Practice IS very important, but having raised 3 children, and also seen numerous other relatives' children developing, there'a also no doubt in my mind that natural talent plays a BIG part in attainment, too.

Don't want to say too much about my kids, but one sailed through school and got top grades at everything, taking exams 2 years early, without doing any work (and I don't mean "apparently"!) while another struggled at school but due to working hard is now on course foa First Class degree.

Now I'm quite clumsy, and have relatively poor hand-eye coordination. I don't doubt that 10,000 hours practice would have improved my soccer skills A LOT, but even 50,000 hours practice wouldn't have got me near the skill level required for Premiership playing, whereas I'm sure some of those playing in the Premiership showed good ball control and excellent skills within a short time of first kicking a ball. Same with guitar. I've put in probably on average an hour a day practice for the last 2 1/2 years, and I'm still nowhere near as good as my nephew was within a month of him first picking up a guitar.