https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde A look into my life with a motor learning and performance lens. en-us 2018-04-25 18:12:39 UTC 2025-08-15 14:48:40 UTC hello@padlet.com msoukup2 https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/255380190 My mom and her lifelong friends often reminisce on the joys of their childhoods. A common memory they share is time spent practicing gymnastics with a man I wish I knew, Mr. Bob Brunelle. They speak of him with awe and a sparkle in their eyes because he taught them how to fly. I like to think my mom was one of his favorite athletes because of the stories she would tell. She learned to fly between the uneven bars, do flips on the trampoline, and be thrown far in the air. My mom and her friends would compete around the state and show off their skills on the mat and in the air. When it came time to start high school, gymnastics opened up a new opportunity for my mom, diving. As in, yes, from the high dive! In her first year alone she made it all the way to Nationals in Florida! I can't even imagine doing the flips she did, but she made it sound so easy. After what I have learned throughout the semester in Motor Learning I think it was easy for her to excel in diving because some of the skills she had perfected in gymnastics translated to the diving board. Both sports require precise movements and jumps while flying through the air. This corresponds to the Identical Elements Theory which explains why positive transfer can occur between two tasks. My mom was able to translate her skills learned in gymnastics to the diving board because the skills were the same she was just diving into a pool instead of a trampoline. 

To visually describe how my mom "flew" as a child I have shared with you a picture of her being caught by her coach, Bob Brunelle. She was lucky, and good enough, to have her picture in the newspaper. Her body position in this picture is very similar to that necessary as a diver to decrease the splash as you enter the water. ]]> 2018-04-25 18:15:39 UTC https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/255380190 msoukup2 https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/255859976 As a child I wanted to be gymnast like my mom. Little did I know that I was not cut out for the gymnastics lifestyle in terms of body shape, flexibility, and fearlessness. I loved watching the gymnastics in the Olympics and hearing about the stunts my mom did as a child. After many failed attempts at even completing a somersault I decided that maybe ballet was more up my ally. I was better at this than gymnastics, but not by much because I don't have much (any) rhythm, plus I would always be terribly nervous I was going to mess up. It was fourth grade and we were putting on A Christmas Carol. My friend Allie got the coveted role of Scroog meaning she had a solo. Of course I was a little jealous but it was probably for the best because she was the more talented of us. We practiced the routine for months so I should have known every move and when Allie's solo was. But when it came time for the performance there is no better word for it... I choked. The lights were shining in my face and my nerves were racking my body in fear and when it came time for Allie/Scroog to do her solo I accidentally joined in. Instead of using my procedural memory I used declarative memory instead. Because I had practiced the routine so much it no longer required me to think about it. The music should have triggered the dance itself instead of me thinking of every individual step. But in the moment I felt the pressure to perform at my absolute best and I cracked. Instead of doing what my body told me, I acted like it was the first time I had ever performed the routine and looked at Allie for help. Of course this was Allie's solo so she was performing leading me to perform too. I felt like a complete idiot and a bad friend because I had stolen her moment in the spotlight. Ever since that performance I have reminded myself to follow my gut and to not think as much so hopefully I never choke under pressure again.

This is a photo of myself, Allie, and my other best friend, Brianna. I could not find a picture of us actually dancing, or me choking under pressure, but I think this one also relays my point about Allie being the leader. She is in the middle of this picture and you can see me (blonde) leaning in towards her as if she is my leader. ]]> 2018-04-27 00:06:47 UTC https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/255859976 msoukup2 https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/256550507 Going into high school I decided that I needed to join sport to make friends, stay active, and be involved. I had swam when I was younger and I had been alright. I also knew that there weren't tryouts for the swim team and I really didn't want to face rejection so swimming it was. Freestyle was where I set my sights because it was the easiest stroke and the one I was best at. I quickly learned that "my event" was the 500 freestyle which was much to my dismay because that is an intense endurance event. This distance event would be accompanied with a lot of practice because it was pretty new to me ad it was challenging. My coach could have had me swim the 500 freestyle over and over again which would be blocked practice. In this case I would excel in the acquisition stage because with repetition of the 500 freestyle I should get better. But when it comes to retention I may not be as good because I am taking the task out of the context of where I practiced it. The better form of practice would be random practice which is what I normally did. This practice session would look something like a few sprint sets, a few distance sets, and maybe one 500. With random practice I wouldn't look as good in the acquisition stage but my retention of the 500 freestyle would be better, measured as time in swimming. And most importantly my transfer would be much better. Because I had practiced with a variety of distances my body was prepared to swim a distance less than 500 but at a faster pace and also a distance farther than the 500. By allowing my body to have practice with a variety of speeds and distances I was better equipped to perform my best in the 500 freestyle during the swim meet. 
The form of practice that I engaged in is representative of both the Elaboration Hypothesis of practice variability and the Action Plan Reconstruction Hypothesis of practice variability. According to the Elaboration Hypothesis during random practice I would be continually comparing how the different distances and sprints will help me to achieve my goal of the 500 freestyle so this information will be more memorable to me in the actual event because I was keeping it in my working memory. In the Action Plan Reconstruction Hypothesis I was forced to continually reconstruct my mindset because the distance and speed at which I was swimming was constantly changing. Because I was continually reconstructing my action plan with random practice it was easier for me to recall the task representations necessary to successfully complete the 500 freestyle in the transfer stage. Through all of this the hope was that I would drop time and be able to do my absolute best in the 500 freestyle and hopefully PR every race.

I have shared a gif of distance swimmer Katie Ledecky winning her event at the Rio Olympics. She is a record holder in the swimming world and she often drops off seconds from her events. She is representative of practice variability because as an Olympic swimmer she has a practice plan that allows her to train and compete at the elite level that I'm sure involves random practice both in and out of the pool. She could swim the 1000 m repeatedly or she could vary her training so that she is equipped to swim many different events and keep her mind working to allow for positive transfer after practice has ceased. ]]> 2018-04-30 14:58:59 UTC https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/256550507 msoukup2 https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/256570156 I always wanted to learn how to play an instrument. There were a couple of things stopping me though. For one I am self-diagnosed as tone deaf but this doesn't relate to motor learning and performance so I'm gonna skip over that part. The other thing stopping me from learning to play an instrument is a major lacking of coordination, especially hand-eye. When pretend playing on pianos at my friends houses I could never figure out how to make my hands do two different things at once and effectively move my fingers across the keys. So rather than waste my parent's money I gave up my desire to play an instrument and focused on other areas instead. My brother on the other hand had the skills necessary that I was lacking. He started playing the saxophone in fourth grade and with very little practice he was awesome at it! Playing the saxophone is a task that requires asymmetric bimanual coordination because both of your hands are doing different things but at the same time. Soon he taught himself how to play the piano and the keyboard. Not only did his hand-eye coordination suit him in the music realm, but he also was a gifted video game player. Watching him play makes me dizzy but he excels on the computer, console, and hand held gaming systems. Playing video games requires a lot of coordination. First you must coordinate your body position in the game to your visual system. You also are controlling different buttons with your right and left hands which would be asymmetric bimanual coordination. And finally, sometimes you even have to coordinate your movements with others that you are playing with in the game. We didn't talk about coordination with feet in this class but my brother excels in that area as well. He is a gifted soccer player. As much as I wish I had the coordination of my brother, I understand that we cannot all be gifted in this realm and I have to appreciate the other skills I have instead. 

I have chosen this gif to demonstrate coordination because I was not able to find a relevant picture of my brother and because it clearly demonstrates coordination. This character from Mulan is wielding a staff with both hands. His hands are both doing different tasks and are not moving together symmetrically. He also has to coordinate all of his body movements with the movement of the staff. Although this is more intense than playing an instrument it is similar because both are bilateral asymmetric movements that require concentration from the person and hand-eye coordination. ]]> 2018-04-30 15:36:34 UTC https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/256570156 msoukup2 https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/258113251 Nancy Harms is a very eccentric lady. And one of her most eccentric qualities is her whistle. Not many people are able to whistle using their fingers but she is more than capable. Never in my life have I heard a louder or scarier whistle. She uses her whistle to stop her swimmers, she was my high school swim coach, at any point in their workout. You could even hear the workout under water! But that whistle has come to be associated with some negative memories for me because usually the whistle meant that you were doing something wrong. Nancy is a big fan of giving her swimmers feedback that she would label as "constructive" but I would say is more critical. In term of motor learning her feedback is augmented feedback because it is coming from an external source and in the majority of cases it was something that I could not have picked up on from my own senses like proprioception. The feedback might include telling me I wasn't swimming fast enough, my arms were not in the correct position, or I should have pushed harder off of the block during my start. These are characteristics of swimming that generally are hard to determine without being able to see yourself, especially for a non-elite swimmer like me. An example of inherent feedback would be me knowing that I did not tuck my chin when I dove off the block because I can feel the position of my chin. Nancy is also a big fan of giving concurrent feedback, hence the whistle which forces me to stop in the middle of my workout. Before I even have a chance to think about what I may have been doing wrong she tells me exactly what I did wrong and this negatively hinders my ability to learn the skill. Without a period of time to reflect and analyze my movements I am forced to abandoned any inherent feedback my body had to offer. Another error that Nancy would make when giving me feedback was that as soon as my head came up from the water she started telling me her critiques. It is beneficial to wait for a short period of time after the skill has been completed to give feedback because then the learner, me the swimmer, has time to analyze everything that just happened. I can't come to my own conclusions of my performance if I am not given the time to analyze my performance. Nancy was a great coach but there were some things she could learn from motor learning that I think would make her an even better coach.

Although this isn't a photo of Nancy whistling at her swimmers, she is speaking into a loud speaker which is basically the next best thing. She is very good at giving augmented feedback, especially concurrent feedback when she was a loudspeaker to gain her swimmers' attention. ]]> 2018-05-04 17:39:49 UTC https://padlet.com/msoukup2/f9aimwph2sde/wish/258113251