the Big Buddy sessions: mastery through plateaux
progress towards genuine Show-caliber mastery is slow, frustrating. Humbling. A question of less talent than temperament. [...] you proceed toward mastery through a series of plateaus [...] the only way to get off one of the plateaus and climb up to the next one up ahead is with a whole lot of frustrating mindless repetitive practice and patience and hanging in there. [...] With an X. Plateaux.
Context
Wayne's doctrine, relayed by Chu: Show-caliber mastery is "a question of less talent than temperament," approached "through a series of plateaus" where radical improvement stalls and the only exit is "frustrating mindless repetitive practice and patience and hanging in there." Wayne even corrects the spelling — "Plateaux. With an X." This is the anthology's core developmental model of the athletic body, the slow humbling slog that separates the ones who make it from the three failure-types that follow.