I’ve long been attracted to George Leonard’s (aikido guy) view about the path to mastery, or success and long term fulfillment in any activity as presented in his book, “Mastery”.
A few of his key points taken from the below linked summary of the book:
Practice is often used as a description of what we do.
Instead, we can/should look at practice as something we have, … (iow, not something to be dreaded, but looked forward to)
The five keys to mastery: Instruction, Practice, Surrender, Intentionality, and The Edge.
Rewards will always come to someone who commits to the practice, but the rewards are not the goal.
The practice is the goal.
Mastery reveals so much more to learn as you continue the journey.
The destination is two miles farther away for every mile we travel.
Mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.
There are no experts. There are only learners.
Mastery is not about perfection. It’s about the process.
[ kind of an W. Edwards Deming view I think. Not zero defects, but rather continuous process control improvement]
If you want to truly master something, you must be willing to remain a beginner and look a fool.
The beginner’s mind is required for learning anything new.
http://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/mastery
Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming - also touches on that last point - when asked why his Taijiquan or Qigong forms today do not look the same today as they were 40 years ago - he replies that if his form movements today were the same as forty years ago then he would be a lousy student. Who had wasted his time over the last 40 years because he did not learn a deeper understanding of the art.
In that regard I guess I’m doing ok with my attitude. I don’t need to catch a lot of fish to feel like I had a good day out fishing. (though I do not like to be skunked, at least one please). I truly enjoy what I call, the joy of casting, each cast I intend to be better than the last one. More accurate, more beautiful. Catching a fish is a bonus and some evidence I am getting more than just a pretty cast. ( that is also one reason why after recently trying Lantern Fishing, I did care for it. There is no casting. Maybe it’s a good survival method to catch fish if hungry, but for me it wasn’t much fun.)
And for me actual fishing is part of practice. It’s not just casting to cat can. But for practice to be effective or efficient, it needs to be something that pushes your limits, where you are not doing everything perfectly 100% of the time. At least 20% where you recognize it should have been better, know why it was not, or at least ponder why not, and immediately try to improve it before going on.
Which is probably why in [ 桑原玄辰の] Kuwabara Hirotoki"s book, テンカラの技術. He sets a high standard in his casting to a can of water practice. The goal is not to just land the kebari in the water. It’s to land the kebari 80% of the time the in the can, to progressively smaller cans, PLUS not splash water outside the can, to be considered a good beginner level of casting skill. I’m not there yet.