How Can You Learn New Physical Skills Faster?
Learning how to play a musical instrument has long been on my bucket list. When my friend Susie started teaching group ukulele classes, I decided to support her and continue my mission to keep stimulating my brain in novel ways. Three months of weekly practices during the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas period has ensured a healthy repertoire of “occasion songs”. I now have fun telling friends and family that I have a ‘gig’ coming up, even if they involve easy 3 chord songs like “Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer” or “The Adams Family”!
The singing comes easily, but my playing could certainly be more accomplished. So, when the Stanford research neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman released Huberman Lab Podcast #20 “How to Learn Skills Faster” I was keen to listen. It was fascinating to hear the science supporting how I could improve my ukulele playing skills most effectively.
Huberman’s offerings always include the latest research, and his personal mission is to disseminate scientific knowledge at no cost to the public. While I highly recommend listening to the entire two-hour podcast, here are some key takeaways about skill building:
· The more repetitions you undertake the faster you will learn! This is counter to the 10,000 hours of practice approach that is prevalent, but Huberman stresses the importance of the total number of repetitions instead of the total number of hours.
Recommendation: Escalate early results by choosing a block of time and doing the maximum number of repetitions you can in that time.
· The more mistakes you make the more quickly you will learn. Errors tell your nervous system that something must change, thereby creating possibilities for neuroplasticity by altering your nerve wiring to incorporate the new pattern of movement. You need to recognize that you have failed many times within a session to change neuroplasticity - but be aware that being cued that you are making errors, by a coach for instance, will slow the speed of learning.
Recommendation: Practice at a steady pace recognizing but unperturbed by mistakes.
· When you do get a “right” result, your body will reward you by releasing dopamine and that sequence of movements will be consolidated. This means that it’s best not want to start with elevated dopamine levels (e.g., by ingesting caffeine) because then that spike will be “drowned out” by the relatively high background levels of dopamine. After the session has finished, it is ideal to have 5-10 minutes doing nothing, just sitting quietly, perhaps with your eyes closed, to consolidate the learning. Sleeping well that night will further consolidate it
Recommendation: Avoid stimulants prior, during and immediately after your sessions, taking a few minutes after the sessions to quietly absorb the learning.
· In subsequent sessions, you can most effectively build on the gains you have made by directing your focus to a particular element of the new activity and remain concentrated on that element throughout the session. It makes no difference what you focus on as long as it relates to the motor activity you are learning. It is ideal to break down the process into its component parts and concentrate on core motor sequences session to session. Once some mastery is achieved, you can concentrate on the finer points.
Recommendation: After achieving some mastery choose one aspect of the movement each session on which to concentrate.
· Once you are getting the motions correct for at least 25% of the time, you can effectively introduce ultraslow movements as a helpful learning tool if the movement you are learning allows it.
Recommendation: As proficiency increases, there is value in having sessions exaggerating slow and accurate movements.
· Once you have achieved proficiency, harnessing your attention to a fast-paced tool will help you increase the number of repeats and the number of errors. For some unknown reason this external focus increases the speed of learning.
Recommendation: Use a metronome or similar device set to a high speed to pace increased repetitions.
· Practicing visualization can add to learning ability but not as effectively as repeating the movements will. This seems to vary between individuals likely because the ability to undertake visualization varies.
Recommendation: Use quiet moments to improve performance by visualizing the movements.
How can I apply Huberman’s advice to my ukulele practice? I need to practice often, turn up feeling very focused and sometimes that will mean just making noise as I stretch my fingers to reach the frets and depress the wrong strings. I need to embrace my mistakes and not let them slow me down. Initially playing at a normal or fast speed will help me learn quickest but once my accuracy increases, I can slow movements and increase my accuracy. Once I get more skilled, I can practice visualization, incorporate speed drills, and move my fingers as I wait for the kettle to boil or on a long car trip – all of which will help me improve.
How about you? Think of something new you want to learn - perhaps hitting a golf ball off a tee, dancing tango, throwing a pot, speed walking, or casting a fly-line for example? Give it a go using these guidelines!
Remember: Ultimately turning up and being focused on the most repetitions per unit of time is the most effective learning strategy.