How to Break Down a Skill and Practice Effectively

Photo by Thomas Ashlock on Unsplash

Most skills are complex, which means that they consist of different smaller skills (sub-skills). Surfing, for example, consists of paddling, popping up, staying balanced, reading waves and a range of other sub-skills. Your performance on the complex skill depends on your proficiency and coordination of many (sub)skills at the same time.

Some sub-skills can be mastered relatively fast, while it usually takes years to become proficient at a complex skill.

Trying to become better at all parts of a complex skill at the same time isn’t the most effective way to improve. This would be an overwhelming amount of new information for your body and brain.

When learning a skill, it is essential to break it down and choose which sub-skill(s) to focus on. Some will be more important for performance than others.

The most effective way to become better at a complex skill is one sub-skill at a time.

But what should you focus on?

If you’re starting to learn a new skill, the fastest way to improve is to get very good at the basics. These are the sub-skills that you will see most often in the performance of the complex skill. And since they are done all the time, your performance on the basics will have the most substantial contribution to your performance on the complex skill. You want to do them well.

This means performing the skills without having to think much, and that you’re able to do them under stressful and distracting circumstances.

In tennis, the first things to focus on are usually backhands and forehands. Then you may move on to footwork, volleys and serves. When you’re just starting, you probably should spend less time practising more advanced skills such as drop shots, tactics or shooting through your legs. Photo by Samuel-Elias on Unsplash

In salsa dancing, you want to know your footwork and recognise the rhythm so well that you don’t have to think about it while on the dancefloor. This means you have more attention to focus on how to lead the girl and not to bump into other dancers.

You can never get too good at the basics, so mastering them is critical both to learn a new complex skill fast and to reach high levels in a skill.

Deconstruct

The first thing to do when you’re planning to improve a complex skill is to deconstruct it, to understand and decide what sub-skills it…