https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn Kinesiology 361 Motor Learning en-us 2017-12-04 21:02:37 UTC 2025-03-26 16:01:17 UTC hello@padlet.com kpribyl https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213079760 As a kid, I participated in competitive swimming up until college when I decided to start coaching and teaching kids about the sport that I enjoyed growing up. I mean, it seemed easy, I have been racing and doing flips off the diving board since I was eight so it could not be that difficult to explain, right?

Wrong.

My first session coaching I was placed with the younger kids which was fantastic because they were so excited to swim and I promised a game of water polo at the end.  Not realizing that they needed majority of their swim sets corrected, I tried to explain tips from the pool deck. But much to my frustration and their's when I couldn't convey what I wanted to say with words and to their frustration of not being able to quite grasp what I was saying, I resorted to movements. 

There on the pool deck I was flailing my arms to show the arm and shoulder pattern for the butterfly and kicking out my legs to show the "frog leg" pattern for breaststroke. Showing the kids the sequence for each swim stroke and the timing for each movement was easier for me than trying to only use my words.

Similarly, for diving when I coached the older kids later one, words couldn't quite describe the diving skills I wanted them to complete. Instead of words, I demonstrated proper diving techniques; how to tuck in your head for the flip and when to snap your legs back into extension was much easier to show than for me to explain.

The reason why I struggled to use words to explain how to complete various swim skills is because I rely on procedural memory. Procedural memory is the ability to preform some tasks without having to process what you are doing. Since I have been swimming for years, the skills I acquired are stored in my procedural memory. I don't need to think through the steps to complete them. The skills are automatic for me to complete, making it difficult to verbally describe the skills because they are not stored in declarative memory. Declarative memory is used when first learning a skill and is associated with words due to the requirement of thinking through the steps to complete a skill.


]]> 2017-12-04 21:03:51 UTC https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213079760 kpribyl https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213079981 Sitting in front of the piano, I stare at the keys, back to the music sheet and back at the keys. I line my fingers up to each appropriate key to start playing. Clunking on the keys with a complete lack of rhythm, I barely managed to play "Clare de Lune". Which shouldn't even be hard, its's a basic song for beginners. I have been playing other instruments for three years before taking up the piano. I knew all of the notes, which keys on the piano corresponded to the notes, how to read the music and how to count. Yet, for some reason my hands just couldn't understand. My instructor just starts shaking her head saying I can play each part  separately to "Piano Man" perfectly, but can't even play both parts to "Clare de Lune' at the same time. 

I just shrug my shoulders and continue trying to match up my left hand movements to my right hand movements, making sure I was in time and hitting the correct keys. It was hard. Looking back, I probably broke out in a sweat with my tongue sticking out while fervently trying to concentrate on keeping both hands separate. The only way I could play with both hands without my left copying my right was when I would play extremely, painstakingly slow. However, the more I practiced, the easier it became to play with both hands and eventually was able to play both treble and bass clef to "Piano Man."

But why was it so difficult at the beginning of my piano lessons to utilize both hands even though I have played other instruments? In the beginning, I could easily play pieces with my right hand only and then with my left hand only. But when I would play with both, my left hand followed what my right did. This is due to bimanual coordination and the need to resort to symmetry, even though it is unwarranted.  Bimanual coordination is when limbs are actively doing an activity which can be symmetrical or asymmetrical. Playing piano is an asymmetrical bimanual coordination but there is a preference for both hands to be symmetrical. This desire to have my hands do the same thing at the same time is what caused me to have difficulty playing with both my hands when I first began to learn.

Occasionally, I will still fall into this predicament, especially when I haven't been playing in a while. Practicing each part separately made it easier to play the parts together without falling into the trap of both hands playing treble clef.


]]> 2017-12-04 21:04:50 UTC https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213079981 kpribyl https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213080394 Feeling the cold air bite at my face, snow falling all around and looking down below the ski lift and seeing powder puff up as people cut through the ski hill all while Dad kept reminding me to do the pizza/snow plow shape. I was 4 and on my first ski trip with my Dad and ever since then I was hooked. Every winter consisted of multiple ski trips to various hills and several alpine racing lessons. Needless to say, after numerous falls, having my ski binding break and watching my ski fall while on the lift and annual ski waxing in the shop.

By my sophomore year, I decided to take on snowboarding with one of my friends. I have never snowboarded before while my friend had zero ski and snowboard experience. But, we both were up for the challenge.

Putting on the gear it all felt different. The boots weren't rock hard, the binding was flexible and standing sideways in goofy stance just felt off. Looking down the first hill I was wishing I had my skis back. At least skis felt natural; I was still feeling put off by the flexibility in snowboarding boots compared to the rigidity in ski boots. 

I strapped my feet in and started ever so slowly. My friend, jokingly, said that falling will at least stop us. Down the hill we went. 

Surprisingly, snowboarding was a lot easier than I thought. My friend fell the second we started and struggled to get back up, but somehow I managed to maintain my balance for majority of the ride down. I was definitely unstable compared to skiing, but I was able to make it more than six feet without falling unlike my friend. Over the course of the day I was able to make it down a hill, stop without falling backwards and turn. I would watch my friend stumble down the hill while I waited for her to catch up. 

Why was I able to pick up snowboarding faster than my friend in the course of the day? No, it was not because I have some special talent at it, because if it was I would have been able to do the half-pipe without falling on my face. The answer is due to transfer of learning. I used the skills I acquired from my years of skiing, such as the ability to balance while moving through a snowy terrain and through moguls, leaning my body to turn and leaning backwards and sideways to stop.These are component parts that are shared between snowboarding and skiing. Similar rules and strategies I utilized for skiing, such as how to react when hitting loose powder to prevent falling, carried over to snowboarding. Between the shared components and strategies, I was able to pick up snowboarding faster than my friend who had zero experience, due to transferring the knowledge from skiing to snowboarding rather then having to learn all of the skills needed. 

This video accurately describes how I felt after going down a black diamond without falling the first time.]]> 2017-12-04 21:06:18 UTC https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213080394 kpribyl https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213081323 Growing up my parents were focused on making sure my siblings and I had a wide range of experiences. Ranging from going to the farm with my dad and bottle feeding the calves, to seeing the grand canyon, learning to ride a bike, cave tours, fishing, etc and learning to rock climb. 

My dad took me to my first rock wall and was insistent on directing me how to rock climb. On the way there he kept saying how it is only my hands, my feet, and the wall. You could say I was a little intimidated. 

I slipped on my new climbing shoes, harness and clapped some chalk in my hands before I started my way up the wall with my dad. Now if you know me, I'm pretty independent and try to learn things on my own with the occasional help. For anyone that knows my dad, he makes sure that you are doing everything correctly, meaning a lot of comments.

"Don't put your hand there, you should put over to the left more on that red one."
"If you put your foot there, you will have to balance on your toe."
"Make sure you can reach the next part if you go that way."

The list goes on. Yes, my dad meant well and was trying to aid in my learning how to rock climb. However, he would tell me the tips while I was climbing. I didn't get to feel why putting my foot there would cause me to balance on my toes and why that would be harder to climb up. (Often times, I did the opposite of his advice just because I was stubborn and wanted to try on my own.) His augmented feedback was poorly executed even though the tips themselves were helpful. Which resulted in me struggling my first ascent.

Basically, I got stuck trying to balance on my big toe and reaching over a ledge. I could hear my belay chuckling below as I yelled out "I can reach it" even though my fingers could barely reach the ledge to grab. My foot was getting sore just balancing on my big toe, my other arm holding me up was getting tired and I could feel my shoulder starting to shake as I kept straining to reach the ledge. Honestly, at this point I was hoping that I would have my dad telling me if reaching for the other ledge was easier.

Augmented feedback when given at improper times and too often has the potential to inhibit learning, which is what happened to me, even though tips are meaningful. This is because the person completing the task doesn't get an opportunity to focus on their intrinsic feedback. In my case, I didn't get to sense my proprioception in some cases and only focused on what I was being told. So when I would be in the similar body orientations, but with different rock configurations, I didn't know what to do since I relied on being told what to do rather than "feeling" what to do. It would have been best if the augmented feedback was more spread out while on my climb and only focused on the main points that I need to correct. Needless to say, I have gone on several other rock climbing trips with my dad with less augmented feedback meaning that I have made improvement with my skill. But I am always going to hear "It's only your hands, your feet and the wall" every time before we climb.

This gif sums up my emotion after I finally made it to the top of the wall.


]]> 2017-12-04 21:08:42 UTC https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213081323 kpribyl https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213555991 My left side of my body is pretty useless. I came to realize that when I began playing soccer and when I advanced from little kid summer leagues all the way to high school varsity. See, my left leg, I swear is just there so I can walk, run, balance; you know the basics. I was able to do basic dribbling skills that I learned as a kid and I never bothered to learn beyond that because I just relied on my right leg even though it did not make me the best at maintaining the soccer ball. When I started playing varsity freshmen year of high school I realized how useless my left leg was and that I was unable to keep relying on my right leg for kick, trick and trap possible. 

Enter summer camp and the high demand to perfect all of our skills before the season started. My coach started giving us all of these type of soccer dribbling drills; step overs; "tornado;" sole rolls forward, backward and each side,  and body tricks.

My right leg is my dominant leg and with my background playing soccer for several years I learned how to do these skills pretty quickly. However, since I knew my left leg was useless I never actually "trained" it in the years past when I was only playing rec sports and the occasional competition teams. So when we did a skill with one leg and switched to the other leg right away, it was a mess. I struggled to keep the ball controlled. Cones were being knocked over. I may have tripped over a soccer ball. 

But I was determined to have my left leg excel at the tricks as much as my right leg. So I would practice drills several times repeatedly with my right leg before I switched to my left. Since my right leg was proficient at the drills it made it easier for me to learn how to be proficient at the drills with my left leg.

This is due to bilateral transfer which is learning and training a task with one limb and then transferring that knowledge to the other limb when completing the same task. By training with my right leg that was already proficient at the dribbling skills it created an improvement in the drills when I used my left leg, even though I initially practiced with my right leg. ]]> 2017-12-06 01:45:49 UTC https://padlet.com/kpribyl/3ksvwnxpuoqn/wish/213555991