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There is a reason that I never take corner kicks in soccer games. I can play a nice lofted ball right atop a forward's head for her to complete a header goal day in and day out...in practice. Once it comes to a game setting, however, my nerves start to fire, I become anxious, and I choke on every corner kick. I kicked the ball out of bounds one time and it was all mentally downhill from there.  I had always wondered what caused me to mess this up every time; I can now blame my brain for switching this skill from my procedural memory to my declarative memory. Procedural memory handles how to perform a skill as declarative memory concentrates on the explanation of how to do so. A movement that has been engrained in my procedural memory for so long now tries to make its way into my declarative memory as if I have to tweak my procedure of the skill, which I clearly don't have to if I can perform it perfectly in practice. Now that I know this, I could take the information I have learned from this class and apply it so that maybe I won't "choke" on anymore corner kicks...or I could just play it safe and ride the bench.

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Throughout the years, I have always questioned and doubted the various teaching techniques of different soccer coaches. From countless hours of conditioning to practice drills where we picked up the ball with our hands...yes, our hands; I've done it all. One drill that always made sense to me and that improved my shooting technique and accuracy is a drill called "Around the Box". In this drill, you have to shoot the ball into the goal from multiple positions around the eighteen-box and whoever can make it around the box first is the winner. Although this drill becomes tedious, variability of practice really helped my accuracy and ability to shoot from any angle and distance on the field no matter where the ball might be in a game situation. According to the schema theory, even if I hadn't shot the ball from one specific distance/angle before, I would be able to successfully shoot from there since I have shot at multiple distances/angles around that spot. This drill immensely improved my shooting accuracy throughout my club and high school soccer careers.

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Physical Therapy to Pilates     CORE-lation

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Physical Therapy to Pilates     CORE-lation

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Entering college was the first time in my life that I was not a student-athlete. Although I enjoyed lifting weights as means of working out, I felt the desire to take on a new hobby that involved physical activity. I took the course Pilates Mat I and fell in love instantly! Moreover, the mind to muscle connection that I learned in Pilates has aided me immensely in my internship underneath a Doctor of Physical Therapy this summer. In class though, I noticed that I could master some of the core exercises a little quicker than some of the other students. By no means was I the most athletic person in the class, but when my teacher asked me if I had done Pilates in the past, I replied that I had not and attributed my quick learning to all of the core exercises that I did during physical therapy rehabilitation for my ACL tears. This makes sense due to positive transfer, which is defined as the beneficial effect of a previous experience on learning or performance of another skill. The strength training exercises such as planks, stability crunches, and other core exercises work the same muscles and have similar components as Pilates Mat exercises like Teaser, Hip Circles, and Rolling Like a Ball. Although this transfer of learning gave me a head start, I still have a lot to learn and accomplish in the Pilates world!

I'm also a sucker for a good pun.

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We are all born with different genetic traits. Don't let this picture fool you! Although I may look 7 feet tall in the photo below, this 5 foot point guard is standing on a bench. As a person only measuring up to 60 inches tall, I tried to beat the odds, go against the system, and be a basketball player; and it worked...for a while. Then came my freshman year of high school where everyone was bigger, taller, and stronger than me. No matter how much I tried, it was almost impossible for me to get a shot off without the possibility of some giant slamming the ball back in my face. After a rough season of realizing my limitations, I hung up the jersey for good, claiming that I "wanted to focus on soccer", which was partially true. Even though certain traits such as height can give us advantages, they can also give us limitations. Abilities are defined as general traits or capacities of an individual that is determinant of a person's achievement potential for the performance of specific skills. Unfortunately, to some extent, my height limits my abilities to be a great D1 basketball player. But how many professional basketball players can say that they can dribble through someone else's legs? Probably not many!

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Believe it or not, I did not master Bach's and Mozart's most difficult piano pieces in the seventh grade in one sitting...well, maybe that's because I didn't master them at all, but that's besides the point! All throughout my piano playing endeavors, my teacher would strategically break up my pieces that I had to learn using part-practice. Part-practice strategies require the individual to practice individual components of the skill and then slowly joining those components together once they have been mastered separately.  In piano, I would commonly practice my right hand and left hand separately.  Once those parts were mastered, I would attempt to play both hands at the same time. I found this strategy more successful than whole-practice because I could concentrate on fewer components.  I found more satisfaction in this, even though I quit after five years because I only liked to perform in the recitals!

Pictured below is a hippo playing the piano one hand at a time. Hippos are my favorite animal.

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Lunging towards the ball, my knee caved in, a cracking sound filled my ears, and immediate pain flooded towards my knee as I collapsed onto the turf. My worst nightmare had come true; I had torn my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)... again. Immediately, I knew what I had done to myself. There was pain and swelling in my knee, I could not fully flex or extend it, and my knee would give way underneath me if I tried to walk. These are all signals from my proprioceptors, specifically my joint receptors, that something was wrong. I was devastated, but also determined to get back on the field in the spring for my senior season. Despite this setback, I ended up recovering in 5 months after surgery and playing for half of my senior soccer season! And I have not had knee problems since! *Knock on wood*

Pictured below is my knee the day after my reconstruction surgery.

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My mother claims that I deserve to be on the Ellen Show for all of the funny videos and pictures that are documented from my wisdom teeth surgery. As you can tell from this beautiful picture of us, I wasn't exactly feeling like myself. My wisdom teeth surgery may have been all fun and games for my family and friends, but it turned out to be quite dangerous for me! During my surgery and for a while after, the medicine that I was given must have blocked my cutaneous receptors, which sense light, touch, and pressure located within the skin. Because these mechanoreceptors were blocked, I ended up biting through my lip and making myself bleed without even feeling any pain. However, once the medicine wore off, I definitely felt it the next morning... along with the embarrassment from witnessing the videos of my behavior from the previous day. Regardless, I still think that I deserve to be on the Ellen Show.

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In the most nerve-racking moments of a soccer game, I would have to step up to the ball, wait for the whistle to blow as everyone's eyes were on me, and try to blast the ball into the back of the net so that the goalie couldn't stop it. However, the one person that would be more nervous than me would be (besides my mom) the goalie.  I had never really thought about how nervous a goalie would be in a penalty shot situation as they try to guess/anticipate where I will kick the ball. Spacial anticipation is defined as predicting where an event will occur or what type of event. The ball willl either be kicked to the left or the right, so the goalie must anticipate which way using cues from the shooter such as body positon and eye contact. As a shooter, in an attempt to confuse the goalie's anticipation, I would purposely look at the opposite corner of net that I was shooting at, hoping that her instincts would cause her to dive the wrong way. A lot of the time that would do the trick, but other times, my body position would be too obvious to fool them.

I'm a sucker for a good meme.