> He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. As for sports, he ar

> He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. As for sports, he argues that individual sports like golf can be mastered through deliberate practice (ex. Tiger Woods), because there are a minimal, defined set of actions that need to happen. So you should go hit your 9-iron 10k times to get better. However, with complex team sports like soccer, it’s a mix. For set plays and fitness you should use deliberate practice. But for the rest of the game you need creativity because the number of combinations of player sizes, speed and positioning quickly approaches infinity. And creativity can come from similar sports like basketball, or by playing full games against a wider variety of opponents. And it seems akin to linguistics where the breakthroughs came not by breaking language down into discreet rules but by broadening the knowledge base. You see this in MMA too where fighters will use deliberate practice for a specific punch or submission, but then will dramatically alter their training camps (often learning new techniques for the first time) depending on their opponent.