Age & Improvement

[Splatted]

If we were to assume you were taking lessons every weekday

Why would you have so many? A good lesson should leave the student knowing what they need to work on in order to improve, and there's not much point having another lesson until they've had time to do that.

[billywoods]

I'm already 23 years old, but is it still possible for me to reach my maximum potential?

Here is the most serious advice I can give: do a test run. Get to 1d. Start now. Put in as many hours as you have free that aren't already dedicated to work or school. (Cancel anything that can be cancelled.)

If you make it through a week, studying 8+ hours every day, efficiently, without getting bored or watching the clock, there's a glimmer of hope. (If I'm honest, I'd bet all my money against it.) If you make it through a few weeks, congratulations - you're probably already 1d and rising. Consider continuing if you're enjoying putting so much time in.

If you don't make it through the first week, give up immediately. If you can't even sacrifice a week as a test run without knowing how strong you will be (because we certainly don't know), give up immediately. If you won't be happy until you're the strongest player out there, give up immediately.

Like everyone else, my point is that age is less of a limiting factor than motivation and time spent. If you can't get over those much bigger barriers, don't worry about age - that's not what's stopping you getting stronger.

[hailthorn011]

I'll go ahead and be the meanest guy in this thread. a la Seymour Skinner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHsinpmpZZA

I think if I had a teacher, I could easily spend 8 hours a day studying Go. Only problem is I'd only have maybe 2-3 months of such available time.

I think you answered your own question of whether you could really improve to become a pro, or devote enough time/study to becoming one. If all it took was 8 hours a day of 2-3 months continual study to become pro, then you'd see a ton of more strong players.

I checked up on your KGS info, and hate to be brutally honest, but if you're a KGS 6k mostly playing against bots and refusing to play slow rated games, you're probably not improving enough on your own anyway. You also have no idea yet what it takes to get stronger both in technique and knowledge needed.

Let's not forget that typically a good teacher might cost around 300 for 10 lessons. If we were to assume you were taking lessons every weekday for 3 months straight that's 60 lessons, or 1800 bucks.

I'm not going to say you can't do it, but you haven't shown the impetus for it yet and saying you'll do it tomorrow doesn't mean it'll happen. Come back and talk about pro possibilities when you're stronger or show the drive.

I feel the tone of this post was highly unnecessary, and it seems like you've put words in my mouth in several places. Maybe you feel putting "I'm gonna be the meanest guy" at the beginning of your post justifies the rest, but it really doesn't.

My question was actually about how age affects improvement, not necessarily about me becoming a professional.

Also, please allow me to reference the final paragraph: "I'm having fun simply playing the game right now. But sometime soon I might want to re-focus my efforts in to becoming a better player. I'm just afraid that these efforts might be in vein. I wouldn't want to become 1 Dan and stay there forever, for example."

So yes, I play the bot a lot. It helps me to relax. But you're right. This isn't the right attitude to have if your goal is trying to reach pro level. And I never claimed it was.

Regardless, I'm just going to shut up about this stuff. Have a nice day.

[Bantari]

I wouldn't want to become 1 Dan and stay there forever, for example.

What's wrong with 1 Dan?!?

[billywoods]

My question was actually about how age affects improvement, not necessarily about me becoming a professional.

For what it's worth, most of us answered you seriously: age doesn't affect very much except how much motivation and time you have, how good your concentration span is, how likely you are to put up with boring practice rituals, and so on. Your brain does deteriorate, but the effect of it on an average 23-year-old is dwarfed so much by all the other factors that you can't even notice it.

Anyway, the poster you quoted said nothing unfair about you, and nothing that couldn't have been said about the rest of us. Becoming a professional isn't a thought to be entertained lightly, any more than becoming a professional footballer, a concert cellist or a professor in quantum physics is. They are all huge undertakings that require absurd quantities of intense study, which you haven't yet done, and it's really quite difficult to tell you how good you're going to be after all of this study that you're not yet doing - not least because so few people in their 20s try, and those who do normally lose motivation before getting anywhere. Try it and let us know. I, for one, would love to hear how far you get, how much effort you had to put in, and what you learnt along the way. Of course, I won't blame you for a second if you decide not to bother, because, well, so have all the rest of us.

[Joaz Banbeck]

... a concert cellist ...

Many years ago I asked my teacher if I could make it a a profesional cellist. He said yes, third chair, maybe second, but not first chair. He told me that I would have had to have started earlier.

I was eleven.

[Splatted]

A couple of years ago I asked my teacher if I was too old to become a professional double bassist. He said no, it wasn't actually that uncommon.

I was twenty.

[Boidhre]

A couple of years ago I asked my teacher if I was too old to become a professional double bassist. He said no, it wasn't actually that uncommon.

I was twenty.

Isn't the double bass weird in this respect (and others) in the orchestra? I remember reading before the varying ages needed to start an orchestra instrument at and it varied quite a bit based on how feasible playing one was at different ages. People normally start the clarinet at 8 or 9 if I recall correctly but people can start the violin many years earlier.

[billywoods]

The disparity in the stories doesn't surprise me. I could easily believe both. Not because the cello is impossibly difficult or the double bass is so fiddly that pieces above a certain complexity simply can't be played on it or children's brains are more elastic or anything like that. But cellos are surprisingly popular instruments (violins more so, double basses less so), and the more competition you have, the greater the disadvantage you have if you start later.

The main reason I will never be a go professional, I would wager, is probably not that I'm too stupid to be. It's that the amount of time young professionals my age have put into the game already is more than the amount of time I will ever put into the game. The same goes for the cello.

[hailthorn011]

My question was actually about how age affects improvement, not necessarily about me becoming a professional.

For what it's worth, most of us answered you seriously: age doesn't affect very much except how much motivation and time you have, how good your concentration span is, how likely you are to put up with boring practice rituals, and so on. Your brain does deteriorate, but the effect of it on an average 23-year-old is dwarfed so much by all the other factors that you can't even notice it.

Anyway, the poster you quoted said nothing unfair about you, and nothing that couldn't have been said about the rest of us. Becoming a professional isn't a thought to be entertained lightly, any more than becoming a professional footballer, a concert cellist or a professor in quantum physics is. They are all huge undertakings that require absurd quantities of intense study, which you haven't yet done, and it's really quite difficult to tell you how good you're going to be after all of this study that you're not yet doing - not least because so few people in their 20s try, and those who do normally lose motivation before getting anywhere. Try it and let us know. I, for one, would love to hear how far you get, how much effort you had to put in, and what you learnt along the way. Of course, I won't blame you for a second if you decide not to bother, because, well, so have all the rest of us.

I understand that what he said was reasonable, but the method felt a little rude. And I do feel that other posts were quite reasonable. I wasn't trying to ignore them. And believe me, I do not underestimate the dedication and hard work that it takes to become a professional Go player or a professional ANYTHING for that matter.

As for the rest, I'll post my endeavors in my journal. It's not exactly about reaching pro anymore (like my previous journal was dedicated to), but it's about improvement. And I've been thinking for several days about how I aim to go about doing this. I want to win one of those KGS tournaments after all!

[Splatted]

A couple of years ago I asked my teacher if I was too old to become a professional double bassist. He said no, it wasn't actually that uncommon.

I was twenty.

Isn't the double bass weird in this respect (and others) in the orchestra? I remember reading before the varying ages needed to start an orchestra instrument at and it varied quite a bit based on how feasible playing one was at different ages. People normally start the clarinet at 8 or 9 if I recall correctly but people can start the violin many years earlier.

I can't remember exactly what was said but I don't think he was just talking about the double bass, and I think it's reading too much in to it to view the ages at which people normally start an instrument as evidence of what is necessary. Wind players generally start slightly later than violinists, but from what I've heard the positions are actually more competitive, so it seems pretty safe to say that the standard required isn't any less.

I guess what you're really implying is that the violin is harder than the clarinet, and so achieving that same professional standard requires an earlier start, but if that early start makes such a big difference why don't the clarinetists who started with younger squidgyer brains dominate their rivals? Their should be a clear stratification between the different levels of player and their starting ages, but there isn't.

In my opinion it's very likely that the difference in average starting age is significantly effected by social, cultural and practical factors. This is obviously just speculation, but there are many questions that come to mind: what caused them to take it up? Why on earth did they practice so hard? What age is it actually possible for a child to be able to play that? etc. For professional violinists "Because their parents made them" seems to be a pretty common answer to the first two questions, but what about the other instruments? What about the tuba? It doesn't seem at all stange that different instruments have different average starting ages that are entirely unrelated to what is required to become a professional.

P.s. My teacher never said anything about 1st desk, but we both no I'm not going to practice that hard anyway.

P.p.s. I didn't start playing at 20, the point of my anecdote was just that I was a bad player who was well past what many consider to be the critical period. I actually started double bass when I was 17 and had already been playing violin since I was 9 or 10.

[Boidhre]

A couple of years ago I asked my teacher if I was too old to become a professional double bassist. He said no, it wasn't actually that uncommon.

I was twenty.

Isn't the double bass weird in this respect (and others) in the orchestra? I remember reading before the varying ages needed to start an orchestra instrument at and it varied quite a bit based on how feasible playing one was at different ages. People normally start the clarinet at 8 or 9 if I recall correctly but people can start the violin many years earlier.

I can't remember exactly what was said but I don't think he was just talking about the double bass, and I think it's reading too much in to it to view the ages at which people normally start an instrument as evidence of what is necessary. Wind players generally start slightly later than violinists, but from what I've heard the positions are actually more competitive, so it seems pretty safe to say that the standard required isn't any less.

I guess what you're really implying is that the violin is harder than the clarinet, and so achieving that same professional standard requires an earlier start, but if that early start makes such a big difference why don't the clarinetists who started with younger squidgyer brains dominate their rivals? Their should be a clear stratification between the different levels of player and their starting ages, but there isn't.

In my opinion it's very likely that the difference in average starting age is significantly effected by social, cultural and practical factors. This is obviously just speculation, but there are many questions that come to mind: what caused them to take it up? Why on earth did they practice so hard? What age is it actually possible for a child to be able to play that? etc. For professional violinists "Because their parents made them" seems to be a pretty common answer to the first two questions, but what about the other instruments? What about the tuba? It doesn't seem at all stange that different instruments have different average starting ages that are entirely unrelated to what is required to become a professional.

P.s. My teacher never said anything about 1st desk, but we both no I'm not going to practice that hard anyway.

P.p.s. I didn't start playing at 20, the point of my anecdote was just that I was a bad player who was well past what many consider to be the critical period. I actually started double bass when I was 17 and had already been playing violin since I was 9 or 10.

No, I wasn't implying that the violin is harder to master*. I was more implying that if you start the violin at 12 you're going to be at a bigger disadvantage than someone starting the clarinet at 12 because you'll have lost more years of potential practice and training. Whether this can prevent a person finding a position in a professional orchestra is something that I don't know, but I can't see how it doesn't make life harder for them unless they spent their previous years learning a related instrument and have some transferable skills or knowledge.


*Master is a dangerous word here. For a professional absolute mastery is not as important as mastery of the pieces you need to be able to play. Instruments vary in how technically challenging the standard material is for them. Further soloists face more demands on their technical skill usually. It depends on your job and role.

[Splatted]

Okay, but I'm not really sure how that's relevant. (Possibly because it's 4am) It's easy to see how that headstart would affect your chances of getting in to a conservatoir at 18, but what I thought we were discussing is whether you could make up for that by practicing for a few more years and then tread that path as an older student.

[Boidhre]

Okay, but I'm not really sure how that's relevant. (Possibly because it's 4am) It's easy to see how that headstart would affect your chances of getting in to a conservatoir at 18, but what I thought we were discussing is whether you could make up for that by practicing for a few more years and then tread that path as an older student.

Yeah, I find it confusing too. Are we interested in someone scraping their way into a lower tier professional or semi-professional orchestra (still beyond the reach of the vast majority who pick up a violin or cello) or are we talking about in-demand concert soloists? Does this change things? Are such people separated more by raw talent than anything else?



With respect to go. It's something you really don't require any life experience (in the broad sense) to be exceptional at (a child can write a novel, but novels by children with emotional or thematic depth are rare as hens teeth), nor do you require the physical attributes of adulthood (the greater strength and stamina, it doesn't matter how gifted a 5 year old pianist is, there are pieces they simply cannot play because their arms can't reach or their hands aren't big enough to form the chords). The games of go themselves are relatively short, in the correct environment it shouldn't be hard to gain a lot of experience in the game itself, compared to many other endeavours which are trickier to get experience due to either it being rare to get a chance to do the activity (e.g actually running a marathon, there's a physical limit to how many of these you can run a year for most people and it's rather low) or the activity taking a long time to do (writing a novel for instance, you're not going to churn out several a week).

Go to me looks ideally placed for mastery by children. If you have talent and are in an environment where you can devote yourself completely to it, there isn't anything with regard your age that'll hold you back in terms of physical attributes or life experience. Mental attitude and similar may, but again environment is important here. Perhaps the answer to why go stars peak young is, similar to mathematics, it's one of the few fields where you can be brilliant from a shockingly young age.


Anyway it's late and I'm rambling too much as usual.

[billywoods]

what I thought we were discussing is whether you could make up for that by practicing for a few more years and then tread that path as an older student.

I find this a very interesting topic, but it's difficult to talk about it in any interesting way. I want to conjecture something like the following: if a child who starts playing the violin at 8 years old can join a conservatoire at 18 (I'm making these numbers up...) by practising lots, then an adult who starts playing the violin at 18 and follows the same practice routine can join a conservatoire around 28. That is, crudely, if it takes about 10000 hours of practice for an 8-year-old, it takes about 10000 hours for an 18-year-old. I may be wrong, but hey - can we even find out? Is there a statistically significant sample of people who started around 18 and were able to follow the same practice regimen that a child can? Probably not: work, study, family, lack of external pressure, lack of self-motivation, lack of confidence and lack of ambition probably reduce our sample size to a very small handful. And then we do the socially unhelpful thing of calling those people prodigies, and crushing the dreams of anyone else who wanted to follow in their footsteps.