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My first fishing pole was a little pink barbie pole. As a family we would take trips up to Minocqua, WI and hang out on the lake fishing during the day followed by campfires around the cabin at night. When I was first learning how to fish my dad would go through the steps of putting on the bobber, followed by the worm. He would tell me what he was doing until I started to pick up on how to do it myself. When I moved a step up from the barbie pole, I would have to think about all the steps to catch the fish. This included putting on a lure, how to cast the pole, real in the fish, jig the line, etc. After years of practice I wash catching more fish (and BIGGER fish). I could recognize when I made a good verses a bad cast. For the past few years now my brother, dad and I have drove up to Canada and spent the week at Lake of the Woods. Now when I fish, I don't have to focus much attention on my cast, or jigging. I can have conversations and be lookin the other direction. Other stimuli going on around me do not distract me from what I am doing. The process of learning how to fish for me can be understood by Fitts and Posner's Three Stage Model. When I first was learning, I was in the cognitive stage. My gains were dramatic and large, and I was thinking and problem solving each step of the way. When I started to establish a motor pattern, I was moving into the associative stage. I was figuring out the best strategy to cast, and get the lure into the water without hooking anyone (which only happened a few times). My casts were becoming more consistent, but my improvements started to slow down. Now when I fish, I am starting to move into the autonomous stage. Not much with casting, but more so jigging I do not need to focus on what I am doing anymore. I can carry on those conversations, and process information from other aspects of the task such as the tension in the line and what it means.
The picture below was from 2 years ago when I caught my first Muskey in Canada. My dad was a pretty excited teacher!

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I was always a dare devil child climbing trees, jumping off my top bunk of the bed, trying to chase the chickens at home. With that being said, I was also more likely to come crying to mom with an injury. Not once, not twice, but three times I broke my right ankle. By that point, I was a pro at managing what other ways I could get around everyday tasks without using my right foot. I was capable of still completing certain tasks due to Motor Equivalence. Motor Equivalence is the capability of the motor control system that enables a person to achieve an action goal in a variety of situations and conditions. To open a door I couldn't take my hand off of my crutch, otherwise it would fall out from beneath my arm. Therefore, I would use my crutch to help probe, and swing the door open. When I switched out the cast and crutches to a boot instead, my ankle was immobilized. However, I was still able to walk on that leg due to a different degree of freedom taking over to produce the movement.
Yeah, it really wasn't fun having a broken bone, but it rocked when my 3rd grade crush carried my books to class for me ;)

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Growing up on a farm I experienced lots of fun things. As a 12 year old, my dad was teaching me to lead a steer and back a ginormous combine into the barn. Additionally, I would help out when it came time to plant the crops. My brother and I would trade off driving the ranger to pick up rocks out of the field and driving the tractor with a trailer full of hay bales down the road. For me, when I finally turned 16 and was time to learn how to drive a car, it was no big deal. I already understood how to make a "y" turn, and use my rear view mirror to back up. This was the result of transfer of learning. Positive transfer, the beneficial effect of pervious experience on learning or performance, took place. All of the skills I learned from driving the gator, the tractor and the combine, transferred to driving a car. Without the prior experience, I most likely would not have been as successful at driving. The positive transfer occurred because of the Identical Elements Theory (both skills of driving other motor vehicles and a car shared similarity of skill and context components) and the Transfer-Appropriate Processing Theory (both required the same type of information processing).

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I started playing softball when I was 5 years old. My hometown was known for our outstanding program, going to state practically every other year. During that time of the year, there would be a lot of pressure on me from the fans, coaches, and teammates to perform well in order to make it to the championship game. Somewhere along that line I got inside my head. I was so nervous to make a mistake that I basically forgot how to throw the ball. My position was catcher and so after every pitch I would have to throw the ball back to the pitcher. I was terrified I was going to overthrow the ball, so my throws back to the pitcher were just barely making it to her. In order to correct this, in my mind I would use imagery to enhance consolidation. When I was just learning to throw a softball, my coach would tell me that when you extend your hand back to throw, pretend you are marking a chalkboard with chalk. This increased the movement's meaningfulness and allowed me to correct my throws back to the pitcher. Things were looking a bit rocky for me for a few games, but thankfully this strategy helped me and eventually my team went on to win the regional, sectional, and state championship games. Man I sure miss it!

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Similar to many others, I have some terror stories from babysitting. Not just dirty diapers or the child that won't fall asleep, I'm talking about chasing a child around the neighborhood while he takes off on his bike. Is it just me or are kids getting naughtier? Safe to say, I quickly found another job. There have been occasions where I will babysit here and there, but for the most part I try to stay away.
Depending on the number of kids you have to watch, it can be hard to multitask and make sure everything is running smoothly.
The Central-Resource Theories says that we have a fixed attention capacity, and that all activities are competing to occupy that space. The second I would start cooking mac and cheese for lunch, one kid would be sticking something in their mouth they shouldn't be, and then the dog would start barking at the mailman, all while the mac and cheese is boiling over the stove. Because I only have so much attention capacity, I couldn't focus on fixing all of these situations at once which would cause one (or all) of the performances to suffer. In order to be successful, I had to first take care of the child, then the dog and finally the food. This is known as the Filter and Bottleneck Theory, because only one bit of information could be processed at a time.
Thankfully I've never had a child eat toilet paper while I've babysat, but let's cross our fingers...