Goal Setting and Patience

On 27 October 2009, I achieved a personal goal to row 1,000,000 meters on the Concept2 indoor rowing machine in 2009. I set this goal back in January, after reading an article by my friend Jeff Decker (http://www.ultimatefitnessforu.com/) who advocates setting a large goal and then breaking it down into smaller quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily efforts to make the bigger goal more manageable. It works. You can get there one step at a time.

With respect to such activities as rowing or other strength endurance sports, a level of patience and persistence has to be demonstrated. The research on improving performance in endurance sports suggests that up to 4 years of consistent and increasingly intense training is the minimum time required to become reasonably fit and proficient enough to be truly competitive. The breaks out as (Stephen Seiler Phd, The Time Course of Training Adaptations, http://home.hia.no/~stephens/timecors.htm):

• about 1 year to maximize your VO2max potential
• an additional 3-4 years to maximize your lactate tolerance
• concurrently about 4 years to develop technical efficiency through sports specific training and repetition (note that efficiency through improved technique does not seem to plateau as VO2max and Lactate tolerance do)
  

To paraphrase the great British rowing coach Terry O'neill, "Rowing is really a very simple activity, it's just very, very, very hard work." Now apply this to the much more technically demanding and variable art of Tai Chi boxing (or ju jutsu or other arts).

In the case of arts like Tai Chi, it is the one of the basic tenets that you must practice daily and only after a long time, usually several years of steady training, will you achieve a real difference in your life and abilities. As one master said, "We are the school of 10,000 repetitions." My ju jutsu sensei reminds us that at least 1000 correct repetitions are necessary to say one has "learned" a particular technique or skill. In traditional Tai Chi training the timetable would look something like this:

• about 1-1.5 years to learn the Yang Long Form
• an additional 1-1.5 years solo form practice and push hands work to be considered minimally proficient in the solo form
  
• additional decade of training to become relatively proficient in the practical application of Tai Chi
• Continued regular, correct practice will continue to improve technical skill throughout one's lifetime
  

In this context, that oft quoted saying about a long journey beginning with a single step becomes much more meaningful. In Tai Chi we want to take the long view. Be patient with ourselves but "practice daily without stopping." Recognize that the abilities and progress we seek is going to be a lifelong process. Don't consider how long the road, simply take and enjoy each individual step.

Endless correct repetition is the key to success.