In recent days, I wrote a review of Ultralearning by Scott, in which I discussed how, if you want to truly learn, you have to engage with the activity. And now there is another quote that has grabbed my strong attention because it is one I believe strongly in.
It says “The only way to learn a skill is to practice it, not to read about it.” It is not about telling yourself I want to learn this and I want to do that, rather it is about doing it. This quote reminds me of a quote from Chris Williamson I got from a reel on Instagram, which says saying I will do the job is not doing the job, saying the job will be done is not doing, but doing the job and showing action of the job being done is doing the job. Do not procrastinate and use your words about getting the job done; just do it like Nike's slogan.
Now the skill you want to learn can be learned only by practice. What is the skill you have been working on that has only been in your mouth and not in your actions, you need to practice. The author goes on to talk about skills that can be learned only through practice. If you choose to read and read about it, you can never get better at it until you perform the actual skill. It is like swimming; if you read a ton of books about swimming and you never jump into a pool to practice what you have read, you can never become a better swimmer.
The same understanding works in chess. Chess is the board game with the highest number of books about the game. It is way easier to get a book that talks about chess than it is to get a book that talks about indigenous languages in Nigeria. Now, if you are a beginner at chess and want to improve through the route of reading books, it is never going to be enough until you practice what you have read from the book. You need to play out that opening you have been learning from the books you have been studying. Test it against your friends,s and thankfully, ly we are in the advanced era of technology, you can easily play it against anybody online or play against a computer online. This will help to improve your understanding of the opening.
I remember back in school when I only learned a couple of chess openings from the old chess master app on my phone,s and I could not wait to get to school to test it out with my chess friends. It was cool because those tricks were new, and it was fun to see them fall for it, but little did I know that this was what helped to build my strong understanding of chess openings. Now, although those tricks are oldtricksk,t it is still fun to seepeoplee fall for them sometimes when playing.
Nothing will prepare you better for whatever skill you have acquired than putting it to the test through practice. Sometimes, through practice, you will get to understand more and even learn from your mistakes. I'mr sure I have learned that the hard way in chess.
I am @samostically, a chess player and writer. I love to share the experience I have gained from different battles over the 64 squares and the knowledgeable insights from books I have read. But most importantly, I am a Midnight Owl and I founded the community Midnight Letters.
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