Practice does not make perfect. That’s one of a dozen lies we parents force on our kids. Along with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, the lies we tell our children shape who they become. Remember the first know-it-all kid that logic’d out that Santa couldn’t possibly exist? He was a dick, wasn’t he? Decades later, is he still a dick? Prolly so.
So why do we do it? Why do we set our kids up for failure when we know the resentment and disappointment we all felt when our bubbles were burst?
Today’s key word is Follow-thru.
Follow thru is the conclusive motion of most sports actions. It’s crossing your median line on a good pitch. It’s a kicker kneeing himself in the nose after a punt. But it’s often unnecessary. Follow thru’s occur AFTER the require action, they have no real affect on the ball or puck in play. There is no way the position of your wrists can affect a jumper once it’s been shot. But it’s also a fact that people with poor follow-thru’s have poor jumshooting ability. Login-be-damned, that lie helps us shoot better. Being told the same incessant lie - practice makes perfect - pushes children to work beyond their personal difficulties and achieve more than they would have normally
In reality, the idea of holding something or someone an example of achievement is kinda nonsensical. If such achievement was possible for everyone, then Jordon dropping 60pts wouldn’t be an anomaly, it’d be the norm. The glass is either half empty or half full,and that subtle difference can make or break a child’s heart. So we hoist the likes of Michael Jordan to the rafters. We ride the jocks of guys like that kid from Davidson. But if Davidson-boy had any true skill, or rather, were we any real judge of skill - he wouldn’t even be playing for Davidson, Jordan would never have been cut from his high school basketball squad, and no one would put out cookies for santa.
And then I’d be grumpy and hungry on Christmas morning. And no one wants that.
I once saw Ray Allen taking free throw practice. It was 2am on Shaw Air Force Base. The question is thus: was Ray out there because he needed the practice or because he was already good and couldn’t think of anything else to do? Really, why does the caged bird sing?