Bounce

As I think I have already mentioned, on our way to Florida in July I picked up a couple of books at the airport. One of the benefits of having time to kill once check in and security has been completed is that there is an opportunity for a jolly good book browse, albeit offset by the annoyance of actually having to shell out the price printed on the back cover in most cases - a rare occurrence these days.

So, I got a copy of Marcus du Sautoy's symmetry book, and started through that on holiday. However, Florida holidays are not all that conducive to reading, what with the distractions of theme parks and all. Even if the boys did want to spend a fair amount of time in the pool, I ended up in there with them or playing table tennis on the poolside table for a lot of that time, rather than laid back on a sun lounger reading.

The mention of table tennis brings me on to the second book that I bought, took with me, and brought home again without opening, which I have now got round to reading. It is called "Bounce" and is written by Matthew Syed, the former British number one table tennis player.

In the book, Matthew considers what makes people world class at sports (and a number of other disciplines as well) and the conclusion that he very convincingly and clearly draws is simply that the people who are the best in the world at various sports gain their top spots through practice, and not through having some innate talent for their chosen field.

This is an extremely encouraging conclusion, as essentially what it tells us is that if we put our minds to it, we can achieve excellence in our chosen fields. The old excuses of "I just don't have any talent for [insert activity here]", or "I have no hand eye co-ordination" or (moving away from sport) "I just don't have a head for numbers", in the vast majority of cases, won't wash, and with sufficient appropriately directed practice, we can crack it.

The only draw back is that success is built upon a mountain of failure. All of our practice needs to be challenging and stretching us. It's no good just to put the hours in, we must constantly be pushing against the boundaries of what we are able to do, failing and failing again, in the name of making the progress we seek. So, a thick skin is required.

I suppose that the other slight drawback is that whilst I say that it is no good just to put the hours in, we do still need to put in a lot of hours. It is estimated, based on the data from a number of different fields, that to become world class takes around ten thousand hours of practice (and they have to be willing hours as well - forced labour is no good, you have to really want it). So, if you put in three hours of practice every single day of your life, starting now, then maybe by some time in 2021 a world record or a world championship could be yours.

So, all that remains to be done is to decide what to beat the world in?