrane of Schwann cells and certain neuroglial cells: the substance of the myelin sheath.