500 Words a Week - What can S&C learn from Leonardo Da Vinci?

What Leonardo is known for (besides the obvious) is being relentlessly curious. He would engross himself in topics wide ranging. He would consult with many knowledgeable people in their own respective fields to further develop his own knowledge. His curiosity did not just stop at that which he was most famous for (painting), he was endlessly curious about every topic he encountered. In S&C we can get too focused and narrowed in on particular topics at times. We are also guilty of just talking to other S&C coaches consistently, rather than looking to expand our horizon and learn from/ talk to people from other fields. When I first read about the iterative process Mladen Jovanovic describes in his book, I was amazed by it. I somehow brought the topic up to my girlfriend who proceeded to look at me like I’d only now realized that sliced bread was a thing. The iterative process has long been around in other disciplines such as design and tech. Mladen is a wonderful example of how to apply knowledge from other disciplines to S&C, something we should all strive to do.

Another thing we can learn from Leonardo was the emphasis he placed on observation, this is recognizable through his paintings and sketches, the level of detail in which is incredible. Whenever I hear amazing coaches talk or coach, like Dan Pfaff, I’m amazed about how they can see minute details about technique and body alignment. From his observation he can provide perfect cues to fix it, recommendations for training or see issues present within certain musculature. That level of observation is incredible. Leonardo’s method for observing a scene or an object consisted of looking carefully and separately at each detail. He compared this to looking at a page of a book, which is meaningless if looked at as a whole and instead needs to be looked at word by word. “If you wish to have a sound knowledge of the forms of objects, begin with the details of them, and do not go on to the second step until you have the first well fixed in memory.”

Lastly, we should look to apply the same dialogue between experience and theory in which Leonardo applied. “Those who are in love with practice without theoretical knowledge are like the sailor who goes onto a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whither he is going”. Similar to the training process, without a combination of practical experience and theory, we will be lost at sea. Like Leonardo, we should endeavour “to satisfy you partly with theory and partly with practice, sometimes showing effects from causes, sometimes affirming principles with experiments.”

I shall close with a quote from Walter Isaacson’s book on Leonardo (from which everything above is taken):

“But his uncanny abilities to engage in the dialogue between experience and theory made him a prime example of how acute observations, fanatic curiosity, experimental testing, a willingness to question dogma and the ability to discern patterns across disciplines can lead to great leaps in human understanding.”