What are the Eight Stages?

There is a progression to mastery, it is not something we achieve instantaneously.  It takes mental and physical work to achieve mastery.  How much should solely depend on our current abilities and the difficulty of what we endeavour to master.  All too often it takes longer due to a lack of understanding on what we should master and how best to master it.  There is little doubt that something by the time we have achieved mastery, we have learned the skill, as well as having put it into many, many times.

The LMA philosophy believes that there are 8 distinctive stages that one must pass through to achieve mastery.  These distinctions are important as:

1. If followed in order, they define the most efficient path to mastery
2. They allow the student to focus on specific training activities to achieve that stage effectively

A lexicon was needed to label and describe these 8 stages.  Terms such as "desire", "want", "need", "know", "understand", "learn", "gain", "practice", "apply", "master", "confidence" and "certainty" have similarities; be they based on their common use or dictionary definition.  Discrete meaning have been given to each of these terms and those terms consistently used to differentiate the concepts described each stage.