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Serious Question about Practice (Read 3411 times)
joe_meadmaker
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #15 - Jan 7th, 2022 at 8:57pm
 
Yes, I agree.  The word good doesn't have much meaning until you know how judgement is being evaluated.  I think context can provide a general idea, but two people can always disagree on whether they think a person is good at something or not.

I'm pretty lousy with tennis balls.  My favorite projectile is an ice ball.  The molds I use make ice balls are approximately the same size as a tennis ball, but they are usually around 110g.  So quite a bit heavier.  And because it's ice I don't have to gather them up afterward.
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SerKraus
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #16 - Jan 7th, 2022 at 10:47pm
 
I agree that if your goal is to sling accurately with any stone off the floor, then practicing with varying weights is useful. However, if you can't hit anything with consistent ammo then you'll never hit anything with inconsistent ammo. Jaegoor is right. You must have the basics down. Though it is foolish to rely on random ammunition. A survivalist doesn't rely on random kindling. They acquire it and carry some around. Same with water or anything else.
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No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. -Socrates
 
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NooneOfConsequence
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #17 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 1:28am
 
There seems to be an unbalanced emphasis on the number of repetitions in practice. Repetition is not sufficient.

If you don’t learn something, was the practice valuable? Learning occurs at the conscious level, but also in muscle memory and in subconscious behaviors, so it’s not always obvious if you learned or not. If you do lots of reps and never improve… you’re probably not learning the right things, and therefore you aren’t really practicing… you’re playing.

So how should you practice? You will hear “consistent sling, consistent ammo” preached here all the time.  Again that’s a good start but incomplete. In addition to consistent ammo, one sling, one throwing style, and one distance, you also need a consistent target with an unambiguous definition of “good”. If you don’t decide before the shot what the target should be, then you can’t decide whether a shot was good. It’s hard to learn without feedback, so make everything clear and define “success” before you start. 

How about a specific example?  The one-minute can challenge… how would you practice?

Consistent distance: 10m
Consistent ammo: most people use tennis balls, but that’s optional
Consistent target?… set up ONE can to practice your control. DO NOT set up 5 or 6.  Practice rate of fire separately with a normal bullseye that won’t fall over, then combine the two drills and try to hit a series of cans in a pre-determined order like left-to-right.  If you hit a can out of order, don’t congratulate yourself for a hit, but correct your aim and hit the correct one.

After setting up purposeful drills and defining success clearly… that’s when you worry about getting in more reps of very focused and deliberate practice.

That’s my $.02
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Mersa
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #18 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 1:46am
 
Well I think the main thing is to sling.
The more you sling the more chance you have to improve.
Definition of what you want to achieve and success will be subjective and varying.

I think there’s plenty of good points in this thread already so I’m not gonna repeat them all.

My only addition would be to consume yourself in slinging. Take in as much slinging content as you can. This will open your mind to ideas and possibilities. Try talk to other slinger etc.
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Jaegoor
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #19 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 8:44am
 
Mersa. Auch das empfehle ich nicht. Alles aufnehmen? Was bedeutet das? Das sie ihren Geist zu müllen? Sie benötigen schon einen Filter.
Und sie können hunderttausend Schüsse machen. Schießen sie falsch, werden sie nicht wirklich besser. Aber sie trainieren einen Fehler bis zur Perfektion. Oft hat gerade das im Sport körperliche Konsequenzen. Nicht sofort. Aber mit der Zeit schon.
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Morphy
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #20 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 9:14am
 
Just to reiterate dont expect that you will do vastly more than whats been done by others if what you are doing is the same as others. Thats a fallacy thats often seen in newer slingers.

You are not going to be practicing more than the guys who have come before you. So where the best are right now is about what you can hope for if you are doing what they are.  Yes, there is potential for upward skill drift but dont expect huge increases without some radical change in whats being understood or done.

That requires a big change in paradigm "somewhere". Hence my original rhetorical question. Define what you call success. If its what you have already seen than you already know how to reach your goal because increasingly theres plenty of people even on this forum who are at or near those top levels. Therefore you have your answer already.

If it's beyond or even far beyond those levels well now you have a question that's really intriguing. Now if your answer is far beyond whats currently being done, lets say for the purpose of this post it's 10 soda cans in a row 1 through 10 in order with no misses from 15 meters. That seems both possible but extremely difficult. It's certainly far and away better than anyone has ever done as far as Im aware.

More than that Im not interested in just a once in a life time feat. It should be reproducible with some degree of consistency even if just once a week of heavy slinging. Fine. Theres our hypothetical definition.

One of the biggest difficulties in slinging at this level is the amount of practice needed to reach high levels of precision and how difficult it is to stay at that level even while you are currently there. Every shot seems to be holding onto the ragged edge of whats possible.

This is a problem. We need to reassess why what we are doing is so variable that even in the midst of heavy training months maintaining those groups is so difficult from shot to shot instead of accepting them as just a part of slinging. This is key: the fact that even during heavy training months its so difficult to maintain tight groups for even 30-40 shots means the baseline of what we are doing is flawed. We are trying to rise so far above a flawed baseline we are peaking below where we would like to be just on average. That, if I had to sum it up, is the key problem. And since that peak is at the very edge of whats possible we see constant fits and starts of genius only to have it disappear.

This may require making some very in depth looks into biomechanics as IronGoober has suggested or I suppose I would suggest it might require us to look into variations of sling throws which are not as popular and see if we can tweak them for very high control and repeatability.

One thing is clear- do what everyone else has done and get what everyone else has got.
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« Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2022 at 9:35am by Morphy »  
 
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Mersa
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #21 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 12:52pm
 
Jaegoor, maybe a translation issue.
I’m just saying you will more likely improve if you try.
Not slinging will not improve your skill.
That’s all really
And try to learn from others even if your learning they’re doing it wrong.
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #22 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 1:16pm
 
My opinion;
practice is not important.
Slinging is important.
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #23 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 1:46pm
 
Da ist meine Einstellung eine andere. Ich muß nicht lernen wie man etwas falsch macht. Das führt zu keinerlei Verbesserung. Das führt zu Frust. Ziemlich schnell sogar.
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #24 - Jan 8th, 2022 at 2:38pm
 
Both arguments have validity.
The technical information just isn’t there to really be able to prove a correct style or technique.
This forum probably holds the most amount of data on slinging and we can barely agree on any fundamentals.
So that’s why I’m more towards being active and trying to sling.

I personally have improved from where I’ve started even if I have bad form or traits programmed into my skills.
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #25 - Jan 9th, 2022 at 7:23am
 
Mersa wrote on Jan 8th, 2022 at 2:38pm:
Both arguments have validity.
The technical information just isn’t there to really be able to prove a correct style or technique.
This forum probably holds the most amount of data on slinging and we can barely agree on any fundamentals.
So that’s why I’m more towards being active and trying to sling.

I personally have improved from where I’ve started even if I have bad form or traits programmed into my skills.

I agree. Just do it.
There is no such thing as the "right technique".
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #26 - Jan 9th, 2022 at 8:10am
 
You can always improve your technique.
And while it is true that every single slinger works best with different techniques, 'just do it' won't necessarily improve, whatever aspect of your slinging you want to improve.

There are ALWAYS things you can do to improve.

And once you've made a change, it's back to  repetition, practice and repetition to see if the changes make any real difference.

There is no magic ' one size fits all' method.
Which seems to be the crux of all these 'how do I hit smaller things more often' type of threads.

There are some basic biomechanical improvements we can all make that will reduce joint strain or incorrect muscle emphasis.
But again, they differ for each slinger and each slinging style.

The only thing that is universal is: 'practice'
Even the worst technique will improve with sufficient usage.

In some ways it was better in the days before YouTube and the internet ( for our younger members, this was less than 30 years ago).
You were on your own, you'd never seen another person using a sling and if you didn't get it right, you'd generally end up hurting yourself whistle

So instead of wondering what technique you should be using, you just used what seemed to work best.

These days it's far too easy to spend so much time thinking about the angle of your elbow, or whether your foot is half an inch too far to the left, or that the chap on the last YouTube video you watched swears a 27 and seven eigths sling is definitely the best, that the sheer joy of just slinging is lost.

Slinging is one of those activities that can be so overcomplicated that you lose the enjoyment and end up getting frustrated.

So as part of any training regime I would recommend making time for a period of 'free slinging'.
Go find some countryside, or a pebble beach, or wherever you have, that you can just amble around for an hour or so, randomly picking up stuff and slinging it.
With no other goal than just watching things fly without the pressure of needing to throw a specific thing in a certain way at a specific target.

It'll help reset both your body and mind.

Slinging should be FUN.
And you will most likely learn more by simply playing around, than by setting unrealistic goals.



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Jaegoor
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #27 - Jan 9th, 2022 at 8:43am
 
Es wurde eine klare Frage gestellt. Diese Frage wurde beantwortet. Nach meiner Meinung würde sie falsch beantwortet. Alles was jetzt herauskommt. Habt Spass.
Eine sehr fachliche Antwort. Ich werde sie häufiger auf hier gestellte Fragen benutzen.
Spass ist ein wichtiger Punkt im Leben. Aber Spass macht nicht etwas besser oder schlechter. Auch nicht richtig oder falsch.
10 + 10 = 1000 warum? Weil es nur so Spaß macht.  Grin Wink Embarrassed Roll Eyes
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #28 - Jan 9th, 2022 at 9:47am
 
Jaegoor Im curious, do you believe that your throwing style has the highest potential for accuracy of any throwing style? Is there anything you can learn from anyone else here? This is a genuine question. Im not being sarcastic in asking this. If your answer is your style is the best and you believe that, that is a perfectly acceptable answer.

And by asking this Im not asking if you can agree with people who already agree with you. Is it possible that you might realize something someone else is doing is better and then change your style to fit with this new evidence? Has that ever happened here?


Jaegoor Ich bin neugierig, glauben Sie, dass Ihr Wurfstil das höchste Genauigkeitspotenzial aller Wurfstile hat? Gibt es etwas, das Sie hier von anderen lernen können? Dies ist eine echte Frage. Ich frage das nicht sarkastisch. Wenn Ihre Antwort ist, dass Ihr Stil der Beste ist und Sie dies glauben, ist dies eine völlig akzeptable Antwort. Und indem ich das frage, frage ich nicht, ob Sie den Leuten zustimmen können, die Ihnen bereits zustimmen. Ist es möglich, dass Sie feststellen, dass etwas anderes besser ist, und dann Ihren Stil ändern, um diesen neuen Beweisen gerecht zu werden? Ist das hier schon mal passiert?
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Re: Serious Question about Practice
Reply #29 - Jan 9th, 2022 at 11:45am
 
OK. Ich Versuche es zu beantworten. Aber es ist sehr komplex und eine Antwort deshalb nur fragmentarisch.
Ist mein Stil treffsicherer? Alleine mit der Frage habe ich schon ein Problem. Warum? Weil es nach meiner Meinung so etwas wie Stile nicht gibt. Bin ich zielsicher? Ja das bin ich. Manchmal besser, manchmal schlechter. Ich habe in meinem Leben auf viele unterschiedliche Ziele geschossen. Tongue
Es gibt ganz klar Grundlagen für das schießen mit einer sling. Diese sind elemtar und bilden damit einen Rahmen. Gelingt es ihnen diese  Grundlagen zu verstehen, dann ist das schonmal ein großer Schritt. Im Laufe der Zeit habe ich vielen das slingen gezeigt. Dabei hat sich eine strukturierte Methode entwickelt. Folgen sie dieser Methode, werden sie denn sicheren Umgang mit einer sling erlernen. Und sie werden Ziele treffen. Dabei hat sich viel entwickelt. Mit einer Menge Spassfaktor. Ich habe einiges hier vorgestellt. Trickshots machen viel Spass. Mir ging es dabei jedoch nie um einen Wettstreit.
Kann ich hier etwas lernen? Meine ehrliche Antwort darauf... Ich weiß es nicht. Ich habe bestimmt vieles über das slingen bereits vergessen, was andere noch nicht einmal gelernt haben .
Es gibt einiges hier, was nach meiner Meinung für eine breite Anerkennung geeignet ist, anderes ist fragwürdig und auch schädlich


OK. I try to answer it. But it is very complex and the answer is therefore only fragmentary. Is my style more accurate? I already have a problem with this question alone. Why? Because in my opinion there is no such thing as styles. Am I sure of my goal? Yes I am. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I've shot at many different goals in my life. Tongue There are very clear basics for shooting with a sling. These are elementary and thus form a framework. If you manage to understand these basics, then that is a big step. In the course of time I have shown many people how to sling. A structured method has been developed in the process. If you follow this method, you will learn how to use a sling safely. And they will hit targets. A lot has developed in the process. With a lot of fun. I've presented a few things here. Trickshots are a lot of fun. However, it was never about a competition for me. Can I learn something here? My honest answer to that ... I don't know. I've probably already forgotten a lot about sling that others haven't even learned. There are some things here that, in my opinion, are suitable for broad recognition, others are questionable and also harmful
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