In reality, it’s all about repetition. But that’s when the learning happens. You try to repeat it, and each time you notice small variations in how the clay is behaving, where your hands are, how long you’re taking. And with repetition, what was once a struggle to accomplish becomes automatic, so you can focus less on how to not get into trouble at the wheel, and more on actually making decisions about the form you want.
Repetition also allows you to diagnose problems more easily. If you’re making the same shape multiple times, and one of them collapses, you know why. You probably pressed too hard, or didn’t center it properly. Over time, you develop an innate sense of what’s going wrong as soon as you begin to have the problem, and you can fix it then. This will help you become more confident. And confidence is important.
You also want to avoid judging your attempts at first. When you first attempt a shape, it won’t be perfect, so avoid expecting it to be. Instead, repeat the shape, and you will find yourself learning from it each time. With each iteration, you learn a little bit more about handling the clay, or how to use your tools, or how to position your body. And slowly, you’ll incorporate these things into your practice.
When you repeat the same actions, your body will adapt to do them more efficiently. Your hands will use less unnecessary motion, your posture will improve, and you will learn to relax your muscles when you aren’t using them. You can’t force these things to happen, but they will happen if you repeat the same actions over and over again. The wheel will become second nature, and will respond predictably to your movements. And you’ll start to feel a sense of flow when you throw, which isn’t about spontaneity and improvisation, but about doing the same motions that you know well.
Repetition allows you to reliably reproduce a form, which gives you the ability to make intentional decisions about it. When you can consistently reproduce a form, you can make variations on it. Until then, any changes you make are just as likely to be steps backwards as steps forward. In other words, repetition doesn’t stifle your creativity, it enables it.