10000hrs

Get your hands on this book if you have the chance

Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential?

One of the interesting points is 10,000 hrs of practice are required to achieve a level of expertise.

This idea - that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice - surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours.

"In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals," writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin, "this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery."

Perhaps this will give all of us an idea of how long one can take to be truly world-class cheerleaders - 10,000hrs. I am pretty sure most high level cheerleaders we know have clocked much more hours in training to reach this greatness. Age might be a factor, but its never too late to start. Which is what is keeping me going till today and to the future.