https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro The life of Ashley O'Rourke as described by Motor Learning en-us 2016-07-31 19:28:04 UTC 2023-05-30 12:27:43 UTC hello@padlet.com slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248115 The Vietnam war is the only war in history were the United States has been considered the loser.  After traveling to Vietnam, it was evident that the underground tunnel system in which the Vietnamese lived, traveled, and strategized in, played a key role in their victory. 
Obviously, being the reckless, adrenaline seeker that I am, it was necessary for me to slither my way down through the tiny hole in the ground into the pitch black tunnel system in ChuChi, Vietnam.  I submerged down the hole first, as no one else I was traveling with were up to being the first into the dark abyss.. Once down about 10 feet I entered a small room.... I think....  There was no light, no sound, no nothing.  I felt paralyzed by the nothingness, and no one had followed me.  Fortunately, I was not paralyzed by the lack of visual or audio feedback!  I had proprioception to help me function!  Proprioception is the ability to detect your own limbs in space.  It is like when you are laying completely still in bed with your eyes closed, but somehow you can still tell where your legs, arms, and head is.  Fortunately, proprioception is not completely dependent of feedback from the other senses, so I could still stand, walk and search for a wall.  Without proprioception I would have been immediately paralyzed with no idea how or where to locate my own body!  Once I did find a wall I used my sense of Somestheia (bodily sensation of touch, pain, and temp) to figure out my surroundings.  I felt my way along the cold, damp wall to find the next tunnel to scoot through.... And then i realized... my phone that produces light was tucked in my back pocket!

Climbing into the Tunnels!]]> 2016-07-31 19:55:31 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248115 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248556 Coordination is defined as the patterning of head, body, and/ or limb motion relative to the patterning of environmental objects and events. What sounds more like coordination than making music? Being a drummer my entire life, coordination has always been a necessity to me. I love to play with the band as I coordinate my hands to perfect a beat and coordinate my beats to the music of the band. Playing my marching snare with the band requires two specific types of coordination. The first is asymmetric - bimanual coordination. This is when both of your hands are performing a task at the same time. To be considered asymmetric, the hands must be doing different things, which while drumming is 99% of the time. Each hand works together to produce a certain beat, but each hand has their own job in that creation. The other type of coordination that is extremely important when playing music with other people is temporal coordination. This type of coordination requires someone to coordinate their movements in time. In a musical piece, timing is EVERYTHING! Without each player coordinating in time, a song would just be random notes and musical phrases that did not meet up. It would sound like every player is playing a solo but at the same time!

Me playing in my High School Marching Band.]]> 2016-07-31 20:12:08 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248556 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248902 As a goalkeeper, obviously my main job it to 'keep the goal' free from soccer balls.  I want throw my body in whatever direction necessary to catch or block the ball from entering the net.  As a non-keeper it may seem that the most important element of goalkeeping is strength, flexibility, or speed, but really the key element is in your head:  Anticipation.  When a ball is flying from 18 meters away headed straight toward you it is essential to judge when the ball will be closest to you, and how long it will take you to reach the ball when it is in that location.  In other words, both receptor anticipation and effector anticipation are necessary in being an effective keeper.  Receptor anticipation is the ability to figure out when an object will arrive at a certain location, so in saving a goal it is deciding when the ball will be closest to you.  Effector anticipation is being able to figure out how long it will take you personally to move to something.  This is extremely important when diving to save a ball, you need to know how long it will take your body to reach the ball so you can then decide when to leave the ground.  If you are not accurate you will either jump past the ball, or not get there in time to block it!

The below picture shows me demonstrating great anticipation.  I figured out how long it would take the ball to reach the closest spot to me and then dove at the correct time after I anticipated how long it would take me to get to that location. 

]]> 2016-07-31 20:29:28 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248902 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248933 Learning how to walk was so long ago for most of us, that we don't really remember if it was difficult, or how fast we improved, but the minute I stepped on to the MS World Odyssey to live for the next 4 months.... I realized that I would be once again learning to 'walk'. If you have ever been on a carnival cruise ship.... you cannot relate, because my shipboard home was about 1/10th of the size of a carribean vacation bound vessel, which results in feeling the waves much more intensely. As my fellow shipmates and I walked down the hall for the first few days of our new lives we held dearly to the hand rails and were constantly ready to apologize to anyone who would attempt to walk past us without getting run into!  We needed to get our 'sea-legs!'.
Eventually after a few weeks we would go through a storm system with 20 ft swells and the shipboard community would be skipping down the hallways and playing twister in the classrooms!  How though?  We learned!
We all went through Fitts & Posner's 3-stage learning process. At first it was 'all in our heads'. We only focused on balance as we roamed the hallways, even telling ourselves to "stay steady!" as we rocked back and forth. Soon we developed our own strategies to balance. Personally, I walked with heavy feet while 'feeling' the waves go to and fro, developing a rhythm... of course with my hand hovering over the hand rail! Somewhere along our 102 days at sea the actions became automatic. No conscious though was given to feeling the waves or walking a certain way. 

My roommate and I putting on our life jackets on in preparation to go on deck the first week.... juuuustttt incase!

]]> 2016-07-31 20:31:47 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117248933 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249277 The transfer of skill is when practicing a similar skill actually helps you improve a different skill.  After tearing nearly every ligament in my knee, I was in a wheelchair for almost 2 months and being an athlete, that drove me nuts!!  Thankfully, I found a way to still practice some of my skills.  I used transfer of learning.  One way I did this is by playing catch while in my wheelchair.  Even though when I was able to perform an actual catch and throw I wouldn't be in a wheelchair, practicing a very similar skill (in a wheelchair vs. standing) I was able to improve my accuracy if even by a little bit!

Playing catch with my team at a Brewer Game.]]> 2016-07-31 20:50:01 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249277 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249357 A tradition in India is to paint a woman's skin with henna (a dye) in flowery, whimsical designs for a celebration.  When my birthday landed on the first day I was in India on my foreign exchange program, my friends and I decided to paint our hands with henna in order to "when in India, do as the Indians do"!   On our way to India my Anthropology teacher who grew up in India taught me a few traditional designs, so when it came time to paint the henna, I was in charge of painting everyone's hands.  I completed 5 other girls' designs before it was time to do my own.  Each person that I painted, I had used my preferred hand, but when it came time to do my own, I wanted the pain ON my preferred hand.  This forced me to paint with my non-preferred hand.  Although the task was difficult, I did actually pretty well!  This can be explained by bilateral transfer.  This is when the learning of a task using one limb transfers into improving that same/or similar skill using a different limb.  This obviously came in handy and by practicing 5 times with my preferred hand, I became somewhat efficient with my non-preferred hand as well!

My friends and I celebrating my birthday in India with our henna!]]> 2016-07-31 20:55:12 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249357 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249709 What could be a better job for someone who wants to be a Physical Therapist than being a Physical Therapy Aid?  When I landed a PT Aid job in my home town for the summer you can imagine how ecstatic I was!  
Two of my main duties is to perform Ultrasound therapy and Electric Stimulation Therapy on patients.  One day during my orientation week I spent the morning learning how to read the Therapists notes and then determine where, how, and at what setting to perform ultrasound therapy on a patient.  I then went to lunch and came back to do the same type of learning but with E-Stim.  The following day I came back into work to practice the two tasks that I had learned the previous day.  I couldn't remember a ton of things, or got  confused on which direction belonged to which task!  I later realized that this forgetfulness may have something to do with practice variability.
I had practiced my task using a blocked method which means all of one skill then all of the other skill, NOT mixing it up.  According to the lab we performed in class and Hypothesis's on Contextual interference effect, blocked practice isn't the best practice.  The Elaboration Hypothesis tells us that blocked practice does not promote as much comparing and contrasting therefore resulting in less memorable learning.  Along with that, the Action Plan Reconstruction Hypothesis tells us that blocked practice really only is efficient when the task is still fresh in our minds, not after a period of rest.  

Thank goodness I was still in a learning phase and could practice more and ask a lot of questions!

Below is a similar machine to what I use at work. It performs E-stim and Ultrasound.]]> 2016-07-31 21:09:10 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117249709 slinger_soccer https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117250208 Ever heard of Sand-boarding? I hadn't either until making the journey to the sand dunes of South Africa! It is exactly like snowboarding, but on sand! I was pretty nervous to do this activity since I had never snowboarded in my entire life, or surfed, or skateboarded, or anything that is remotely similar to this. My instructor insured me I would be 'just fine'!  So being the adrenaline junkie that I am, I hopped up and started sliding down the hill..... Result?  A whole lot of sand in my mouth, nose, and eyes!  Woops!
After climbing back up the hill, my friend who was an avid snowboarder instructed me to watch her do it while the teacher explained what she was doing.  So she slid down the hill as the instructor explained how she bent her knees, leaned a little backward, and used the amount of leaning to turn.  Again, I jumped up and started sliding down the hill, and wouldn't you know I made it down the hill without falling!  How could I have learned so much without more practice in between?
This can be explained by the Cognitive Meditation Theory.  This theory explains how when someone observes another person completing a task, a symbolic code is formed which helps improve attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.  A study discussed in our lecture notes also proved that if someone is explaining the actions of the person you are observing, it helps you improve the skill yourself even more!  Thank-gosh for that visual, because I wasn't really a fan of the taste of sand!

Right before my 2nd try at Sand Boarding!]]> 2016-07-31 21:22:49 UTC https://padlet.com/slinger_soccer/l940qswfn1ro/wish/117250208