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Learning a motor skill can change your brain: Implications for Golf?
The brains of 12 people were scanned who were given three months to learn how to juggle. They were scanned before practice began, then after they could juggle for 60 seconds, and then a final time three months after the practice period ended. The brains of non-jugglers were also scanned. There was no difference in the brain anatomy of both groups at the beginning of the experiment. After the jugglers had practiced for a period of time their brains showed changes in specific areas used in the skill of juggling. Three months after their learning experience most of the jugglers had stopped practicing and had lost most of their skill. Their brain scans showed no difference to the non-jugglers. Important Points:
- The brain grows in response to task demands much like other parts of the body.
- Changes disappear when we stop practicing our skills.
Ref: Fundamentals of Motor Behavior, Jeffrey Fairbrother
Eanna Rushe MS,CSCS,CGFI,MES
Rushe Golf, LLC
Grit: Less Common, More Needed
- Coming in for that extra workout without being told to do so.
- Refusing to give up, give in, or give anything less than your best.
- Grit --- perseverance and passion for long term goals.
- Grit is less common among athletes today, but is more needed.
- The pace of life today has spawned both an innate expectation for instant results and a dearth of delayed gratification in athletes.
- Yet, we all know that the most rewarding things in life take time.
- The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph.
- Find the deepest meaning in a goal that will bring out grit in you.
- Once you've experienced grit, nothing in life is impossible.
Dr. Jarrod Spencer, Sports Psychologist
Mind of the Athlete
It is a very difficult concept for most of us to understand that we are creating first by thought and then by action. We are taught that action leads to belief, often wondering why it takes so long for our hard work to pay off. The way the brain is wired, we only see outside of us what we first believe. In other words, the eyes interpret and project onto the big screen of our lives thought patterns already firing inside the brain (we see the world not the way it really is, but the way we believe it to be). Most of us believe our golf games are randomly happening to us because of action and hard work with very little input from our conscious and unconscious beliefs. In truth, every golf shot we see gets created inside imagination first. It is then that thought and imagination get projected, through action, into our games and our lives.
- SPIRIT OF GOLF
If it doesn’t feel almost totally different or new, change is not usually taking place. No matter the venue or playing field, we must commit to stepping well outside the familiarity of our repeated habits of thought – our current comfy box – before anything new can begin to appear. The crafty (same old) mind will plead with us to do everything within our power to remain safe and in control, convincing us that danger could be lurking with the unfamiliar and new. Thinking thoughts and feeling emotions the same old way will never keep us content for very long, however, since every particle of our being is constantly asking us to feel better by letting go of what no longer serves us in favor of the new.
- SPIRIT OF GOLF
Creating New Habits
In the end, as I see it, there are only two possibilities for a human life. Either you strive to move beyond where you already are or else you continue to do what you have already done. Unless you have a vision that reaches beyond everything your life has been about so far, what is more than likely to happen is more of what's already happened. Why? Because the structures of human consciousness are habit patterns. That's not a negative thing-it's how the universe is created. Habits are formed at the level of matter, at the level of biology, and also in consciousness and culture.
We are habits. And so unless there is a powerful energy and focused intention to break out of our habit- patterns and create new ones, it's more than likely that what will happen in the future will be similar to what's happened in the past. It takes an enormous degree of focused concentration, a big vision, and a deep commitment in order to break through the established habits and create new ones. But that's what conscious evolution is all about.
- Unknown