Kines 361 Motor Scrapbook by JULIA WAREHAM https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru en-us 2023-05-02 17:21:09 UTC 2023-05-04 02:27:51 UTC hello@padlet.com jwareham8 https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577471089 For just over 10 years of my life, I dedicated most of my free time to playing hockey. While there are many different important skills that make a well-rounded hockey player, such as skating abilities, stick handling capabilities, and cognitively understanding the game, one other important part is being able to shoot the puck accurately. However, shooting the puck accurately on the ice during a game is not always as easy as it seems. As a left winger I would find times where I was skating down the ice full speed with a defensemen right on me, and sometimes have to make a quick shot before they steal the puck from me. In this scenario, there is a slight trade off between how fast you can get the shot off your stick and how accurate that shot actually ends up being. When in doubt my coaches have always told me to shoot the puck, because there is “no bad shot” but when you have to shoot the puck fast without aiming, they always have something to say. There are many different situations a player might find themselves in where they need to shoot quickly without being able to aim, and end up missing the net or shooting it into an opposing player/goalie. When this happens, I always wished I took half a second more to aim and not just blindly shoot. 

Fitts’ Law describes the trade-off between speed and accuracy. It states that in order to perform a task with more speed, it won’t be as accurate or vice versa. In my experience hockey, we spend a lot of time off the ice working on our accuracy. In the summers I would shoot over 100 pucks almost everyday, and before games for on-ice warm ups we would do multiple different shooting drills. Therefore, with Fitts’ Law we would expect to see a decrease in the speed of the shot in favor of it being more accurate. Obviously in hockey you want to score as many goals as you can, so being able to accurately shoot the puck on the net is important. Hockey is a game of inches and being even an inch off the target can be the difference between scoring a goal or the goalie saving it. In addition, hockey is also all about time and space. And the more time and space you can create, the more successful you will be. If you are able to create time, you can focus on aiming the puck better and hopefully score a goal out of it.

Above is a GIF of an NHL player shooting the puck. You can see he takes a little bit more time to get away from the opposing player and aim his shot. Therefore, he is able to accurately shoot the puck and score a goal. 

]]> 2023-05-04 00:51:29 UTC https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577471089 jwareham8 https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577511611 An important aspect of playing hockey is being able to skate, obviously. Most hockey players learn to skate at a very early age, and sometimes way before they even start playing hockey. My dad taught me how to skate at age 5 and I started playing hockey at age 7. I’ll be honest, when I first started learning how to skate, I wasn’t very good at it. After a while of trying and falling, and trying again, and falling again, I mastered forward skating. However, backward skating was a different story. For some reason it was more difficult to me, even though it was essentially the same idea as skating forwards. My dad would tell me to squat like I was sitting in a chair and make small “c’s” with my skates. That was a lot easier said than done. However, once I realized I was using the same edges as I was using to skate forward, I started to get the hang of it slowly but surely. I had to visually think about how my skates were essentially making identical movements to each other, but at staggered times. C-cut with my right skate, C-cut with my left skate, repeat. And eventually I was actually able to actually skate down the ice that way. Once I mastered both forwards and backwards skating, I moved on to even more advanced things like crossovers. A crossover is exactly what it sounds like - crossing one skate over the other. You use these in hockey to gain speed, make a quick turn, or just to be more flexible on your edges. When completing a crossover, you need your inside skate to be on its outside edge and the skate that's crossing over the top (outside skate) to land on its inside edge, and this is true no matter which direction you are crossing over in. Another skating technique is a mohawk turn where essentially both skates are on their inside edges to make a really wide V shape and allows you to make quick turns. There are countless other skating techniques and styles, but they all boil down to the same thing; bimanual coordination. 

Bimanual coordination is using both limbs at the same time. Bimanual coordination can be either asymmetric where the limbs are doing different actions, or symmetric where the limbs are completing the same action. Skating is a perfect example of symmetric bimanual coordination. When skating, you need both edges to be doing the same thing, otherwise you will probably end up on the ice. Even when doing crossovers, your legs have to be in sync to make sure each skate has the right edge down. When I was learning how to skate backwards and started with doing alternating C-cuts is another way symmetric bimanual coordination is needed. This makes perfect sense because studies have shown that humans have a strong preference for having both limbs doing the same thing at the same time and skating exemplifies that ideal. 

Above is a GIF of something doing a mohawk. You can see how he shifts to be on both his inside edges at the same time by opening up his hips. He must use bimanual coordination to be able to use both skates in sync like that. 

]]> 2023-05-04 01:28:01 UTC https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577511611 jwareham8 https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577542209 In high school I worked at a bagel and coffee shop for about 2 ½ years. In this time I had to learn how to make a variety of different drinks, foods, smoothies, shakes, and even baked goods. I worked on the food line, drink counter, front of house cashier, drive thru worker and even dishwasher. Therefore I had to learn a variety of different skills all at once and I found myself overwhelmed. I’m sometimes kind of a perfectionist so I would get really frustrated when I’d screw up a food or drink order, or press a wrong button on the cash register, but that was all a part of the learning process. While working there I must have learned to make about 50 different combinations of bagels, as well as a whole variety of different coffees ranging from lattes to mochas to americanos to our specialty drinks. When I was working at the drink counter, I always felt the most at peace because once I got into the zone of making drinks, I was locked in. Each station I worked at made me learn new skills and often new recipes. I had to learn which each bagel and cream cheese was which, learn our speciality drinks, and learn how to make different types of baked goods. When I was first training to work there, my manager would put me at different stations one-by-one. First I stayed in the back and learned how to bake and prepare bagels for the next morning. Then, I was put on the drink counter and learned how to make drinks. Next, I learned how to make food at the food station. Finally I learned how to work the cash register and drive-thru window. Each of these different skills took time to master and took a lot of practice and error.  

My manager taught me these different jobs in what we would know as blocked conditions. This is where I would work at a certain station for a period of time before moving to the next skill to learn. However, learning this way I didn’t encounter a ton of practice variability. This is when there is a variety of movement and context characteristics when practicing a new job. If I had a more varied experience of learning the different skills in different conditions than one at a time, I think I would have become a better versed employee faster. Part of my job as a barista was to be able to be flexible and be able to work in a variety of situations and conditions. However, when learning and practicing I only had a certain amount of time to learn all this before moving on to the next skill to learn. 

Above is a GIF of a barista pouring a hot latte at a coffee shop. This is just one of many skills he has to know to successfully perform his job. Some baristas learn how to make latte art like him, but that is a skill you must learn over time. If he uses practice variability while learning the different designs, he might learn and master them faster. 

]]> 2023-05-04 01:54:21 UTC https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577542209 jwareham8 https://padlet.com/jwareham8/crf9v1n61rd2bwru/wish/2577578403 As I am about to complete my 17th year of school, I would confidently say that I have done a lot of homework and studying for exams in that time. The problem is that I never really learned how to study effectively until my junior year of college. I can say that the first few exams in college really took me by surprise because in high school I was able to skate through my exams without studying. College exams were a wake up call. However, halfway through my freshman year of college, COVID happened. Then, my whole sophomore year was online school where I found myself having little to no motivation to study because everything was now online. Come my junior year, I took physiology and that class hit me like a train. My previous limited study experience did not prepare me to actually study. I found myself struggling through the first few exams because I was trying to learn how to study for them at the same time. One thing I learned about myself is that when I am studying it either has to be silent or I can listen to certain types of music. But when it comes to reading, I can’t have any other external stimuli because I won’t be able to focus on the words. There have been times where I have tried to study in a talking setting with my friends, or in front of the TV. However, I can’t focus on my work while watching TV or talking to my friends. My attention needs to be thoroughly focused on what I am solving, drawing, or reading. If there is a TV show playing in the background while I’m trying to study, I either end up focusing solely on the show or solely on my homework, with no inbetween. 

Attentional focus can be broad or narrow and internal or external. Broad focus would be focusing on everything around you while narrow focus would be concentrating on one thing. Internal focus is focusing on something within and external focus is focusing on something outside your body. In my case of studying, I need narrow external focus. However, when attempting to focus on something you may come across interference. Then, you can either focus on both tasks or sacrifice one in favor of the other. That is what I find myself doing when watching TV while studying. I either only watch the TV or only study, there is no happy medium in between for me. But if both tasks can be performed at the same time equally well, then one of them is automatic. I, however, cannot do this which means that neither of these tasks are automatic to me, and they both would require my conscious attention. 

This GIF above represents how I feel while studying. I need to have all my focus and attention on the page in front of me for the best possible result. 

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