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Every since I was a kid in little league baseball I concentrated on "getting the ball across the plate," as my dad would always say to me. As I grew older I realized how simple that really was and how valuable of a lesson it was as well. Most times kids wanted to rear back and throw the ball as hard as they could, but I realized early on that was not an effective method. It lead to burnout, inaccurate pitches, and even injuries. This is probably the most important speed-accuracy trade off in baseball. As I grew older and became stronger, I did add some speed to my pitch, but I even got better at throwing accurate pitches and had endless amounts of stamina which allowed me to pitch the whole game. I was known for picking the spot on the plate I wanted to throw to and hitting the target just about every time. I would work the inside part of the plate just on the edge of the strike zone, as well as the outside part of the plate. Furthermore, I rarely threw the ball in the dirt of past my catcher which resulted in a minimal amount of stolen bases. I think the second most important speed-accuracy tradeoff in baseball is batting. Some people, especially little kids, want so bad to hit a homerun. In more accurate terms, they "swing for the fences." This usually results in the batter taking their eyes off of the ball which ultimately leads to them swinging to early or too late. This is because vision is the number one judger of distance, speed, and object movement to create a movement in response to it. I, however, always channeled my attention to the ball and let the mechanics of my swing do the work. I excited exemplary temporal accuracy and ended up having a batting average of .320 my freshman year of high school, .343 my sophomore year of high school, and .381 my junior year of high school. Due to some injuries during my senior year, I did not have a chance to play, but I imagine my batting average would have been up above .400. I did end up hitting a few homeruns, but I was ultimately a contact hitter. My receptor and effector anticipation was spot on. Receptor anticipation refers to being accurately able to predict how long it will take an object to reach a certain place, in hitting it is how long it will take the ball to reach home plate, and effector anticipation refers to the time it will take to initiate a response and perform the action in response to the ball. Errors in this accuracy usually result in the swing being too early or too late, as mentioned before. So, I was practicing Kines 361 concepts before I even knew what they were or how to be good at them.

Here is a photo of myself fielding a ball in one of my high school games.

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When I was a junior in high school I really started getting into music. I had transferred from a classic jock to a music junky. I was in choir, band, participated in musicals, and loved meeting up with friends to do spontaneous jam sessions. The one thing they could do that I couldn't was play guitar, and they were all incredible at it. Any song you asked them to play, they could play it and with perfection. This inspired me to take up the challenge of learning guitar myself. I loved the sound of the acoustic guitar, and every time my friends played it gave me chills.

Starting off was rough. Trying to coordinate two hands that are doing completely different movements and executing these movements in time with each other to produce correct notes, chords, and sounds was so difficult. Playing guitar is an example of asymmetric bimanual coordination,  which describes tasks/skills involving the arms/hands performing two separate tasks simultaneously. Unfortunately, research has shown humans have a way stronger preference for symmetric bimanual coordination, which is when the two arms/hands are doing the same task at the same time. So, I was already going against human preference when deciding to learn guitar, and I had never attempted to learn a different instrument involving asymmetric coordination. Therefore, I could not benefit from any transfer of learning. I started with simple finger exercises to learn how to dissociate my hands, and then started to learn basic chord structures. I met with my friends about 3 days a week for lessons and tips, and after about two months I was able to learn my first song because my chord transitions and finger speed were quick enough. Furthermore, my note accuracy was also well-improved. The first song I learned was Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" because it was so popular at the time. Although my chord transitions and finger speed were moderately proficient, I still had a hard time learning this song. I practiced and practiced for hours because I wanted the sequence to become mindless so I could add lyrics to my guitar playing. Soon enough, I achieved the autonomous stage of Fitt's and Posner's three stages of learning model for the particular song and was sure that if I added singing to my guitar playing, I would not experience any interference between the two activities because my guitar playing was automatic and required little of my attention. Furthermore, I could focus more on important aspects of my singing like breathing, synching my lyrics with the correct chord transitions, and making sure I'm singing the correct lyrics.

I have been playing for around 4 years now and am continuing to learn new things. Between different songs, chords, and scales, I continue to improve. I have now become so good at playing that if I am asked to play a song I have never heard or practiced, I will listen to it once and am able to accurately play it in time and execute smooth chord transitions (I use an app called "ultimate guitar tabs" that shows me the chords I am supposed to play and how they align with the lyrics of each song).

Below is a video of myself singing the intro to the first song I ever learned, "Thinking Out Loud"

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This past spring I decided to accept the challenge of learning to fly fish. Along side me was my dad, and we were both novices to the alternative method of fishing. For the longest time we have fished with rod and reel for trophy fish like largemouth bass, northern pike, and walleyes. Over the past few years, our focus has changed from lakes to streams and small rivers. In the streams and small rivers live the bountiful brown trout and beautiful rainbow trout. We not only enjoy catching and releasing these magnificent species, but we also enjoy the calming and therapeutic sounds of fast-moving water. While on the stream, we noticed many fisherman using fly rods. Furthermore, they always caught more fish than us and they were not even fishing in as good of spots as we were! So, we decided to take our trout fishing to the next level by investing in fly fishing gear and it has been absolutely incredible. However, it was not easy as first, and the three stages of learning proposed by Fitts and Posner describe my learning process of fly fishing to a tee.

Fitts and Posner suggest the three stages of learning to be the cognitive stage, associative stage, and the autonomous stage. The first stage, the cognitive stage, refers to the stage of beginners. This is where the person tries and figures out how to perform the skill and also what makes someone proficient at the skill. In attempt to figure out how to fly fish, my dad and I attended a fly fishing 101 class that went over the basics of fly fishing. They offered a step-by-step process of how to cast. However, there is not really a correct casting form. The only thing that matters is casting the rod forward to ten o'clock and then backwards to two o'clock to correctly load the fly-line and generate enough energy to propel the line forwards. So, my dad and I experimented with different casting forms to determine what felt comfortable for us and what made the fly-line cast the farthest and with the most accuracy. Another aspect seen in the learning process of the cognitive stage is cognitive and verbal strategies to perform the skill. Immediately following the fly fishing class I went home and took my fly rod and began practicing. I walked through the sequence of casting step-by-step, rehearsing the process out loud, "Back to two, wait one second, forward to ten, let the fly lay, point the rod at the ground" over and over again until it became somewhat natural. The following night, my dad and I decided to head to the local town creek and try out what we learned. It is completely different when actually fishing on running water. The people at the fly-fishing class forgot to mention that casting on land does not require stripping of the line because land is not moving like water. So, my dad and I had to learn how cast, let the fly lay, and then strip line in because the current carries your fly downstream. To avoid the coiling up of fishing line at your feet, you have to strip line in to maintain a straight line and presentable fly. Furthermore, because the streams are narrow, we often get hung-up in weeds on our backcast. More advanced fly-fisherman avoid this because they have smooth backcast that is perfectly timed and usually sits higher than a novice's cast. That fishing trip was very valuable because we continued to experiment with different casting styles and learned some new things because it was our first time doing the live thing. Additionally, we continued to do our step-by-step guidance on every single cast (usually internal). After about ten trips of trout fishing, my dad and I started to become more accurate with our cast, we figured out what style of casting suited us and how to strip line in order to achieve a realistic presentation of a fly. We made huge improvements, which is commonly seen in the cognitive stage. We continued to fish more and eventually entered the associative stage of the learning process. This stage occurs when learners decide on which strategies are most efficient in producing the best performance of the skill/task. Furthermore, it is considered the refining stage because improvements are not as large as in the cognitive stage and more precise characteristics of the movement sequence are tweaked. After lots of time had been put in on the stream, the frustration of fly-fishing was through and currently it is pure enjoyment. We no longer have fishing line coil up at our feet, we do not miss as many fish that strike our fly due because we reduce the amount of slack line we have out, and our casts have become so smooth that we rarely get caught on weeds or surrounding vegetation. Because we have the basics of the cast and retrieval down, it has opened up other opportunities for more precise aspects of fly fishing like tying different fly set-ups, or learning how to read the water and detect where fish might be feeding and learning how to cast to specific spots. I doubt that we will reach the autonomous stage anytime soon. The autonomous stage of the learning process is the stage where the learner has achieved automatic performance of the skill and requires little of the performer's attention. This allows the performer to perform a separate task at the same time with little to no interference. Like I said, I doubt we will achieve this stage anytime soon, but we are incredibly satisfied with how our fly-fishing has progressed and still have so much left to learn.

Here is a picture I took of my dad casting into a corner pool of water on our first fly-fishing trip.

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For a long time now I have been doing intense strength training involving weights. I have experimented with numerous programs and done tons of research on how to build muscle efficiently and make strength gains in some of the most common lifts. Most of my information I have found helped me understand how to structure my workouts to achieve maximal exertion but also allow for optimal rest and recovery. However, before I looked into things and educated myself of correct lifting plans, I experienced extreme problems with injuries, muscle deterioration, and fatigue during my high school years. I was training six days a week, some days I would even train twice during the day, and experienced a period where I was not making any muscular or physique improvements, and I was not improving the weight on my lifts (I was not getting stronger). I was simply so obsessed with achieving the perfect physique and being the strongest person, that I was blinded by the effects of over-training on improvements and health. By nature's course, I ended up with severe injuries to my hips and lower back and was bedridden for two weeks. I also was not able to exercise for around six months. That period of training where I did not see any improvements can be defined as a performance plateau. It is a period of time where a performer experiences no improvements after having experienced significant improvements. At this point in time, I had only been lifting hard for about eight months. Over the course of the eight months preceding my plateau I had seen insane improvements in my strength, physique, and overall performance in sports. However, I only trained three to four times per week. It was only until after my injury that I realized how less is more, especially for the body. There is no doubt in my mind that fatigue played a large role in my plateau because I was simply burnt out. At the same time I was training six days per week, I was also traveling playing basketball three days out of the week, which is like the definition of burnout! My body never had time to recover. Although I am not involved in sports in college, I still take part in pick-up basketball and do strength training three days per week with a cardiovascular training day one time per week. I have been able to recover fully from my workouts and make gains consistently. I have yet to experience a full blown plateau.

Here is a picture illustrating the type of exhaustion and fatigue my body felt when training six days a week and playing tons of competitive basketball. I would not give it a break.

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Who wants to read a defense? Sounds boring...

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Who wants to read a defense? Sounds boring...

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There are so many aspects of a quarterback's game that all play a part in defining how good he really is. Some to mention are throwing accuracy, running ability, footwork in the pocket, throwing velocity, speed outside of the pocket, decision making, and many others, but the ability to read a defense is most important for putting all of the other skills to use. I attended countless camps in hopes of improving my game in all of the physical aspects of being a quarterback. I drilled different footwork and worked on many different rollout styles. I threw endless routes to receivers at the camps. I worked on my option skills where I meshed with a running back, worked on my pitches and my handoffs. Although all of these footwork and throwing drills improved my observable qualities, I was not proficient in the mental aspects of being a quarterback. It was not until the Jeff Trickey/Randy Wright quarterback-receiver camp that I learned how to read defenses and develop a decision prior to the snap based on how the defense was aligned. I learned how to detect zone defenses in comparison to man-to-man defenses. I learned how to predict blitzing linebackers and safeties. The ability to read a defense allowed me to anticipate where the defenders would be in space as the play developed. This is known as spatial anticipation. Learning how to read a defense prior to the snap (also known as the "pre-snap read") allowed me to organize a response in advance and minimize the amount of time it takes to actually go through my read progression as the play develops after the snap. For example, say we were doing a pass play and I know that two linebackers are blitzing. Therefore, I know I have to throw the ball sooner than a regular play because my lineman cannot block all of the rushers because we are outnumbered. In addition to this anticipation, I know that my receiver to my right is running a slant across the middle and because the linebackers are blitzing, the middle should be wide open. Due to these anticipations, I make a decision that I am throwing to my right-side receiver running the slant. After the snap I confirm that the linebackers are blitzing and then I look over to my receiver to make sure he is open. Most times in football opportunities happen so quickly that a delayed decision could result in a mishap (interception, sack, fumble, etc.). Spatial anticipation of the defenders allowed me to check my anticipation by surveying the field after the snap and make sure I was correct. Unfortunately, if I was not correct on my pre-snap judgement, I have to re-program a response which takes more time and increases the chance of error in the play. Ultimately, spatial anticipation is an advanced mechanism used by quarterbacks to predict teammates and defenders in space. It increases the quarterbacks success of throwing and running by predicting and programming movements before they happen. Improving this aspect of my game took me from a mediocre quarterback to an excellent one.

Here is a picture during my junior year surveying the field prior to the snap.

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It was about five months ago when my son, Elliot, began surfing furniture and using nearby structures to hoist himself up to his feet. Currently, he is a cruising baby with extraordinary amounts of energy who does not stop running around. It has been so incredible to observe the development of his motor control system, especially from crawling to walking. To examine and explain what influenced or aided the progression from crawling to walking, we can break down dynamic patterns theory and examine it's variables in the context of Elliot's physical properties as well as the environmental properties.

Dynamic patterns theory tries to explain how the motor control system changes over time from one stable state to another because of the influence of a particular environmental variable. By examining our apartment where Elliot learned to walk, I can think of many environmental variables that may have helped Elliot to walk. First, our apartment is not very big so lots of the furnishings are close together.  Additionally, we have an ottoman that was the perfect height for him to grab onto and walk all the way around it while he used it as support. This is influential on walking because when he was crawling, he did not have to crawl very far before he ran into something he could get his hands on and hoist himself up to his feet. This allowed him to be in the standing position more often which may have attributed to a quicker ability of walking due to the strengthening of the legs from standing. Another thing that may have influenced his locomotion was his strength and coordination of musculature to produce walking movements. An important aspect of dynamic patterns theory is the use of coordinative structures, also called synergies. These are groups of muscles that are linked together and act as a single unit. The links are formed by a practice of neurological connections among muscles recruited to take advantage of natural neural pathways and reflexes. The repetitive nature of Elliot standing up from a sitting/crawling position uses large groups of muscles and allowed for connections to be made between neurons in the muscles. After awhile, Elliot was able to let go of the ottoman/other furniture he used to stabilize himself because coordinations were built between the arms, legs, and core muscles to allow for walking on his own. Lastly, I think it is also important to mention his natural physical attributes that may have impacted his walking. Elliot has always had strong legs and a stable trunk and head. He always demonstrated quick muscle adaptions like being able stabilize his head way sooner than most kids, and also being able to stand up with support of his upper body, exhibiting incredible lower body strength and lumbar support at around two months. All of these factors definitely played a role in Elliot's ability to walk at 11 months.

Here is a picture of him on his walker at around 10 months.

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From ice to snow... Wait, isn't that considered a downgrade?

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From ice to snow... Wait, isn't that considered a downgrade?

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Thankfully, I have been ice skating ever since I was a little kid because my dad played hockey and wanted us to learn to skate. He would take us out to the neighbors bond nearly every weekend in the winter to practice our skating. He also would take us to the Eagle's Nest in Verona, WI which is an indoor ice rink. Now, my three brothers and I are all proficient skaters and love to cruise the ice together. About two and a half years ago my brothers and I were eager to challenge ourselves with skiing. We were shockingly surprised at how fast we caught on. We spent one round on the bunny hill and then headed straight for the big hills. The phenomenon that describes how we were so able to ski so quickly is the transfer of learning.

Transfer of learning is described as the gain (or loss) of proficiency of a skill as a result of practice on some other skill.  The skill of ice skating evidently transferred over to skiing. This positive experience of our first time skiing is called positive transfer which is the beneficial effect of previous experience on learning or performance of another skill. It is also cool to understand why we were able to ski so well. The identical elements theory suggests that  two tasks sharing similar elemental features are likely to transfer more than ones that share few elemental features. The element features are observable movement patterns and elaborated automatisms. Skating and skiing both share similar movement patters in the fact that the stop most common in skiing is the "hockey stop" which shows incredible relation between the two within the name. Because the same type of stopping motion is used in both skills, there is likely some transfer of force coordination between skills because they require the same motion and technique. Similarly, skating and skiing both require the recruitment and coordination of the lower two limbs for balance and stabilization. Additionally, skaters and skiers have similar body positions in space (knees bent and in a crouched position).  Although skiing and skating are not identical, they do utilize similar muscle groups, limb coordination, movement patterns and force recruitment. If there was not much transfer, I do not think my brothers and I would have had the success we did right away.

Below is just an awesome skiing picture in the mountains.

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It was my sophomore year and the first playoff game of my high school basketball career. And guess who we had to play? Our rival from eight miles down the highway. The score was tied and there were three seconds remaining in the game when one of my buddies was fouled and headed to the free throw line. He missed the first. He prepared for his second shot and I readied myself for the rebound. The ball bounced off of the right side of the rim and I jumped as high as I could to grab it. Knowing time was short, I launched myself into the surrounding defenders and hopelessly threw the ball at the hoop. I never made the basket, but I was fouled. It was my turn at the free throw line.

In this moment, I was terrified. There was literally one second on the clock, so I knew this was a game-winning situation that required me to only make one of my free throws. However, my confidence in my free throw shooting was about zero. I held a steady 52% free throw percentage throughout the season, so the odds were about 50/50. I stepped up to the line for my first attempt... I missed. The crowd gasped, knowing I only had one shot left. I gathered myself and stepped back up to the line for my last shot. I went through my usual pre-free throw routine, took a deep breathe, and let it fly. Oh that sweet sound of pure net! The crowd erupted; I had just made the winning shot versus our long-time rival to send us to the next round of the playoffs!

Although we were knocked out the following game by the state-runner-ups of our division, the game against our rivals offered a basis for my junior year focus. Not only did I notice my horrific free throw performance of my sophomore year, but so did every else, and one of my new shooting coaches was determined to develop that aspect of my game. He began having us shoot free throws sporadically through practice. For example, we would do a ball-handling drill and then shoot 2 free throws after it. Then we would move on to defensive drills and shoot a few more free throws after it. This was meant to mimic a game-like situation where you are tired and need to gather yourself to make the free throws. This demonstrated our coach's understanding of the concept of variability of practice.

Practice variability is defined as the variety of movement and context characteristics a person experiences while practicing a skill. By our coach requiring us to shoot free throws randomly throughout practice in a plethora of different contextual situations, he was promoting better retention and transfer of the skill, as well as exhibiting the understanding of contextual interference. Contextual interference is described as the memory and performance disruptions as a result of practicing multiple skills or variations of a skill in a practice setting. The movement programs required to execute dribbling techniques are somewhat different from the movements used during defensive drills as well as shooting drills. All of these programs interfere with each other. The elaboration hypothesis can explain why the interference is beneficial. This hypothesis suggests contextual interference improves learning of skills because of the elaboration of the memory representations the learning is practicing. A random practice schedule, which is what my coach implemented, made us engage in multiple strategies which helped us compare and contrast the skill variations we were practicing. This allows for a better representation of each skill in my memory, which leads to improved performance. Aside from the random practice style, our coach also had us shoot free throws at the middle school and the elementary school. This is genius because most of my teammates, including myself, struggled during away games when we had to shoot free throws in another school's gym. It was a different environment and had different hoop structures and surrounding features. By having us shoot free throws in the other gyms of the school, we lessened the impact of new environments on our shot and began performing better. Throughout my junior year season, I shot 76% from the free throw line... a 24% improvement from my sophomore year.

Here is a photo of myself shooting a free throw my senior year of high school.