This is a topic of much interest to trainers and “doers”, or at least it should be. However, I don’t often hear it talked about. Lots of chatter about the fastest way to do this or that, but very little interest in how durable a given technique might be. How long can you keep your hard-earned skills with minimal practice or even no practice? How long does it take to get them back if you start training again?
There are no easy answers to these questions and many variables will affect the outcome, but if you are interested in teaching or learning life-saving skills, you should not ignore these ideas. Not all training methods are equal. Not all techniques are equal. Unless you are able to train more or less non-stop, you need to find techniques and methods that give you a more durable product.
This idea is partly why I made the last couple of posts. I have found that my hard skills, once ingrained properly, degrade fairly slowly and return fairly quickly when worked even a little. I attribute this to years of work combined with generally useful, durable techniques and some specific training methods. Those last two parts are very important, but just as important is the first part. If you don’t do the work to get there initially, you cannot “get back” to it later. There has to be a level of ability to “get back” to, otherwise, you are constantly fighting a losing battle.
If you are willing to put in the work, and your interest is more general or practical, then a more broadly useful skillset that is durable, should be of interest to you. This is where I find techniques like the press-out shine, and we will dig a little deeper into why that is next time.