Importance of practice

Via various sources, a collection of links on the importance of practice. Many come from the literature and blogs of musical training and musicians. 

Here is a post from a sports psychologist, Kageyama, applying the learning of sports to the learning of music - providing a summary of how top musicians practice differently from others.

Another post from another musician on how many hours are optimum for practice. Plus another one here with perspectives from a cellist.

The business take on deliberate practice and expertise, as per learning from chess, is summarised in this blog.

So, still some work to do in contextualising the literature for application to trades learning. The challenge with trades work is its variability and complexity. For instance, in the craft I am most familiar with, baking and pastry cooking. There are tasks which require quite a bit of effort and time to master. Examples are the use of piping bags, moulding of bread and 'hand dropping' fillings and biscuit (cookie) dough. Then there is the learning required to perform tasks with fluidity and 'least effort' like loading /unloading ovens or tray racks, lining pastry tins, cutting out pastry or dough. The key is perhaps to identity tasks requiring aspects of deliberate practice and work towards the deliberate practice skills being applied across all other work tasks. Something to mull over for the next couple of weeks.