An interesting article about skill development.

[rudd]

Hi

Found this at another site I frequent. It's an article about mirror neurons and how a person can improve a skill by observation. make a good case for buying DVD's of high level events.

[edew]

For a great part of my fencing experience, I learned from watching. Most of my fencing experience was devoid of a coach. So I watched some moves, tried to emulate it, made adjustments to fit myself and used it. A typical one is when my opponent does a particular action on me and it works, I try to do the same to him. If it succeeds, I get a point. If it fails, I discover how to defend against it.

[Ordway]

I was actually just reading a Scientific American article that mentioned that effect, and was thinking about how it might apply to fencing.

Do you think that it would be beneficial to videotape one's own lessons and watch them again?

(I understand the utility of videotaping bouts, to analyze for mistakes, etc., but nobody ever seems to talk about taping lessons.)

[eac]

Seems to me that it'd be better just to watch video of high-level fencing, since the point of a lesson is to tell you to do a certain motion, and the high-level fencing has really good examples of most motions. I guess you could notice some mistakes you were making in the lesson, but your coach was probably telling you about those mistakes anyway.

[crquack]

One of the best martial teachers, Bob Orlando (kuntao-silat), has a story about octopi who learned by watching one another. He is also a believer in the ability to learn by watching.

I think one additional element might be helpful: visualization. I learned a reasonably decent tennis backhand by watching Ivan Lendl on TV and visualizing how to do it.

The only thing I have against watching high level fencing is that it is so fast that one cannot perceive the necessary components of the action to make learning feasible. I bought a bunch of DVDs from Fencing Footage but even in slow motion it is difficult to discern what they are doing.

Anyway, it is so much nicer learning in an armchair then to have to sweat...

[VorpalCat]

Originally Posted by eac

Seems to me that it'd be better just to watch video of high-level fencing, since the point of a lesson is to tell you to do a certain motion, and the high-level fencing has really good examples of most motions. I guess you could notice some mistakes you were making in the lesson, but your coach was probably telling you about those mistakes anyway.

There are times, however, when seeing really is believing. Sometimes it's much faster and more straightforward for a fencer to see with their own eyes what mistake is being made. You may honestly feel you ARE doing the move exactly the way Coach or clubmates keep ranting at you about but actually seeing for yourself what you're doing finally makes it click with you. Nothing like a coach's finger on the screen saying, 'There, see that?' to turn the lightbulb on sometimes.

[introspective]

The link was very interesting, but visually the photograph of the landscape brings the eye downward, the fencer won't win looking at something that passive or with downward visuals.

The most upbeat thing I've tried for myself is, believe it or not, the freebee cheapo Yahoo games: glinx, jeweldrop, gemdrop, bounceout, they do something interesting for the eye in little tiny movements and if you try to link things up going left to right; then right to left you'll work both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I use more vibrant colors, reds, yellows, complex games.

Other than that who knows.

[chefencer]

Thanks for the info. Seems to corroborate Kogler's method in "Clearing the Path to Victory"...
Aladar Kogler's Psychology??