I must say, this is one of the most
impressive sports books I have read. Sometime back, in one of my blogposts -
Sports and Genes, I had mentioned about my assumptions -
mostly assimilated by generalizations, about the impact of genes on sports. Why
do always Kenyans or Ethiopians win Long Distance running events, why
Asians are better in Badminton, Gymnastics and Table Tennis, why we do not see
many black swimmers qualifying for major Swimming events? When I had written
about it, they perfectly seemed like valid questions to me. After reading
Bounce, I feel the questions were really vague. In this book, Mathew mentions
about fallacies of these generalizations. When the research says, the gene pool
of people in Eldoret, Kenya (the cradle of long distance runners) itself is so
diverse, I realize how wrong it is to say 'Asians are good at Badminton' :)
Matthew Syed is
a British journalist and was the No. 1 Table Tennis player in UK for almost a
decade. In the book, ‘Bounce – How Champions are made’ Matthew Syed discusses
about environmental influences, motivational sparks, the social strata of
sports persons, child prodigies, superstition in sports, choking of sports
persons at crunch moments, performance enhancing drugs and most importantly
about ‘the myth of talent and the power of practice’. A hardcore believer of
practice, mentions that it was possible for him to become No.1 TT player of UK
only because he had put in thousands of hours of practice under supreme coaches
with special and efficient techniques and it had absolutely nothing to do with
his superior ‘genes for TT’ (if such thing exists), as both his parents had
never ever wielded a TT racquet in their entire life, nor did he have any
maternal or paternal relatives who were good at TT.
Many of the first few sections of the book
emphasize the concept of 10,000 hours of practice - a theory by
Malcolm
Gladwell. The author gives some contemporary examples from Tiger Woods to
Williams Sisters to few skating champions who would not have reached the
pinnacle of success if they had not practiced hard. With many case studies
proving this and quoting from many scientific researches Matthew lays his
argument open to the readers. With no substitute to hard work, the author
breaks our assumptions about in born talent too. Also sneaks into the childhood
of Mozart and disproves why Mozart is not a child prodigy - for that
matter, according to the author, child prodigiousness is a myth.
With a strict father who was musically inclined, Mozart had
already practiced for thousands of hours of music before even reaching
the age of 10-11. But to the world, he was a child prodigy. Matthew also cites
the example of Hungarian Chess teacher
Laszlo
Polgar, who challenged the world to raise all the three of his daughters as
the best chess players in the history. The youngest of the daughters being
Judit
Polgar, the most successful of the three and also who was in news for
beating our own Vishwanathan Anand and Anatoli Karpov and the likes.
To accentuate, when author mentions
thousands of hours of practice, he means effective practice and not just hours spent
aimlessly on any skill. The book also cites from a research that why
Brazilians were once so invincible in Football. The secret behind their success
being their superior practice technique called
Futsal.
When a player like Ronaldinho himself says, any player who masters the art of
tackling and passing with the smaller and heavier ball in Futsal can never ever
fail in the game of Football, there certainly must be truth in this practicing
technique.
Superstition of sports persons is
seriously debatable and at times equally amusing topic. It seems Serena
Williams carries her shower slippers in her Tennis Kit for every match and most
of the tennis players pitch the ball certain number of times before each
service. Matthew jokes, sometimes it makes him wonder whether Wimbledon is a
contest of Tennis or a contest of superstitions. It is really funny to think
that the color of the shoes or whether the batsman steps into the ground with
his right or left foot in, influences his performance on field that day. Mathew
says, as long as their beliefs are harmless and it helps them to give their
best, who are we to tell them not to do it. By the way, did you know even
pigeons
are superstitious, and superstitions could have descended to humans through
evolution..?!
Apart from all these interesting topics,
the obvious undertone of the book comes across very effectively, that practice
makes us perfect. It is a must read for all those who give up mid-way of
achieving, thinking that they do not have it in them to achieve. I would like
to end with a quote from Malcolm Gladwell - “Practice isn't the thing you do once
you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
