Apply previous lesson: don't settle on the solutions that you like too easily. Imagine it's like BFS and DFS on a tree.
First a framework to keep in mind: the goal is to "learn" and"master" something. Essentially what you're doing is trying to "memorize" a solution in a solution space. We all know it's not enough to "know" what the best way to play badminton is. It's not enough to accidentally even do it and feel it once. What we're seeking is MASTERY, which has basically everything to do with MEMORY. And that's *fast*, immediately accessible memory, not some slow isomorphic representation in our minds (i.e. the ability to talk about it).
And often, we have to "cut" and partition our space in sequence to "drill down" to the solution, because often the solution must be expressed and decomposed as a series of conjunctions. This means that one common way to learn is to "learn" one or few conjunctions at a time. We all know human mental capacities are limited and sometimes we just can't do multiple things at once. In fact the very definition of "multiple" might just be those things that the mind can't handle at once.
Anyways, back to it. DFS is like setting a bunch of goals and attempting to satisfy them all at once, trying to immediately assume the final solution and practice that. If it doesn't work, back up and try something different. BFS is instead incrementally exploring your solution space and solving little bits and pieces at a time; not necessarily rushing and making assumptions on what the final solution is going to look like and trying to train that, but rather poking around, committing correct pieces to muscle memory and proceeding slowly and consistently.
Example: Badminton, statistical problem at work (exploration of intuitive concepts like "bumps and streams" instead of trying to jump into immediate abstraction)
Particularly, when playing badminton it's really tempting to attempt to emulate the pros without really understand what's going on, and copy everything immediately. So we might try to forcefully pronate the arm. Or do some sort of exaggerated split step motion. Or get really low to the ground and make exagerrated step motions. And we might try to practice some kind of inefficient exagerrated chassé stuff. All of these I have done.
The problem is exactly that: we are trying to do things without understanding them, so we are likely to make mistakes. That's because all of the solutions that the pros implemented have deep reasons and come from deep, layered reasoning cemented over years of practice. It's like seasoning on a cast iron... You can copy it but you better make sure you're seasoning correctly and slowly and thoroughly.
At the very least, we should pay attention to our bodies, and use our brains. If it simply doesn't make sense to chassé when you could just step or run, don't do it!
That's the great thing about BFS and exploration, taking it slow. You'll come to understand, layer by layer, level by level, why a particular method is good, because you've explored the alternatives. For example: with flat drives, we understood that a "pushing" motion was appropriate and proved it physically to some extent. Even if we didn't literally explore alternatives (we did, like the exaggerated backstroke method... seeing a pattern here), the very nature of analyzing motion is a process of elimination of alternatives**. In other words, understanding the bits and pieces and habits and skills that make up our final solution *in context* helps us recognize WHY we do things, thereby creating a stronger mental relevance in our minds.
But what about if you have a mentor? Or some kind of guide, that tells you how to master something? Basically this is more like BFS (simply because it's not like DFS where you try to master everything in one go. Although maybe for some skills this might actually BE the way to go) except at each step you know exactly what to do and what to train. And you know exactly which skills to train first (i.e. how to partition your solution space, and which partition to go to and engrain into memory, I.e. "muscle-memorize").
Is this always the best way though? Perhaps for the sake of time. Perhaps for the sake of advancing the field (you cannot have students rediscovering the wheel all the time)
But yes, a master can teach a student all of the correct routes, never letting the student fall into bad habits, wrong paths and traps. But does a student understand the fundamentals the way the master does? No, because of experience: the master UNDERSTANDS what arithmetic is simply because of all the time he's had to deal with edge cases and scenarios which force him to understand beyond the abstraction, and the student simply knows 1+1=2, quick mafs.
But does a master compare to the creator when it comes to the fundamentals? Likely not. The creator understands even more intimately the pain that he had to go through in developing his art. He truly understands fundamentally why you would even want to have a system of arithmetic since he was around before it even existed. He understands every "why" of why the fundamentals have to be the way they are. In this way, the fundamentals he has created are a part of his being because they are so entrenched; entrenched by all the reasoning and failed alternatives that make it obvious why the fundamentals are the way they are.
It's like actually understand the area because you've explored the roads vs just reading a map. It doesn't feel the same: making a right because Google maps says so (student) vs making a right because you want to go to Walmart and not the neighborhood up ahead, according to the map (master) vs making a right because you actually have explored this area and been to that neighborhood and it's really not friendly (creator).
Another analogy (there's so many) is like the user, the superuser/scripter, and developer.
As you can see this is a fundamental principle of human knowledge and learning and it explains a lot. It might even explain why Rodney Mullen is so great and nobody now is as great (because he created the fundamentals and was around during it's developmebt... Well also skaters don't practice fundamentals very properly)
Aaanyways. Back to badminton. Sure, you could have a coach train you in all the right ways. You will get to the end faster, and by virtue of real world experience you will also realize why the right ways are the right ways... To some extent. Of course, the more stringent and linear the training regimen you're ironically less likely to understand the "why" of things, which may prevent you from truly mastering things. [Also maybe badminton isn't really complete yet, and there's more weird things you can make up that don't necessarily follow the rules (but that's a maybe).]
That's why I want to try "coaching" myself. Use videos. Watch videos. Annotate. Watch pros. Do physics. Experiment, explore, then train.
This is a true BFS approach.
**[Why? Because selection of an optima can be seen as de-selection of non-optima. For analogy, remember how proved theorems work in computation. You can always do a brute force search, but if you know certain theorems you can narrow down the search greatly. As a side note, Dr. Williams said that sometimes it's just not worth it). And even the proof of that theorem eventually breaks down to physics, and the laws of physics breaks down to elimination (deduction) of un-truths.
Aaaaanyways. ]
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Definitely, by observing, accepting, and understanding my own mind, I've improved in writing, and thinking, as well. I understand my limited memory, so often as the ideas come I jot down quick notes. Instead of trying to do everything in one linear go and having to rush (and writing terribly in consequence), I let myself write more nonlinearly, and structure my sequence of words so they are more meaningful and more properly cemented into paper and mind, so as to build a stronger foundation for the next point.
Dovetailing off of that point, I've also understood the importance of organization, tidiness, and things I formerly disregarded. Like making your writing pretty, putting subtitles, references. Organizing your workspace. All this stuff I thought was useless because I didn't pay attention to the chaos storm going on within my mind, slowing me down.
You need to go step by step. Sure, if you have a lot of discipline and you know that your "lesson plan" is correct, you can do a DFS and learn quickly. But otherwise, you are going to have to explore.
To explore properly, you need data. That means listening to your mind, listening to your body, listening to your emotions -- because that is the data that goes most unrecognized. We tend to focus on only the outside world and the results. When badminton isn't going well, we focus harder on what's going on on the outside and try to force your body to go in a certain way, stare harder at opponents moves to "pay attention". We seldom think about how our body's momentum feels, about how there seems to be inefficient energy loss up our kinetic chain, about our insecure and turbulent mind that fails to recognize that our strategy and tactics are incorrect. When we fix this, wake up from our tunnel vision and start PAYING ATTENTION, suddenly the court is simple to you, just a problem that you control with your body. It becomes little more than a control theory problem, no longer a confusing mess of I-don't-know-whats-going-on. Instead you will see it for what it is: controller (your body, your mind) and feedback (the environment). Dead simple. From here, your game brain will take over.
The problem is, to get to this state, again, you have to let yourself get to it. Oftentimes you're just too caught up, too much absorbed in feeling frustrated, that you fail to admit that what you're doing isn't working, because if you're wrong then what worth do you have, right?
Body badminton
Focus on self
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