Physical Skills

Making your body do what you want it to

The human body is an amazingly complex system.  There are a number of underlying processes which act and interact to make up the basic funcionality of the body.  Control over these subsystems can be achieved, by various methods and with varying degrees of success, but the point of it all is to manifest the will of your mind into action or inaction of the body and its various subsystems.  

The point is mental control over your physical faculties.  

Feedback

Your mind only has so many options for receiving input--eyes, ears, nose, fingertips, etc.   Each of these input paths provide the brain with various streams of neural feedback, and this is how the brain gets its information.  These neural signals are often a two-way street--this is where our output paths come from.  Signals come from the brain and then tell individual parts of the body to do something (or not to do something).  

Most of the time we don't even think about this sort of input/output.  When you walk, you don't consciously think 'right foot' - 'left foot' - 'right foot'--certain subsystems of the central nervous and muscular systems take care of the lower level input/output that is required to walk.  You just think 'keep walking' - 'turn left' - 'stop'.  

But when learning to do something (such as walk), there is often a lot more conscious effort required to the facilitate the steps involved in the process.  As we learn to do something, mental pathways are formed and reinforced which help to relieve the conscious effort required to perform more complex tasks.  

Subsystem Interoperability

Complex tasks are often comprised of interactions between multiple subsystems of the body, not just muscular control.  Input from various senses (sight, hearing, kinesthetics and proprioception) is combined with rhythmic control (timing) and ideas about what you want to make your body do become transformed into action. 

Take bowling, for instance--you have to receive visual information about the location of the pins and the lane, filter that against your spatial concept of the situation (your understanding of the structure you're in, about the physical properties of the ball, lane, and pins, and your estimate of the distances and energy levels involved), then coordinate a controlled forward movement (read: walk), and at the correct time relax the muscles holding the ball in order to place the right spin, speed and angle on the ball to (hopefully) knock down some pins.  

Bowlers don't often have to think about these things on a conscious level, but some part of their brain is either processing these factors, or relying on a neural pathway that was formed/reinforced in similar actions you've performed in the past (read: practice).  

Practice Makes Perfect (Or 'Bad Habits and You')

This quote should actually read 'Perfect Practice Makes Perfect' because it is just as we learn by repetition, it is possible to learn something the wrong way by repeating inefficient ways of doing things.  Sometimes it's because we aren't getting the proper feedback about what it is we're doing (i.e. we think we're doing it the right way).  Other times the quality of our templates for action begin to atrophy.  This is manifested in the form of sloppiness and laziness (when it just doesn't seem like you're trying).  

The good news is that these skills are often changeable, and they build on each other.  Just like all the individual systems that make up your body add up to more than the sum of their parts (read: you, the whole you), your individual skills become more than the sum of their parts--you become more in tune with your body, like it starts to listen to you better.  

Pushing the Edge of Your Envelope

That says your envelope.  Everybody's body is put together just a little bit differently.  That said, most people stop trying to master their bodies when they think they've got the hang of it.  You can walk, jog, run, jump, maybe play the piano, touchtype, play Nintendo. and blah blah blah, so why should you even waste time thinking about making your body do exactly what you want, right?  

The answer is going to be a little bit different for everyone, but some common themes include--general health (maybe you'll live a little longer if you take care of your meat-vessel), sense of control (the control you feel over your body seeps into other parts of your life (more dexterity, more stamina, less aches, etc.), better performance in your tasks (both work and play), increased self-discipline, and the list goes on.  

By seeking the edge of your natural envelope (i.e. what your body is really capable of), you are able to determine your limits, and often find ways to extend those limits. 

Further Reading

Hopefully reading this has helped spark a little thought in you about your own relationship between your mind and body.  Here are a few jumping off points to help along the way.  If you find something that helps you improve your mastery of the flesh, by all means feel free to contribute to this page.  

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetics

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory