Mastery Criteria

I think I've observed that my practising (at least) feels more effective when I have mastery criteria for the things I’m trying to learn. (In fact, when I’m not using some kind of mastery criteria, my practising hardly feels effective at all--much more like I’m just mindlessly tapping the keys.)

Generally my mastery criteria are unambitious--usually just four or eight perfect, consecutive repetitions. I set the number low for a few reasons, but a big one is to accommodate the people I live with here. I imagine (and sense) that it’s way less irritating when I work on a pattern for only say, twenty minutes, rather than for an entire afternoon. I do think a lot about Tiger Woods’ "100 putts in a row" strategy though. When I get back to Toronto, it will be fun to try experimenting a bit with the numbers of perfect repetitions to see how my playing (and my enjoyment of practice sessions) is affected.

Now, if only there were a way to objectively measure performance so I could see numeric data on how my playing is affected . . . I wonder if the DDR pickup system couldn’t be rigged up to Jaliya somehow. I should get over to Austria for a week or two before my program is over to see what Harald and I can devise.