Teaching is linear, but understanding and execution aren’t

When we teach/transmit information, it’s linear. We seldom do more than one thing at a time, but doing something effectively necessitates doing many things simultaneously in a variety of contexts, which is by definition not linear, so the only really effective way to teach is to provide specific feedback while doing.

In sports, we break down something like a tennis serve or a three-pointer into smaller component parts. When we master one of these parts, it’s onto the next one until we have committed these various techniques to muscle memory. Then, we can focus on putting it all together. If something’s wrong with our technique, we need a way of identifying and fixing it. If many things are wrong, we need to prioritize what to fix before taking any action.