I haven't made a real sales pitch for Robert Ringer.

The article linked above uses his experience at mastering batting in fast-pitch softball to show the value of what he calls "active visualization":

I started practicing in the backyard every evening after I got home from work, but I went way beyond just swinging the bat. To merely swing a bat is the epitome of action without purpose or strategy - action just for the sake of taking action.

Instead, I got down in my batting crouch hundreds of times each evening and, with intense concentration, visualized the pitcher going through his windup and letting go of the ball. Everything I did from that point on was in slow motion for the first half-hour or so of each practice.

As I pictured the windup, I focused on stepping directly toward the pitcher with my left foot. This was an important first step, because psychologically it was a bold statement that I intended to meet the pitch head on. It was the step that set everything else in motion for me.

He's building on an article of his own and an intervening post by Michael Masterson, in Masterson's newsletter Early to Rise, which focuses on using careful, slow repetitions - "Never practice a mistake" - when you're serious about mastering any activity.

Masterson learned it's value from his Jiu Jitsu instructor. I learned some of the same things in football practice... and from my brother's tutoring in the value of proper "form" in football--a little guy will always get killed by a big guy unless the little guys moves are perfect.

Ron's official weight was 163#.

He played defensive end.

I never saw him get burned. Or miss a tackle. Or look like a Viking (c. 2005) when he hit a guy.

When I went to ball-games in those days, I didn't really know anything about football... but I knew my brother, and I knew where the line of scrimmage was. I learned to judge a defender's play by how close to the line of scrimmage (or how far behind it) they tackled the ball-carrier.

At 163, opposing teams generally considered Ron to be the weak link. By the second quarter, they decided Dave Minor was the weak link. Unfortunately for them, Dave was pretty damn good as well.

You can't imagine what I'd give to have Ron's defense replace ours in the 1980 WIAA Championships. (Our "O" was KICKASS. No matter that our QB had an inferiority complex. The blocking was good. That's what really counts.)

WHOOPS!! Got off topic a bit there.

My dumb brother was such a jerk that he made me spend hours in our front yard practicing proper form. We didn't have pads, so everything we did had to be careful and slow, but as such Ron taught me that I had to be aware of the forces that would be involved at full speed. I don't know how, but I got it.

I know that as an offensive lineman I never got beat by anybody but my own mistakes. Tactical mistakes, not technical mistakes. I had technique down cold, but sometimes I'd glitch and act on the wrong set of instructions.

Strategy? That was the coach's problem.

Here's my addition to the discussion: how do you apply brilliance at learning technique to learning tactics and strategy?

What The Hell's Wrong With Globalism?!

I expect to update this more than once, but my emotional reaction right off the bat, upon seeing this Blog Ad is:

[FOOLISHNESS DELETED]

Whoa!! Was I off base!

I finally got around to reading some of their stuff, and I have to say that I disagree with very little of it.

I agree that Big Government, Big Business, Big Labor and anybody else who's to Big for his Britches are too often entwined. I agree that nations should preserve their sovereignty. I don't like the UN, the IMF or the World Bank, but it's mostly because they misallocate capital [forcibly extracted tax money] in directions people would not choose on their own in a free market.

I don't believe in "market failure". In a free market people spend their money and give it away to causes they care about. When people hear about a problem, they try to help; that's why governments, businesses and charities are founded in the first place--I wouldn't even mind if governments were bossy about telling businesses and charities what to do about helping others, if they didn't have a tendency to send the cops and the army out to make it happen. Leaders don't hurt people, enforcers do. (It's been a while since I came up with a bumper sticker slogan.)

It's true that the problem most businesses are founded to solve is "I don't have enough money," but they have to fulfill somebody's desires in order to get that money.

Anyway, I agree that money ought to be gold or gold-backed. I think worries about deflation are overblown (inflated - ha ha) and central banks are unnecessary and somewhat harmful. Simply put, it's important to have money, and it's important that it's value be fairly stable, but it's not so important as to need a controlling authority. I should say "controlling" authority. Their control is weak at best, unless they want bubbles and recessions.

On the other hand, they've been doing a better job of stabilizing the money supply and inflation lately, though there are serious questions about that. The Tech Bubble and subsequent recession and our current housing bubble are the Fed's fault, pretty much, yet if you didn't lose your job life hasn't been all that bad. Of course you could say that about the Great Depression too.

The conspiracy angle? Not much of a secret. Everybody who cares knows about the Trilateral Commission and those other guys. This Bank for International Settlements? Is anybody surprised? They have a charter that says they will have "no oversight or knowledge of operations by any government authority" and a bunch of other things that sound pretty egregious, but even the author of the article says, "Of course, a corporate charter can say anything it wants to say and still be subject to outside authorities." But he continues, "Nevertheless, these were the immunities practiced and enjoyed from 1930 onward." All at the pleasure of the government.

So, who's dying over this? Bernie Sanders, quoted in the article, says Latin Americans are, and I suspect that IMF and World Bank actions there haven't been as helpful as they expected, but then, the governments of Latin America spent the money on liabilities rather than assets. Most people and businesses and governments do that when you hand them a wad of cash.

That's why most people aren't rich.