Your post reminded of Gladwell's piece on "Physical Genius" http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_geni

Your post reminded of Gladwell's piece on "Physical Genius" http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm From the article: What sets physical geniuses apart from other people, then, is not merely being able to do something but knowing what to do--their capacity to pick up on subtle patterns that others generally miss. This is what we mean when we say that great athletes have a "feel" for the game, or that they "see" the court or the field or the ice in a special way. Wayne Gretzky, in a 1981 game against the St. Louis Blues, stood behind the St. Louis goal, laid the puck across the blade of his stick, then bounced it off the back of the goalie in front of him and into the net. Gretzky's genius at that moment lay in seeing a scoring possibility where no one had seen one before. "People talk about skating, puck-handling, and shooting," Gretzky told an interviewer some years later, "but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be diverted, factoring in all the interruptions."