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Martial Arts - Practice Variability and Contextual Interference

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Martial Arts - Practice Variability and Contextual Interference

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Another passion of mine is martial arts. This is the latest sport and motor skill that I have been working on learning, and knowledge of practice variability and contextual interference has been very helpful, and I will definitely continue to practice with as much contextual interference that I can. Practice variability is defined as the variety of movement and complex characteristics a person experiences while practicing a skill. In random practice, there is higher contextual interference, meaning there are more things that a person has to think about with each trial. A person has to come up with new rules, schemas, and action plans with every trial when using a randomly sequenced practice. A way that I can apply this to martial arts could be to not throw the same strike twice in a row, and switch stances often. To incorporate this into my training, when I am working on striking on a heavy bag, I could start in a right sided stance, throw a low kick, a punch combination, a high kick, then switch stances and create any new sequence of strikes. Then switch back and do a new random sequence from a left sided stance.

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Football and Throwing - Augmented Feedback

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Football and Throwing - Augmented Feedback

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Throughout my athletic career, I have had many coaches that have helped me develop and improve my skills through augmented feedback. In my high school football career, we would watch film of our own practices, previous games, and film of our upcoming opponent in order to prepare for games against them. Using video footage is a form of augmented feedback. Augmented feedback is any information provided that is supplemental and augments inherent feedback you would get from naturally performing the skill. I also used augmented feedback in throwing by watching video of myself, and having my coach break down what I am doing correctly and incorrectly. Augmented feedback is not essential in the case of football or throwing, however it greatly enhances skill acquisition by being able to see what you are doing as you are performing the skill, so you can see exactly what you are doing right, and more importantly, what exactly you are doing wrong so that you are able to make changes or improvements.

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When I was in middle school and high school, I learned the discus and rotational shot put techniques. If you look at the form for these two throws, they look similar in a lot of ways. There is a lot of positive transfer between the positions of both techniques, especially for a beginner. According to the Identical Elements Theory, the more elements that are consistent between skills, the more positive transfer there will be with regard to skill acquisition. Specifically, the Identical Elements Theory suggests that the forces and coordination patterns are the most important factor in how much transfer there will be between two motor skills. In the case of rotational shot put and discus, there is a lot of the same forces in the way you move through the throw, from shifting your weight over your sweep leg, to catching the implement back in the middle of the ring and setting up a strong power position, to creating maximal force for the delivery of the throw. Another reason for there being a lot of positive transfer between these throws is the Transfer-appropriate processing theory. This theory suggests that the more similarities in the cognitive processing of two skills yields higher transfer between the two skills. The cognitive processing of the discus and shot put throws are very similar, which also creates a lot of transfer between these two skills. The level of transfer between the shot put and discus throw is a great benefit for new throwers and is a reason why I felt learning shot put and discus to be much easier than learning a completely different movement like the hammer throw.

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Coming into college as a thrower (Track and Field), I had the pretty daunting task of learning an entirely new throw – the hammer throw, as it is not allowed at the high school level in the state of Wisconsin. I am now 3 years into the learning process, and I think it has been a great firsthand application of the Fitts and Posner Three-Stage Model of motor learning. I vividly remember the cognitive stage of learning the hammer throw. Trying to visualize each throw, remembering each of pieces of the whole movement, and using my coaches cues and trying to make corrections. I would say the longest portion of my learning was spent in the associative stage of learning, as I started to gain the ability to detect my own errors through my proprioception, timing and rhythm, then finally just recently I would say I am entering the autonomous stage of learning, as after I approach 3 years working on this motor skill, I can detect specific errors using the proprioceptive feedback, and the throw feels automatic. Throughout these 3 stages I have experienced my learning shift from more of a cognitive and visually focused form of learning and feedback, to a tactile and proprioceptive understanding of the motor skill.