I want to share a couple quick stories that will help introduce you to the concepts of “Rapid Skill Acquisition Total Immersion Training”. The NY Times had written an article about experienced United States Soldiers who were deployed in Iraq, having served multiple tours of duty. These battled tested soldiers were able to look down a street in Iraq and predict with incredible accuracy whether or not there was an IED (improvised explosive device) present. When asked how they were able to know if there was an explosive on the street, they were unable to answer how they knew. They literally had no idea how they were able to do it, they just felt it. They said things like, “it just felt right” or “it just felt wrong”. However, only the experienced soldiers had the ability to predict with accuracy if there was an IED explosive threat on the street. Inexperienced soldiers were not able to predict with any type of accuracy if a street contained an IED (improvised explosive device).
How can we explain this? Well, it turns out there is a huge difference between the processing power of the unconscious mind and the conscious mind. The unconscious mind can process at a minimum of 10 million data points in any type of situation, compared to your conscious mind that can only process around 75 data points! Using those numbers we can deduct that 99.99 % of the observations you make are unconscious. In fact scientist has proven that in some cases people make their mind up to and decide upon an action up to 7 seconds before their conscious mind even executes the action. What that information tells me is that the experienced experts subconscious mind can’t just possess almost superhuman abilities in their area of expertise, but their decision and actions might be already decided before they are conscious of them. That is some pretty heavy stuff to comprehend for sure.
Another good example of the incredible power of the subconscious mind was in a study containing novice and expert chess players. The novice and expert chess players were shown a chess game that was already in progress, after a couple of seconds a curtain was put over the board and they were asked to set up a new board replicating exactly the game they saw. The novice chess players were able to recreate and set-up some pieces but not even close to the entire game. However, the expert chess players were able to set-up the game in the exact way they saw it. They were even able to understand the strategies that both players were attempting to execute in the game they recreated. When asked how they re-created the game the experts were not able to give the answer, but they instinctively just knew how to do it.
These examples demonstrate how expert’s sub-conscious minds are superiorly developed in their fields of expertise. The experts are able to organize & chunk essential information together quickly (overcoming the limited capacity constraints of the conscious brain), they are able to instantly discard all non-essential information while quickly and skillfully recognizing patterns and small details. The expert’s vast levels of experience in their respected areas, allows their subconscious mind to do these incredible things! That brings us back to the topic of Rapid Skill Acquisition and Total Immersion.
Rapid Skill Acquisition in soccer is about executing a large number of repetitions in many different challenging environments, while using total immersion to build engrams and hard wire neural pathways in the player’s brains. This means that skill will be stored in the long-term memory faster then if the skill was practiced only on a part time basis. A skill starts to become automatic as it leaves the short-term memory and is placed into the long-term memory; this is best achieved by using RSA Total Immersion Training. Example: If you had the chance to learn a new skill and practice it once a week for eight weeks it would not be as effective compared to total immersion for eight consecutive days.
Summary:
What the lessons from the expert’s teach us is that the best way to hardwire your brain and body with a new skill is by committing to total and complete immersion in what you want to learn. Total immersion will unlock your subconscious mind and lead you down the path of skill development in a much shorter time frame. Total immersion will fill your world with only what you are trying to learn, in-turn speeding up the process of learning the skill and becoming an expert! Once you master a specific skill it will be with you, the moment the skill is embedded in your long term memory your subconscious mind can execute that skill automatically without thinking!
If you are interested in becoming a “Cognitive Certified Soccer Instructor” – you can sign-up for my online instructors course at www.soccersmarttraining.com
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Consultant work should be emailed to me at coachdibernardo@gmail.com