Daily Training

by E. F. Benson; Eustace Miles

But in order to ensure this automatic movement there is one thing absolutely essential, and that is not practice merely, but correct practice and swift practice. And correct swift practice implies not only much repetition, but concentration of mind. If you perform a new movement a hundred times, let us say, without thought, it may be done correctly, but it cannot be done, if correctly, swiftly. Correctness is the first essential, as we said in the chapter on exercise, and always essential; the swiftness in execution comes mainly with practice; so also does the automatic performance of the correct movement. But it is a very easy thing to lose correctness as the speed increases, and with a view to right this we have recommended—after the movement has been completely understood, and learned in some cases part by part—practice before a glass.

This, then, is the first essential—namely, to have practised one’s weak points till, though they are still perhaps weak, they are performed with the minimum possible of conscious thought, so that one’s attention, as far as may be, is free to observe the opponent. For a long time before the match continually practise your weak points, till they become, if not satisfactory, at any rate fairly easy, and give to your strong points only that amount of practice which will serve to keep them in repair, so to speak. At the time of the event, of course, you will use them as much as you possibly can, and at the same time give your opponent as few chances as possible of attacking your weaknesses. And the knowledge that you have a passable defence for such weaknesses, and can use it with moderate ease, will vastly increase your measure of confidence, whereas the knowledge that in some one point or so you are nearly defenceless would cramp and worry you throughout the set.

Again, since in many cases correctness of striking lies between two opposite faults, it is often useful to practise deliberately the fault which is opposite to your besetting sin. If, for instance, you do not use your wrist enough in a certain stroke, practise using it far more than is in the least advisable; if, on the other hand, you use it too much, not giving the forearm, for instance, its share in the stroke, practise the stroke with the forearm alone, keeping the wrist rigid, and you will often find that you thus attain correctness more quickly than if you had practised correctness. The longest way round, in fact, is here the shortest way home.

It is a great fallacy, as we have said before, to suppose that mere practice makes perfect. Instead of improving, you may be merely ingraining an existing fault; or, again, practice without briskness and without full attention given is only practice in sluggishness, and confirms and strengthens want of concentration. Thus it is always better, if possible, to practise in short spells, and never go on if you find your attention irresistibly flags; for not only is such practice no good, but it encourages slack performance. This inability to attend, which besets almost everyone for a long or short period during a course of training, and is the arch-enemy to progress, is often the result of fatigue, genuine tiredness of muscles or nerves; the eye times a stroke incorrectly, or the overworked muscles are slow to respond. Now this condition should have been avoided; and most people who have suffered from it are perfectly aware that yesterday, or two days ago, they went on with their practice when something, eye, muscle, or nerve, distinctly told them: “We have had enough.” However, here the condition is now, and there is only one remedy—rest. It is a bore, but it is your own fault.

This genuine tiredness must not be confounded with a symptom which certainly it closely resembles in its effects, but which appears to us to be really different, and may be treated with success by an opposite method: the symptom known as staleness. One is not conscious in any way of fatigue, the practice may easily have not been at all excessive, yet for the time all briskness is lost. Now though rest is recommended by many as a remedy for staleness, the opposite treatment—namely, continuance, if not increase of work—is worth a trial; and if one steadily and perseveringly plays through an attack of staleness, one usually emerges from it better than when one went in. It is a point on which trainers disagree, some recommending, as we have said, an emollient treatment—namely, rest; others a tonic. But above all, if you decide, rightly as we think, to play through your staleness, play with all the concentration and briskness you are capable of, and do not lay the foundations of a habit of slackness. Your best efforts, it is true, will produce deplorable results; but if you can harden your resolution to care nothing about the results, and hammer steadfastly along, an object of pity to men and angels, you will probably be the better for it. But if your resolution breaks down, and you relax from the poor best still possible to you, stop at once, for always and always slack practice is worse than none.

Another demon that, like the Promethean vulture, tears at the vitals of the man practising for a special event, or for general improvement, is the apparent slowness of the improvement, and at times its apparent complete cessation. Such a man, for instance, with the best intentions in the world will take out a handful of golf-balls to practise, let us say, mashie shots on to a green. The mashie is a weakness in his game, and the resultant positions of the first dozen shots cannot be covered with the traditional table-cloth. The next dozen perhaps are even less satisfactory, and at this point he will be wise to ask a candid friend if he is doing anything wrong; or, if the candid friend is a good player, to show him half a dozen shots. But it is quite possible that there is no obvious fault at all—only a general weakness. Then, having eliminated that most dangerous possibility—namely, of practising a fault, let this assiduous gentleman go on with his practice as long as he is brisk and attentive, and let him continue it every day for a week. Then, and this is the work of the demon alluded to, he may honestly think that he has not improved at all, and be disposed to label the principle of practice to a hot destination. But we solemnly assure him, if he has the least aptitude for the game, he quite certainly either has improved, though he is not conscious of it, or he has at least by his practice made some necessary steps towards improvement, and this improvement, when it comes, will probably be more rapid than he has thought possible. From being a poor performer with the mashie he will one day suddenly find that the club has arrived; that it has shouldered its way through the other mediocre performers in his bag and now stands predominant. But two postulates are required: (1) that he must be capable of improvement, (2) that he practises correctly.

Now this sounds a cheerful gospel, and will perhaps not be readily believed, especially by the person who is in the habit of telling one after a foozled mashie-shot that he always foozles with a mashie, and by way of showing how persevering he is, does not use the club again throughout the round, but plays improperly with an iron. And here it might be remarked, that though a match at golf certainly does give one practice it is by no means an ideal form of practice, any more than a set of tennis is an ideal form of practice. Indeed, it is even less ideal; for at tennis there is the fact that you are playing against an attacking opponent, to observe whom is no small part of the game, whereas one’s real enemy at golf is not one’s opponent, but one’s own mistakes. Consequently, with the idea of winning the match one studiously avoids such strokes as may land one in such a position as to require the use of a shot which one knows to be weak, whereas in practice one should, instead of avoiding such a shot, do it a dozen times and yet another dozen. That is practice, and it is by such practice alone that the demon of despair is exorcised.

Another rule which applies to practice of all games is that the practiser should gradually increase the severity of his work, in proportion as the stroke becomes easier to him, till, long before his match comes off, he has become accustomed (in games of attack and defence) to meet a much fiercer attack than he is likely to be subjected to, and himself to attack with a ferocity which he will probably not need. This gives him the comfortable feeling during the match itself that he is playing within his limits. So, also, in golf-practice, let him by degrees increase the difficulties he must contend against, and no longer place the ball he wishes to play on to the green in as good a lie as possible, but in a rather bad one; and if his bête noir is a hanging ball, let him place for himself—after his initial difficulties are conquered—a dozen balls that hang not badly, but atrociously badly. Such practice as this will diminish his dread of such a hanging ball as he is probably liable to encounter, just because he has been in the habit of playing infinitely more poisonous ones.

Again, it is impossible to emphasize too much the value of the habit of sparing oneself as far as possible. You may be pretty certain that when the event comes off you will need all the nervous and muscular force at your disposal, and it is well to remember that the amount you have is but limited, and that although you have to play as effectively as possible throughout, there are many strokes which can be done with comparatively little effort in one way, but which if done in another are exceedingly tiring. For instance, the correct timing of a ball at tennis, and the bringing forward the weight of the body, using the large muscle areas to back up the arm, will drive a force or a boast with greater velocity than could have been attained by the arm alone, while the contribution towards fatigue and exhaustion thus entailed is infinitely less than if the forearm and wrist were taxed to their utmost.

It is the business of every trainer, and so of every one, for each man is his own trainer to a far greater degree than anyone else can be, to develop his individuality, and though certain broad rules can be laid down about the wrong way to do a thing, and in a less degree the right way, much should be left to natural aptness and facility. For instance, if a man can easily execute a stroke in a certain way with good results, it is impossible to say that such is not the right way for him to do it; for the orthodox “right way” may be very difficult to such a man, and it is mere waste of time for him to acquire it, if by another method he can accomplish the same thing easily. Here everyone can find out a great deal for himself, and since facility in movement is half the secret of success, he should, if he finds a real difficulty in executing some stroke in the prescribed way, carefully look about to see if he has not at his command some other method. It is idle, for instance, for a short, thick-set man to emulate a long loose swing at golf; he might as well practise high jump in order to be able to deliver a service at lawn-tennis from the height at which a taller man can, or practise the “split,” in order to increase his reach. On the other hand, he has assuredly some advantage in his shortness that the long-legged man has not; it is this he must grasp and develop.