How Kangaroos, Swimming Babies, & Muscle Memory Taught Me That Practice Matters

How Kangaroos, Swimming Babies, & Muscle Memory Taught Me That Practice Matters

Kangaroos!

I’m NOT 🦘 jumping on the Colorado Buffaloes bandwagon!

Kangaroos are pretty sweet animals. Here is a ‘Roo selfie I photobombed! My family is in the background too. Sorry Roo for interrupting your pic!

I enjoyed watching Rashaan Salaam run back when I was in my early teenage years. He was a beast. Heisman winner. 2,000 yard rusher in a season. Spectacular to watch. Truly unfortunate to hear about his suicide in late 2016. RIP Rashaan RIP. 

If we’ve crossed paths in life you know I REALLY enjoy college football. There is very little better than Saturdays in the fall (except maybe Friday nights when you play or watch high school football). I started watching Jackson State last year – I’m not going to lie. ESPN would play their games. It was exciting. There was a lot of hype.

Practice Until…

I enjoy watching Coach Prime (aka Deion Sanders). Not because he is boastful or enthusiastic, which he is. But he can back it up. And his players do as well. 

But nobody is perfect. Jackson State lost their bowl game unfortunately. Maybe he had Colorado on his mind. 

But I am jumping 🦘 though. I’m jumping on the Coach Prime “discipline and execution engine” bandwagon. 

I’ve been a Nick Saban fan for years. He plays a very similar game in life, and definitely does on the football field. Unfortunately, he has taught a lot of people about this and now his former coaches are starting to beat him like Sark and Texas did last night. There is always another level to the game.

“Everybody thinks you practice something until you get it right. You really practice until you can’t get it wrong. There’s a difference.”

Nick Saban

Wait, don’t those two appear on TV together? Aren’t they in a commercial together? 

Yeah, for Aflac. 

Coincidence they appear together? Really just two random blokes Aflac pulled out of the ~330M US citizens and asked them to do a commercial together? Just random right? Right. 

Why am I quasi-OCD on processes and procedures? Because I know once we can execute right once we can execute right again. Then once we execute right that becomes the standard. Once the standard is set we look to make the standard more effective. We execute until it is so ingrained within us that doing it wrong is horribly uncomfortable.

Football coaches Nick Saban and Deion Sanders are the same. You practice perfection which then makes perfection muscle memory. You memorize the thoughts and actions. Then we fine-tune. Rinse and repeat. 

Swimming Lessons

It always amazed me that we took our 6 month old babies to swimming lessons with Claudine in our hometown. She is well known for swimming lessons for all ages. 

What was amazing was that teaching babies to “swim” is all about muscle memory. It is about survival. All the baby has to do is flip onto its back so it can float. Face up means they can breathe. To breathe means you stay alive. To live is the desire which is usually found in a 180 from despair. 

Muscle memory. But practicing bad techniques is muscle memory too. So one MUST practice the right technique. And the right technique must be practiced often to memorize it. Practice perfection so your instincts memorize the action. 

Once your instincts memorize the action then trust can be developed. And I’m NOT talking about trust between you and your team or colleagues. This is an entirely different aspect of trust. 

It is so counterintuitive to think about trust from this perspective. It is even more rare for someone to actually be able to execute trust from this perspective. Even more rare is for a team to execute trust from this perspective I’m about to drop on you. 

This is why individuals like Tim Grover have made a name for themselves. Tim trained Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and several other true champions. His books are great examples of creating muscle memory. 

“When you’re great, you trust your instincts. When you’re unstoppable, your instincts trust you.”

Tim Grover

Muscle Memory Practiced Perfectly

Muscle Memory Practiced Perfectly. That is all Coach Prime and Coach Saban are trying to teach their players to do. Make doing the wrong thing impossible.

This is why I’ve been an Alabama & Nick Saban fan for 15 years. That is why I’m a Colorado and Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders fan now also. Muscle Memory Practiced Perfectly.

When muscle memory is practiced perfectly your instincts trust you. You become Unstoppable.

So what Muscle Memory Practiced Perfectly do you have? 

Here is the more important question though:

Is that Muscle Memory Practiced Perfectly actually serving you right now? 

Drop your thoughts below. I love these topics. 

Oh, and go visit Australia some day. Let me know you are going and I’ll give you some Aussie tips & tricks. 

#askbetterquestions

#hardwork

#football

#kangaroos

#Australia