Repetition is Key to Mastery

The principle of repetition is fundamental to learning and skill development. Mastering any skill, whether in sports, arts, or business, requires practicing the fundamentals over and over again until they become second nature.

The Learning Process

• Initial Learning: When a new skill is learned, there is an initial improvement in performance.
• The Forgetting Curve: However, without reinforcement, the newly learned skill quickly fades. This is known as the The Forgetting Curve.
• Reinforcement through Repetition: Regular, repeated training sessions on the same material interrupt the forgetting curve and lead to long-term retention and mastery.
• Permanent Skill Development: With each repetition, the skill becomes more ingrained, and the drop-off in performance between sessions becomes smaller, until the skill is permanent.

Application in Training

• Focus on Core Concepts: It is more effective to teach a few core concepts and repeat them regularly than to introduce new information in every session.
• Rotate Material: Rotate through core training material to ensure that it is constantly reinforced.
• Pigheaded Discipline: Achieving mastery through repetition requires "pigheaded discipline" to stick with the training even when it feels repetitive.

The Importance of Continuous Training is built on the foundation of this principle.