Practice makes perfect?

Practice makes perfect. What do you lot think?

Our P.E teacher in high school used to HATE this phrase with a passion. He used to say practice makes PERMANENT.

Meaning that you won't always get good at something just by practicing it over and over you have to practice it correctly otherwise you could end up having to unlearn something which in many cases can be harder than learning something in the first place.

This places great emphasis on getting a good trainer as a second rate one may have detrimental effects on your long term goals as a martial artist.

Has anyone experienced this?

and how will you know if your getting quality training?

Shills

IMO your playing word games and takieng an overly nuanced position on what is essentially good advice.

That you have to practice it at least somewhat correctly is a given--or should be.

But even then--to an extent--the reps MAKE skill, think of it like this, the first time you pick up a basket ball most folks don't know how to shoot a free-throw---but if you keep trying you'll eventually get better ie more accurate with the shot.

Good coaching will vastly speed the process up.

Another thing to consider is that even with good coaching, logcially you won;t be practiing new skills with much skill--at first, so in effect you'll be practicing a FLAWED skill, until it gets better.....thu practice.

As far as how one knows they are getting quailty training--good question--and a tough one as well.

If you have no expereince ot the arts then "knowing" what is quality and what is not is going to be tough to figure out.

Just because your teacher has won a lot of tounaments--for example does not mean that he/she can teach you to do the same.