learn to walk before one can run

Verb

learn to walk before one can run (third-person singular simple present learns to walk before one can run, present participle learning to walk before one can run, simple past and past participle learned to walk before one could run or learnt to walk before one could run)

1. (idiomatic) To 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
   • 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...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.