Slow, natural, deadly: The importance of fundamentals | Hacker News Reader

Slow, natural, deadly: The importance of fundamentals

mostlymaths.net

17 pointsArun200910 comments

There's actually a nice Crossfit article about this: www.crossfit.com/cf-journal/Virtuosity.pdf

Interesting point: apparently in gymnastics, "virtuosity" is defined as "performing the common uncommonly well." I really like that :)

Thanks for the link! I didn't know about that. I like that definition, it is really what "craftsmanship" is!

There's an old quote I've heard attributed to the military, but I'm sure that's not the origin.

"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast"

Practicing fundamentals slowly is the traditional advice in everything from piano to karate.

Thanks for the quote! I'll keep it in mind if I ever write a better (and longer!) version of that article

I'm the writer of the post: I have to ask for forgiveness if someone read it and found some odd white lines breaking the post over. I just went to change a misspelled word, and the new blogger's editor went in the way... I hope it is fixed by now. Thanks for stopping by!

Thank you for the article, BTW. :-)

A short article that didn't really say anything new - still upvoted for the nice reminder though.

Thanks for the vote Ixiaus. I knew I didn't say anything new, but it was also intended as a reminder for myself (I usually write longer posts, and try to 'say more', but I don't succeed always). I always struggle to get working on my fundamentals right, even if it is the right thing.

Of course, the article doesn't say anything new, and admits this right at the start.

But I thought it conveyed its content in an interesting way. Articles such as these IMO convey more than just objective information. You imbibe a subjective component as well from such things as the language, analogies and quotations used. There's a difference between saying,

"Fundamentals are really, really important."

and quoting someone accomplished in his field as saying,

"Faithfulness to the fundamentals is something that becomes second nature to a professional."

The latter conveys a certain mindset, an attitude that the former doesn't, and this has real value.

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