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Comment by dbrannan | Hacker News Reader

I really like the martial arts saying he uses:

"When you are not practicing, someone else is. When you meet him, he will win".

I remember years ago when I was on the swim team I had missed two practices. My coach said I had missed 4 practices, and I tried to correct him but he said, "You missed 2 practices, but your competition did not. So now you are 4 practices behind your competition."

I always remembered that.

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I want to believe that's insightful but I can't seem to interpret it any way other than a math fail. I could potentially have 10 practices, miss 2. Opponent has 10, misses 0. Opponent 10 - Me 8 = 2 missed practices... If the competition did miss the practices, it'd be a wash, so we'd all have essentially missed 0.

What am I missing here?

I think this is the rationale: In sports (or anything that requires practice), going some time without practicing actually makes you lose some of the ability you once had. So in this case, it would take two practices just to get back what was lost during the break, at which point he would be 4 practices behind.

So the issue is regression. I can believe that, but the original story didn't get that across clearly. Though I imagine the concept was familiar to the players, so it was probably clear at the time.

It seems unlikely that that was the coach's interpretation. Why would you need exactly 2 practicing sessions to recover from 2 missed ones?

I took it as just "not only have you not improved, but your opponent improved while you weren't improving too".

Right, but that still only accounts for +2. If he hadn't improved, it'd be a wash. Only regression on your part gives a +4.

You're taking it too literally.

Each time you miss your training, you lose twice. One for being behind your schedule, and another for being behind your opponent.

In other words, not only are you behind on your schedule, but your opponent is ahead of you.

This changes your perspective.

> Each time you miss your training, you lose twice. One for being behind your schedule, and another for being behind your opponent.

This is a very interesting and motivating point. But I do not think it goes into the causal matrix.

It may be behind your schedule, behind your opponent, and behind the refrigerator. But you don't simply add everything that your training is behind.

Your training schedule prepares you for your opponent. Being behind your schedule is already equivalent to being behind your opponent.

That said, changing one's perspective can be very beneficial.

> Each time you miss your training, you lose twice. One for being behind your schedule, and another for being behind your opponent.

But the reason why being behind schedule is bad is because you are behind your opponent. They don't count twice.

The only way this makes sense is if you actually regress during your missed practices. That way, not only do you miss 2 practices, but it takes you 2 more practices just to get back to where you were before. Then it's like 4 missed practices total.

I read it slightly differently. If you want to win, you need to do more than just practice the same amount as your opponent. If you missed 2 practices they didn't, you missed 4, the 2 you actually missed and the 2 you should be ahead of them. Sort of a "hard work generates luck" thing.

This sounds like it should only apply to something like basketball rebounds - if you miss 1 rebound, your opponent gets it, and thus you have the case where missing 2 rebounds is a -4.

This is a flawed analysis. It sounds like the "14 point turnaround" in football -- wherein the offensive team is about to score a touchdown, but instead turns the ball over to the defense who runs the ball back for a touchdown of their own -- but it is not analogous.

Your missing practice is merely failing to score a touchdown. It does not result in any extra touchdowns or practices for the competition. You really are only 2 practices behind.

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1892069

I do not like that particular quote. I can offer you mine: "when you are not resting, someone else is. when you meet him, he will win."

Bruce Lee changed his "be as ready to fight as possible every day" attitude which didn't allowed him to be the best - he had to train less intensely than possible. So he introduced two one day rests and one two days rest into his training regimen.

Sayings like that (quoted by article author and one from your trainer) are manipulative and provoke sense of guilt without any good reason.

Seems like you are still just two practices behind them. Maybe in your coach's original example there was a limited amount of pool time available and your absences added 2 practices worth of pool time to the aggregate excluding you.

In this case you need to practice not only to improve but merely to stay at the same level.

No, between you and your opponent, practices are not actually zero-sum.

I posted this saying on Facebook and a friend rewrote it:

“When you are not enjoying your life, someone else is. When you meet him, you will probably regret.”

Sounds like a nice way to live too.

There is a banner hanging up in the studio I train at: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

I have also thought this way when reprimanding myself for staying up late. If I go to sleep at 2 instead of midnight, I lose 4 hours of sleep--the two that I missed, and the extra two hours of being awake.

Quantity is not quality.

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