Incremental

Step by step. Jump by jump. Punch by punch.  That’s the way we learn.  Thinking about the idea of initial speed as applying to the learning process, what is a good speed to start with when first practicing a drill?

No doubt this depends on the skill level of the student, if they’ve done any similar drills, who they’re partnered up with, what they ate that morning, how much sleep they got the night before… so it depends on a whole lot of stuff.  The safe bet is to start things slow and see how it goes.  Then, if slow is easy, go faster until it’s a challenge.  Challenge means still being able to mostly use good form, occasionally making a mistake, having fun, learning and making progress.

Progress is, after all, the purpose of practice.  If we understand what our goals our and can engage it solid methods to achieve them then we will achieve them faster.  Amusingly enough, we sometimes will achieve our goals faster by going slower.   On the flip side of that equation, we sometimes reach our goals slower if we don’t practice fast.