SOME NEURO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MOTION BASED TRAINING

Author:

Monya Gorelik, M.Sc.

Independent researcher

Israel

 

Abstract:

The confrontation between Natural Motion and any other motions as well as psychological aspects of this confrontation became an important issue during the last decade.

The intuitive understanding of naturalness in motion can impede our understanding of motion itself.
This article analyses the psychological aspects of such confrontation during stressful situations and suggests practical method for improving motion.

 Summary:

The article suggests that implementation of emotionally based Natural Motion instead of artificial motion will yield better results in stressful situations and reduce the stress and negative emotional background.

 Key words:

Natural, motion, training, stress, emotional, biomechanics, neuro-psychological, fractal.

 

Acknowledgement:

Special thanks to Prof. Vadim Rotenberg for his great support, suggestions and advice. Prof. Rotenberg spent a lot of his time discussing with me in depth many subjects, part of which found their way to this article.

 

 I am deeply thankful to Dr. Moti Taler for his continuous advice and support of my research.

 

I also greatly appreciate discussions with my friend and student Dr. Zamir Kimhi who also found the illustration for this article.


Every input the living organism receives (the signal of external origin - from the external world, or internal origin - from a memory or the nervous system), always starts an immediate emotional response, (memory always has an emotional component) and will cause the appropriate motion by activating the Paleo-circuit brain mechanism. The corresponding hormones and neuro-peptides will step-up or step-down the nervous system activity. It is Important to keep in mind that not only that the nervous system activity can cause a motion, but that the motion itself will always cause distinctive changes in neural activity, creating ring-like interactions.

The morphology of all natural motions *, including inborn instinctive ones, has a universal general fractal definition**. So the meaning of the motion- its nature- will be predicted by the emotional-memorial component of the input and not by the morphology of the motion- its external form. In short, externally identical movements can be completely different by nature and involve different brain structures.

If some movement is learned without the learner’s intention of the movement being a Natural Motion - it is learned, and more importantly, controlled, mostly by the left hemisphere of the brain. The Natural Motion can be learned also with a considerable participation of left hemisphere, but the right hemisphere will dominate the learning and especially the controlling of the Natural Motion. The more distant Natural Motion from the inborn one the more important role plays left hemisphere of the brain.

 

 As a result, a conflict between these two kinds of motions will probably happen when an emotional tension will be sufficiently high. Unnatural automatic motion will suppress the natural inborn instinctive reaction. Higher will be the emotional tension, more active will be the natural reaction and more it will try to get out contrary to the suppression of the unnatural automation. This struggle will increase even more the emotional tension.

 
This conflict will result in stiffness of the artificially constructed – unnatural – motion as a result.

Contradictory orders of the left and right hemispheres of the brain can cause excessive muscle tonus and asynchronic contractions of agonists and antagonists, resulting in stiffness of both muscles and motion.

The stiffness will be amplified by the unnatural bio-mechanics of such motion. This, probably, is the main reason many highly sophisticated artificial movements fail in situations with high emotional tension.

The natural Motion is much less prone to fail in such situations.

 
Intentional motions will include activity of somato-sensory cortex and the motor center in the frontal brain. Pls. consider connection between these activities, dopamine, serotonin and endorphin.  Dopamine is responcible for controlling complex movements and irregular dopamine activity can lead to the muscular tightness in people with Parkinson's disease.

Some arts, especially of oriental origins, like karate, demand emotional detachment. In moments when emotions arouse these techniques can come in crucial confrontation with natural reactions and, as a result, fail.

I believe that naturally created mechanisms of emotional memory is best suited to resolving any possible task connected to motion.

 
The artificially created unnatural motion is often learned in highly emotional negative situations (i.e. fear, anger, etc.) so the learner will be accustomed to these emotional environments. It is not a playful nor is it a natural manner of training- artificial motions need a pre-dictated plan in order to work. When the level of negative emotional arousal is higher than the one the learner was accustomed to, it will cause the breakdown of the unnatural motion. As a result, the emotionally-based natural motion will come to action.
 
This probably will result in reducing of negative emotional influence and assist to the partial re-blocking of the left hemisphere. Therefore very strong negative emotional impact can result partial rehabilitation of the left hemisphere normal functioning.
 
The Natural Motion is better trained in a playful manner and is best when confronting the “3Fs”dilemma - Fight, Flight and Freeze. No emotional tension is necessary for training in order to gain better health or acquire greater motion or performance skills. The tension during the training is necessary in order to make the “Fight” option more instinctively preferable when confronting real-life highly emotional situations.
 

However, all behavioral patterns can be described by the “3Fs” model, so no technique breakdown will happen. This natural approach allows playful and enjoyable style of training with a minimal required negative emotional arousal.

More importantly, the naturalness of the motion will result in no pre-dictated sequences of movements and no stiff action plans. Its bio-mechanical and psychological characteristics allow flowing natural sequences instead of a pre-determined plan.

Important note- there are no completely artificial motions and there are probably no pure natural motions either. There is no dichotomy between the two, but more of a scale.

The more natural the motion and its learning process, the better.

*   Definition: Natural Motion is that motion which is closest to the inborn motion applied under existing conditions in order to solve motor problems. 

Morphology is a general form of organism or its structure or its specific structural features.

** The term "fractal" was introduced by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975. It comes from Latin "fractus" meaning an irregular surface like that of a broken stone. Fractals are non-regular geometric shapes that have the same degree of non-regularity on all scales. Just as a stone at the base of a foothill can resemble in miniature the mpuntain from which it originally tumbled down, so are fractals self-similar whether you view them from close up or very far away. Fractals are structures or motions that constructed of parts with similar stuctures or motions.

 

Fractals are the kind of shapes we see in nature. The trees, the waves, the duns, the rivers, the clouds, blood vessels and nerve system - are all fractals.
 

Our research discovered that Natural Motion has a fractal structure and can be described by a single fractal, close to the ancient Chinese symbol of Yin-Yang. The same fractal also describes the body structure. This general morphological model together with the general kinematic model of the Natural Motion we discovered, can provide researchers with a solid basis for study and analysis of Natural Motion. The coaches can use them for practical training purposes as well.