Insights to and development of Practice, from a musicians perspective

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On Seeing Punches coming

If you can see what's coming, then you can do something about it. Nice breakdown, even to the anatomy of the eye. I remember doing some of what he says in kung fu, when we were doing reaction training, staring through the chest, and allowing the peripheral vision to catch the slightest movements. Article Here.

Clarity of Intent

1. Of why you train 2. what's involved with the training 3. what is the goal of the technique/movement (offensive or defensive) 4. break it into component pieces/principles 5. slow and gradual practice (slowly increase speed and complexity) 6. practice, practice, practice...the more you do, the better you get.period.

The Importance of Slowness in Training...(accuracy of movement)

"One day a man came to his gym — I am not sure if he came on his own or if someone brought him. Allegedly, he had been able to increase the speed of even the dullest race horse. Cus asked him how he did it. Evidently he studied, the movements of the best race horses in slow motion and broke the movements down into their component parts. He then slowed the whole process down to a walk. He worked with his horse to imitate these movements at a very slow pace. Once he the horse could imitate them perfectly at the slowest pace, be increased the pace ever so slightly. He repeated this until the horse was at full speed and racing well beyond his original capacity."
this is an excerpt about Cus D'Amato (trained Tyson, influenced by Zen and the Art of Archery)more here
so what's the lesson? move slow first, to execute the movement correctly and to the right target and to move easily, once this is attained, slowly add speed and complexity. but first slow (but once it's ingrained, you need to push the speed faster WHILE retaining the ease and accuracy of movement.)