I’m reading a ton during my graduate program, of course, and one of the classes I’m taking this semester is Motor Learning.  We’ve read two papers recently that have really opened my eyes to a new way of looking at motor skill learning and development.

The first article we read is one by Susan Higgins from Physical Therapy, back in 1991 (vol 71, pp 122-139).  In it, she explains motor skill as being “effectiveness in the use of movements to solve motor problems.”  This particular outlook, of movements as problem-solving tools, was brand new to me, and has changed everything in my outlook on skill and human movement.

I found her take on effectiveness extremely interesting as well.  Namely, that “the individual’s degree of effectiveness in the learning process (and thus in problem solving in general) will be limited by his or her ability for critical self-analysis and environmental analysis in light of problems encountered and by his or her ability to generate and control the solutions to these problems.”

It’s definitely something worth reading, if you’re at all interested in the subject matter.

The second piece that we read recently was the sixth chapter of a book called “Dexterity and Its Development.”  The contributing editors are Mark Latash, Michael Turvey, and Nikolai Bernshtein (or Bernstein).  Chapter six is called “How We Should Not Think About Motor Skill” and it is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever read.  I’m actually in the process of reading the rest of the book (what I can view of it) on Google Books (the thing itself is like $120).

First, Bernstein categorizes levels of movement and motor-ability in terms of the phylogenetic origins of the human animal.  That is, he ascribes reaction-based movements to the earlier parts of our brain (“reptilian brain”), etc.  This is similar to Paul MacLean’s “Triune Brain” theory.

It seems that Higgins took her cue from Bernstein.  He also sees movement as problem-solving.  However, the solution the body comes up with may not necessarily be the most structurally-proper solution.  From this point of view, dysfunction is the body solving a movement problem by getting around the structural/functional issues it’s encountering internally.  In a sense, dysfunction is the body solving internal motor problems, instead of external motor problems.

The chewiest bit from chapter six, for me, was the following quote, which I’ve parsed a little for the sake of brevity:

“A human starts learning a movement because he cannot do it…The essence and objective of exercise is to improve the movements, that is, to change them.  Therefore, correct exercise is in fact a repetition without repetition…during a correctly organized exercise, a student is repeating many times, not the means for solving a given motor problem, but the process of its solution, the changing and improving of the means.”