One way I like to explain it is through Martin M. Broadwell’s work. He was a management trainer in the 60’s. He wrote a famous article called Teaching for Learning in which he described the four stages of competence. I thought it would be fun to apply this not only to a pitcher’s experience, but also to a parent’s experience of getting his or her kid involved in pitching.

We want to reach “unconscious competence” in pitching and parenting. It’s when a skill can be performed easily without thinking about it. Here are the four phases, the first three leading up to our goal of “unconscious competence.”