The Habit Theory of Practice

I've been pushing practice as the be-all end-all of learning for quite a while now. I am not sure I've gotten the full explanation well stated.

Learning is the business of moving stuff from undoable to competent excellence. Undoable to automatic, though, is a multi-step process.

1. You learn steps to do in a conscious fashion.
2. You push those now learned steps to unconscious/automatic activity via practice.
3. Now that you're expert and automatic at the process, you BEGIN to use feedback systems to get actually good.

Step one is IQ-sensitive. Step 2 isn't really. Many teachers never get to see step 2...because their courses are not long enough to see the student escape from the conscious activity. And #3...the point at which experitse or mastery happens....that one is the domain of coaches and Lean Production systems.

Effectively...the habit theory of practice (my words) suggests that the steps from 1 to 2 are the essential component of learning. Moving a skill from learned to automatic is the interesting part. Or as last years QOTY says:

Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong. Because if you practice long enough, you'll realize something important about the thing you thought you already understood.

The easiest way to understand this is to recognize that habit is the key factor in learning. What is habitual is the essential part for any real life application outside of school. What you CAN do is not important to a 95% certainty. On the other hand, what you actually do...which is almost certainly what you automatically do is very important.