In a chapter in Baseball 100 about Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh, Joe Posnanski compares baseball training in Japan to spring training in the United States.

Training is much more gruelling in Japan apparently. He explains how, culturally, the sport is just viewed differently there.

When American manager Trey Hillman managed a Japanese team and tried to make some training sessions less intense, in an apparent effort to do the players a favour, the players weren’t happy about it. For them, there was honour in putting in an extreme level of hard work that was just part of their sport.

Got me thinking about my approach to studying web development. Web development training, if you like.

I’m often banging my head against a wall trying to understand new things. It’s tempting to look for shortcuts, AI assistance and other ways just to speed things up.

I hope that putting in the time and work to more fully learn and understand things will help me build a solid foundation on my path to digital craftsmanship. Totally get that finding efficiencies will be key later down the road, but I’ve got a few muscles to build first.