7 ms·
After reading about half of this article, I have two major thoughts: 1. It's interesting that a Japanese scientist would hypothesize that a high-performing ath
by ddxxdd 7y ago
After reading about half of this article, I have two major thoughts:
1. It's interesting that a Japanese scientist would hypothesize that a high-performing athlete would be considered an "intellectual", since the Japanese word for "genius" can describe highly talented athletes as well as intelligent nerds. Sapir–Whorf in action?
2. I've seen strong evidence that "overthinking" athletic performance is negative; taking brainpower away from the subconscious and placing it in the frontal lobe is empirically proven to cause basketball players to miss shots and hurdlers to trip and fall.
- cerebellums 7y agoSo, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the very premise of motor skill coordination resides in the cerebellum, and is not cerebral. This means that training muscle memory for autopilot and cruise control is about conditioning the cerebellum with training. In addition to other involuntary actions like sneezing reflexes, smooth muscle peristalisis and heart/lung functions, other voluntary functions like touch typing, hand writing and walking up and down stairs, walking in general, riding a bike, swimming the doggy paddle and all the other aspects of memorized, or repetitive movement, both fine and gross, get recorded into the cerebellum, in both the short term and for the long term. This is why people can be born without one, but it's a severe impairment. I could be slightly wrong in how I'm relating the principles here, but I think that just about sums it up.
- n4r9 7y agoIn response to 2, the article is talking about (and conflating somewhat) different types of thinking, not just actively thinking about movement in the moment of execution. I can pick out at least three types: - Planning training schedules; - Self-teaching whilst practicing; - Thinking on one's feet during actual performance.
- dorfsmay 7y agoOver thinking, or even just thinking before I learn with my body has always given me problems with physical activity, because I tend to create a bad mental model that I have to unlearn. This has slowed me down the most trying to learn how to fly gliders, and skiing. One thing I've noticed is that people like myself explain physical activities with words, while people who don't have this issue explain by moving their hands and bodies.