[ENTP] ENTP and practice

[dga]

Was just reading the thread about what type certain musicians are. A resolution for myself this year is to finally learn how to play piano. My family always had one in the house, but I just never got around to it.

Sports, musical isntruments, whatever requires repetition to get the mechanics right...how do you do it? I played basketball when i was younger, although nothing formal. It was possibly to shoot from the same spot over and over, but any structured drills would have probably been not very interesting.

Trying jkeys now, and the mechanical process to train my fingers is flooring me. sex was a lot easier to get right, hehe.

How do you do it?

 

[jenocyde]

I read up on the structure, to know the building blocks. I engulf myself in it for a few days with super intensity, just learning the "rules". Once I understand the principles, I then toss it all out the window and do my own thing.

Learning by the book and practicing in the order of the lessons provided is way too limiting for my taste. I go out and buy scores of the music that I love and teach myself how to play it, while referencing the song.

To learn a language, I also study the building blocks, looking for similarities in structure to other languages that I already know. Again, only for a few days. Then I rent movies and read books in that language that I already know well in English. Or I read children's books in that language.

Good luck!

 

[ArchitectofFate]

wow seriously

I had a project in school where we have to put together a toy robot thing that is for 7 years old and I struggled to do it because of the instruction manual and I have to deal with step by step instruction on everything dealing with ridiculous amount of details

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

like most things an ENTP will do well, requires a hyperfocus that inspires excessive practice

Michael Phelps is an ENTP and did it in swimming

I've gotten pretty good at golf by being obsessed with making it to the driving range at odd hours

I've found I can do repetition well, as long as it's a single step process - like hitting, throwing, or catching a ball - keep in mind most ENTPs have excellent reflexes, but if I have to follow one of those Lego instruction leaflets they print for 4 year olds, it gets dicey

 

[digesthisickness]

all it takes is for me to be interested enough. once that happens, i'm an obsessed monster, until i've conquered it to my satisfaction. meaning, i'll go back three or four more more times (or never quit) to make sure i haven't missed even one minute detail/subtlety.

 

[EcK]

like most things an ENTP will do well, requires a hyperfocus that inspires excessive practice

Michael Phelps is an ENTP and did it in swimming

I've gotten pretty good at golf by being obsessed with making it to the driving range at odd hours

Yeah totally. I used to play video games. So i'd just spend days getting every single aspect of the game's physics, every possibility and get the ballistics like i've designed them.
Only then would I start playing against humans. People never understood how I could become so good so fast.
If i played without doing that, It just felt like there was no harmony in my gameplay, no understanding of the way it works, no 'dance' as i called it. I hated it.
I get bored quick after a while.

 

[garbage]

I can identify with most of what's been said here about repetition and detailed instructions. I'm also impatient because I want to be good at something (which is the end goal) right away

Once I realize that I have to go through the motions to get to my goal, it becomes.. less insufferable.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

There's a lot of talk in the biz and sports motivation world now about "deliberate practice", which is focusing in one aspect of performance, and practicing that with immediate, measurable outcomes. An example would be going to a tennis court 2 hours a day, and trying to get 90% of serves to bounce before the service line but after the base line. Personally, I think ENTPs are very good at this sort of practice because there's no series of directions to follow, it requires hyperfocus, and when we get obsessed we're unstoppable, while if we need to read a manual, we'll just stop.