Tuesday evening musings - Learning from the master

I've always been interested in the skills development space, more specifically in the context of crafts. In my attempt to dig up more literature in that area, I came across two books. One, is 'Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford' and the other is 'The Craftsman by Richard Sennet'. Both excellent reads for those looking at understanding the virtues and value of manual work.

Getting to why I got to write this post. This morning while coaching one of my students, a sharp boy I must say, asked me very specific trade execution related questions and I was pleasantly surprised and glad that he did. He was one of the first among perhaps, 50 odd people who I have coached, to ask such questions. That's when I was reminded of what Sennet says in the book while describing how people learnt in Antonio Stradivari's workshop.

    Page 78, The Craftsmen

Scalping as a Skill | How to Practice Deliberately

If you look at learning to Scalp - It has three components to it - Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. While Knowledge is something which is relatively easy to pick up, and may not take much time, its the other two components that take more time. Like any other skill, practice is an important component of it. You need to trade for a long period of time to gain expertise. 

One of the reasons why "Scalping" experience is preferred in several Prop Desks, Arcades and Trading Desks, is because Scalping is one way of accelerating the learning cycle by trading more. Yes it may seem counter intuitive to some, but think about it. The act of identifying levels and punching in orders, multiple orders sometimes, modifying them, and doing all this in an emotionally charged environment, not easy. Scalping helps you desensitize yourself from these emotional highs and lows as you would get to expose yourself to it several times in a day. This is the point where practice starts influencing your personality and attitude. 

I don't know of any successful trader who has not been though this cycle.  

But more importantly one has to structure ones practice. This video helps us understand the idea of deliberate practice better. Do watch it till the end, almost everything shared in the video is applicable to the world of trading and scalping.