Originally Posted by
Tussock
I would find the old guy who who has ready every book and forum on the planet, and has been shooting pistols for 50 years. Or just read the books myself.
If you don't know anything, the doing is pretty irrelevant. Its called being a moron. The world is full of morons doing things. Morons do heaps of stuff. Some people who know nothing, have been doing things for years. Arguably, you really only get better at being ignorant.
A guy reads and studies and practices something for 50 years. What is the natural next step? Write a book. If you can read and remember the contents, you have the distilled version of his 50 years of experience. A far far better starting point for your own experience.
You can teach yourself anything if you can read well. I taught myself to ski from online manuals. I read manuals all night Friday, went out Saturday and everyone said I was a natural. I was not. Experts allowed me to skip a whole bunch of experience by handing me theirs. I did the same thing with waterskiing.