Why should prescribing practice be included in every lesson?

• A. It reduces lesson time
• B. It adds a dimension because motor learning requires practice
• C. It is only for beginners
• D. It distracts from technique

Answer: (B)

Structured, purposeful practice is essential to motor learning. When you prescribe practice in every lesson, you’re designing learning tasks that target specific goals, provide timely feedback, and gradually increase difficulty. This turns a single technique into durable skill by reinforcing correct movements, decision-making, and consistency under realistic conditions. Simply teaching the mechanics without planned practice can leave the skill to chance; deliberate practice ensures the learner repeats the right patterns, builds confidence, and can transfer those improvements to real play.

The other options miss this point. Reducing lesson time isn’t the goal of practice design, and practice should sometimes extend learning, not shorten it. It isn’t only for beginners, as all players benefit from structured practice. And rather than distracting from technique, deliberate practice integrates technique with purposeful drills and criteria for improvement.