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There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of the

by soniman 10y ago

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of the problem is that the kick serve requires counterintuitively hitting the ball to the sky and letting gravity and spin pull it down to earth. Adults can't handle the idea of hitting up, it just seems wrong. I learned kick serves as a kid and it's like riding a bicycle, I never forgot though I stopped playing tennis for ten years. Also, some strokes decline with age. Federer's backhand is now much better than when he was in his physical peak at 26, though his forehand is probably not as good; the same is true of nearly all players, the backhand improves but the forehand declines. The more instinctive a shot is, the harder it is to maintain and learn as you get older.

hvidgaard 10y ago
There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.
- jw1224 10y ago
  I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up. There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1]. A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few feet at a time before falling off. Finally, after 8 months of consistent practice, he could ride it relatively well. When he put his 6-year-old son on the bike (who'd been riding a normal bicycle for 3 years), he had it mastered just 2 weeks later. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
  - animal531 10y ago
    I'm with you. But also from that video is the correlation where the son has only been riding for 3 years whereas the guy has been riding for e.g. 30 years. I'm interested in what would the difference be for them to alter a learned skill if they'd been practicing for the same amount of time (so that it's less set in stone)? I'm certain his son would have still been an order of magnitude or 2 faster, but probably quite a bit less than the original number. I remember a few years ago I learned that I had been tying my shoes wrong my whole life (tying a granny knot instead), so my shoelaces would come loose at least once per day. It took me a few weeks of practice to manually think through the hand movements to make the new know before my brain got used to just doing it without thinking about it. I'd imagine that as a child it should have been at least 10x easier to re-learn.
  - dth_omn_str 10y ago
    He does say in the video that wasn't trying to actively learn to ride it. Where as the guy in this video [1] claims it only took him 1 h 29 min. You could probably argue that his age might have helped, but it could also be equally true that he used better methods of practice to achieve that goal. Destin also admits "It took me 8 months to learn how to do this, but I was only picking up the bike and running to the end of the driveway and back every day. I wasn't "ACTIVELY" trying to learn. Meaning... I wasn't struggling and trying to make my brain learn. I simply got on the bike every day, tried to operate it to the end of the driveway, turned around and tried to operate it back. The goal was to understand how my brain figured things out on its own, without trying to force it to. Many people have built bikes like this and figured it out in much less than 1 day by staying on the bike until they were able to master it. I had no timelines, and was using this as an exploratory activity to learn how I learn." [1]https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk
    - hvidgaard 10y ago
      With that in mind I wouldn't be surprised if he could learn it in a few hours if he really put effort into it.
    - jw1224 10y ago
- Starwatcher2001 10y ago
  "The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not." Perhaps not lose entirely, but certainly age can dramatically reduce the ability to learn certain things. This (rather long) article goes into detail: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947444/ The section marked "Language Exhibits a “Critical Period” for Learning" is maybe the most relevant. However, the article was written in 2010, and may be out of date. Understanding the brain's mechanisms and plasticity has advanced significantly over the last few years.

by soniman 10y ago

hvidgaard 10y ago

There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.

jw1224 10y ago
I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up. There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1]. A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few feet at a time before falling off. Finally, after 8 months of consistent practice, he could ride it relatively well. When he put his 6-year-old son on the bike (who'd been riding a normal bicycle for 3 years), he had it mastered just 2 weeks later. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
- animal531 10y ago
  I'm with you. But also from that video is the correlation where the son has only been riding for 3 years whereas the guy has been riding for e.g. 30 years. I'm interested in what would the difference be for them to alter a learned skill if they'd been practicing for the same amount of time (so that it's less set in stone)? I'm certain his son would have still been an order of magnitude or 2 faster, but probably quite a bit less than the original number. I remember a few years ago I learned that I had been tying my shoes wrong my whole life (tying a granny knot instead), so my shoelaces would come loose at least once per day. It took me a few weeks of practice to manually think through the hand movements to make the new know before my brain got used to just doing it without thinking about it. I'd imagine that as a child it should have been at least 10x easier to re-learn.
- dth_omn_str 10y ago
  He does say in the video that wasn't trying to actively learn to ride it. Where as the guy in this video [1] claims it only took him 1 h 29 min. You could probably argue that his age might have helped, but it could also be equally true that he used better methods of practice to achieve that goal. Destin also admits "It took me 8 months to learn how to do this, but I was only picking up the bike and running to the end of the driveway and back every day. I wasn't "ACTIVELY" trying to learn. Meaning... I wasn't struggling and trying to make my brain learn. I simply got on the bike every day, tried to operate it to the end of the driveway, turned around and tried to operate it back. The goal was to understand how my brain figured things out on its own, without trying to force it to. Many people have built bikes like this and figured it out in much less than 1 day by staying on the bike until they were able to master it. I had no timelines, and was using this as an exploratory activity to learn how I learn." [1]https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk
  - hvidgaard 10y ago
    With that in mind I wouldn't be surprised if he could learn it in a few hours if he really put effort into it.
  - jw1224 10y ago
Starwatcher2001 10y ago
"The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not." Perhaps not lose entirely, but certainly age can dramatically reduce the ability to learn certain things. This (rather long) article goes into detail: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947444/ The section marked "Language Exhibits a “Critical Period” for Learning" is maybe the most relevant. However, the article was written in 2010, and may be out of date. Understanding the brain's mechanisms and plasticity has advanced significantly over the last few years.