Arts Entertainments

Practice with Purpose – Dancing With the Stars Edition

Ever wonder why Dancing with the Stars is being dominated by former athletes? Most people conclude that it is the result of their physical prowess. This certainly doesn’t hurt them, but I know a lot of very successful athletes who are horrible dancers. For every Donald Driver, Shawn Johnson, Apolo Anton Ohno and Emmitt Smith there is a Monica Seles, Clyde (note the nickname “The Glide”, which at least suggests dance skills) Drexler, Natalie Coughlin and Ron Artest (Aka Metta World Peace) to retire early.

Before I get too far on this, let me make this disclaimer, I’ve never seen Dancing with the Stars. That said, it’s safe to say that I’m as far as possible from being an authority on both the dance and this show. However, I do know something about performance and skill development, and so I will address this topic.

I suspect that a big reason that athletes seem to dominate this competition is related to the way they practice and evolve through competition. To be a successful athlete at the highest level, not only do you have to spend a lot of time practicing, but practice has a purpose. Purposeful practice has several characteristics, including but not limited to: it is focused on progress rather than results, it is deliberate, and it is highly focused on going beyond current limits.

When the average person practices, they want to spend 90% of their time practicing what they already do well. The highly accomplished athlete knows that he must spend most of his time working on things that he is currently not good at, but that will make them much better over time. The goal of purposeful practice is always the same: progress. We learn almost everything by making mistakes. Thus we learned to walk and speak and thus we progress.

Furthermore, most athletes at the highest level strive to improve even once they reach the highest levels of their sport. Taking nothing away from the other competitors invited to compete in Dancing with the Stars, but most of them are comfortable with their craft once they achieve success.

Once a comedian has a successful routine, they stick with it for years or more and are more likely to hire writers than to continually work to improve themselves. Also, most actors and actresses tend to play the same kinds of roles throughout their careers, and when they study, they tend to spend 90% of their practice doing the things they are good at. They are not actively trying to improve every day with determined practice like most top-level athletes.

Most athletes who reach the highest level of their sport also possess the mental edge necessary to master almost any skill they choose to pursue. So, if you combine your mental advantage with determined practice, it is quite predictable that athletes will improve much more during the show process than their competitors. You don’t have to be athletic to sing and I suspect that if they come out with a show called (please don’t) ‘Singing with the Stars’ it’s very likely that the athletes will dominate it too for the same reasons I said. on.

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