learn to walk before one can run

present singular third person learns to walk before one can run · participle present learning to walk before one can run · participle past learned to walk before one could run · past learned to walk before one could run · participle past learnt to walk before one could run · past learnt to walk before one could run · alternative know how to walk before one can run

1. idiomaticTo learn how to perform simple tasks before one can perform a more complicated task.

   Optimal performances can also be used as platforms for achieving greater things in performance later. You might think of optimal performance as learning to walk before you can run or learning the arias before the whole role or running many ten-kilometer races before you try to run a marathon.

   1998, Alma Thomas, Power Performance for Singers: Transcending the Barriers, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 29

   1 more example

   Our mathematics education —particularly our arithmetic education— began with the least important numbers and worked through the years to get us to the more important ones. I guess that follows the theory of having to learn to walk before you can run and defers to the lower capacity of the young child's mind to grasp more complex models.

   2007, David A Herzog, Math You Can Really Use-Every Day, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 1

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see learn, walk, before, run.