Before we start talking about driving technique, we need to align our expectations. Race car driving is an incredibly complex skill, and most of it happens automatically. Think of all the elements involved in just one corner: we do all of this and much more, sometimes in just three seconds, two seconds, or even one second. Obviously, it's impossible to consciously think about all these things at the same time. You're probably thinking about one or two concepts, but that's it. During the race, sometimes you don't think about any of them because we do all of it automatically.

Instead of thinking about each individual element, we can think about only a few goals to confine these concepts and techniques. Use these lessons as tools that we will use to achieve a goal. The more we simplify the objectives, the easier it will be for us to properly create a set of skills that will serve that objective. After practicing each of the lessons separately, you're going to be able to kind of forget about them and just think about driving as fast as you can. Because if you do it properly, you're going to see that you will still be able to do the new techniques even without thinking about them. That's the magic of muscle memory.

Understanding Frustration in Learning

But it's not that easy. Frustration will happen when you struggle to apply or feel a new technique. It might happen because of two reasons:

• Problem one: You didn't understand the concept or the theory behind it enough to convert it into a physical feeling in your driving inputs. This might happen and it might take some time for you to really click and get the idea.

• Problem two: You understand the theory, but you struggle to apply it while driving because you don't have the muscular sensitivity, the precision to do it. This will definitely happen because it is the way it works for us.

Example: Learning Trail Braking

I remember learning trail braking for the first time. Before that, I was able to break 100%, 0%, 100%, 0%. When I learned that some drivers were breaking 50%, 25%, 10%, 1%, I thought I was never going to be able to do it. But I kept trying and trying and trying to a point where I developed the muscular sensitivity to control the brake release with precision. And it took me months. And it will take you weeks or months if you're a beginner. Well, in this case, it will take a lot less for you than for other drivers that are not taking this course because I know exactly how to help you develop these techniques in a more effective way.

The Toothbrush Analogy

I'm going to give you a very simple example. If you brush your teeth every day with your right hand, try doing it just once with your left hand the next time. You'll see that you don't have the precision to do it comfortably. It's going to feel very weird. But if you keep trying for a week or two, you'll see that you will get used to it. And you're going to naturally learn how to control your muscles to hold toothbrush and all the movements that you have to do. And these same movements that felt terrible on the first day will actually feel completely natural after to the point you're going to be able to do it while doing other things.

Embracing Discomfort

This is the approach that I really want you to have throughout the entire course. You have to chase the uncomfortable feelings because if you're trying something new, it's going to feel weird. It's going to feel wrong initially. But I want you to insist and to let it sink and to give time to it. Allow some time for your muscles to adapt whenever you try to change some posture, whenever you try a different line or a different braking approach. Because if you change just one thing, everything else gets a little bit all over the place and you're going to need some time to adapt.

So what I'm telling you right now is you need patience and you need to embrace the weird feelings initially when you're trying something new until you get used to it. And then you're going to be able to judge it. That is very important because if you just try a new technique once and it doesn't work and you give up, that's a big problem because it's probably not going to work the first time. But it's going to start working after you get used to it and after you accommodate all the other techniques around the new concept of the new technique that you're trying.

A Driving Secret

Here's a driving secret: When changing one concept, you're going to have to re-accommodate everything else for that new concept to work. For example, if you change the braking approach to a corner and realize that it does not work with that line, so you have to change it, or maybe you're trying more trail braking, but you need to steer less to make that work, etc. This is very important because it's very common to change one thing and then think, "Oh, it doesn't work," and then you give up on it. When in reality, it could have been the right change, but you just needed some time to adapt to it.

So remember, expect to be out of your comfort zone during the entire course. Every lesson will be a new challenge and it's not going to be easier than the previous lesson. Never forget this very important phrase: Hitting the limit of your knowledge should be a day-to-day experience.

The Learning Process

Try to digest as much as you can from each lesson. We should spend 5% of the time learning new things and the remaining 95% of the time internalizing them into our subconscious driving. In other words, you learn something new and then you practice until you can do it without even thinking about it. Then you forget it and then move to the next layer. In the end, when racing with others dealing with traffic avoiding incidents, defending and attacking, you're going to be doing all these little things automatically, I promise.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Now, if you have my book, you already know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is. It's a correlation between competence and confidence. So basically, the more you know about a topic, the more you're going to have confidence, but not in a linear way. Initially, you know nothing and you think that you're going to be good. You have a lot of confidence, a lot of ego. And then you get right here in the peak of Mount Stupid.

What is it? You think you're great and let you know everything because you still don't know the depth or how deep the sea is in terms of technique and things that you still need to learn about a topic. This can be applied to absolutely anything, not only for racing, but for music, for anything that requires learning basically.

You are probably around this area here. I'm going to say you're more or less here because if you are on peak of Mount Stupid, you think you know everything, so you're not going to buy my course. So if you bought my course, you realized that sea is bigger, the sea is deeper, and that there's a lot of stuff to learn and you want to learn from someone who is more or less, say, around here. So this means you are very quickly going to get more or less right here. So take your time, enjoy the ride up. And if you think you're all the way down here on the Valley of Despair, don't worry because this is a very necessary process of your technique development. I've been there, everyone's been there. We always have to do this big climb, realizing that we're not good enough, that there's more to learn and that is the first step of developing a very, very good technique.

If you want, something fun to do is to actually try to point where you are, take a screenshot of this, write down where you think you are, put the date and save that image and then check that after a year or two years and try to compare where you think you are after. It helps us realize how much we've improved over the months. After some time, if you compare it, share it with us, how your progress has been going before the course, after the course, or just like over your career, how true that graph was or not.

The Ebbinghaus Learning Curve

Another very important graph that is very useful for you to make sure that you learn absolutely everything and that you really don't leave any time on the table. This is called the Ebbinghaus Learning Curve. Let's say you learn things for the first time. After the very first time you're exposed to a new concept, you're going to forget it very quickly. So if you just know about something for the first time and you don't think about it anymore and you're not exposed to it again, you just lose that knowledge very quickly.

But after some time, if you're re-exposed to that, the second time, you're not going to forget as much. You see, here in one day, we went from 100% to 80% memory retention. But if you're re-exposed to it, on the second time, you went only from 100% all the way to around 90% here. And then the more you're exposed to it, the less you forget about it. For you to really contain a new memory or a new technique and you really learn it and you don't forget about it anymore, you have to be exposed to it at least a few times and try it again and again and again and make sure you have sleep in between these moments.

So you take the course, first time, if you just do a first binge, that's it right here. You're going to forget a lot more. But if you watch it again or if you take notes and you take the time to be really exposed to all these concepts and you go there and you try and you write it down, just like digest it very well, then your retention is going to be much better and you're going to pretty much, I mean, ideally you want to keep that at 100% so you need to practice and practice and practice more and more and more. So don't take this course just once. Please, you spent a lot of money on this course, so make sure you get the best out of it.

The Neuroscience of Frustration

This moment here, when you lose it, if you don't go there and learn again, you're going to be frustrated and frustration is going to happen. It has to happen and let me show you why. I'm going to read this with you because it's very important, so don't miss this:

Consider the frustration that comes from being bad at something. The feeling is one of stalled progress or plateauing and simmering anger, but it's actually a sign that you're moving in the right direction. In fact, that frustration level is increasing the presence in your system of norepinephrine whose main function is to prime the brain for learning. You need to feel this frustration in order to produce this neurochemical and you need this neurochemical in order for learning to take place.

What this guy is saying is that you literally need to feel frustrated to improve your learning. You have to try it. You're going to fail and you're going to feel bad and that feeling is going to release something here that's going to make you more prone to learning and to actually succeed after. That's why I'm saying repetition, trial and error, giving time for things to work is going to be the motto and the way you're going to get the best out of this course.