Books, Breads and Bikes: Cathexis

My third pottery class with the Saint Paul Community education program wrapped up this week - I've enjoyed the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of throwing, shaping, trimming, glazing and finishing. The skill that seems to elude me, and is predominantly important to these others, is the ability to properly center a piece of clay, even before it sits on the wheel. Of the sixty or so pieces I've finished, I'd say less than a handful demonstrate a well centered, well balanced consistency.

I guess it's notable because of how often it gets taken for granted, without really understanding the amount of dedication it must take to establish the ability to do so unerringly - likely why at least two different instructors have mentioned the 10,000 vessel theory, (that being true mastery only begins after the first ten thousand pieces of clay have been properly centered, thrown, trimmed, glazed and finished).

A book I just finished reading, Bounce, mentioned 10,000 hours of directed or deep practice as essential to mastery of a skill: 10,000 hours of service and volley for tennis, 10,000 hours of piano lessons for piano, 10,000 hours of gymnastics routines, the author's premise relied on the 10,000 hours being done with the correct direction from an appropriate source.

An interesting side note, the author also mentioned a variety of psychological experiments based on encouraging children to participate rather than rewarding them directly for their results - most interesting to me was an experiment wherein a control group was given the same unsolvable math problem as a group of students of the same age who had been told they shared a birthday with a famous mathematician. The group who had been lied to, the ones working under the premise of sharing a birthday with a fictional character, persevered on the impossible problem for a longer period of time. Whether or not this demonstrates a propensity for being stubborn or dedication, and whether or not this is a good thing, is up for debate.