Learning Is a Balancing Act

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One of the best “model organisms” for learning in hierarchical skill domains is figure skating.

Figure skating makes clear the importance of strong foundations. You can’t spin on one leg if you can’t balance on one leg.

But it also makes clear the importance of layering more advanced skills as soon as you’ve mastered the prerequisites well enough to move on.

Yes, a figure skater needs baseline mastery of skating fundamentals to practice jumps and spins.

But they also get better at basic skating by practicing jumps and spins, because the higher skills force the lower skills to become more robust and fault-tolerant.

But they don’t get better if they haven’t mastered the basics well enough to get a grapple on the jumps and spins!

The setting of figure skating makes clear how effective learning is a balancing act (pun intended).

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