Poll: How Many Hours of Practice Does it Take to Be Proficient at Freestyle Frisbee?

One of the things I love about Freestyle Frisbee is that there is no end to learning. There are literally an infinite number of tricks, skills, and combinations to be mastered. This type of continuous growth it what keeps me engaged. But I recall being a new player and feeling frustration. It seemed like the most basic skills were far out of reach. Getting that disc to stay balanced, making good throws to my friends, knowing when to try the next trick vs going for a catch, and not hitting myself in the face with the disc all seemed impossible.

I stumbled across this Ted Talk video. The speaker, Josh Kaufman, says any skill can be learned with 20 hours of practice. Certainly it takes more than 20 hours to be an expert, but Josh claims you can be proficient enough to be past the frustration phase. To prove it, he learns to play the ukulele for his talk.

Now, I didn’t log my practice time when I was becoming proficient at Freestyle but it sure seemed like more than 20 hours. Then again, I didn’t exactly follow a plan. I just grabbed a disc when the mood struck and tried whatever skill I was interested in at the time. 

This is an interesting question as we try to initiate new players into the sport. How long should they expect to work at it? The poll for this week:

How many hours of practice does it take to be proficient at freestyle Frisbee?

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