Psychology Today Canada on June 24, 2021 had a blog Entry by R.Douglas Field Ph.D which explained "How Muscle Memory Works" says "A recent study shows that interspersing short breaks between repetitions encodes skill memories better than back-to-back practice sessions".
This publication is interesting because as Coaching teaches us that students have a level of saturation when learning we now see the brain also needs a rest. In the recent article published on June 8 in the "Cell Report" Dr Field suggest that "Mental Saturation" occurs when our brain is over worked.
The "Cell Report" study shows " the presence of prominent, fast waking neural replay during the same rest periods in which rapid consolidation occurs. The observed replay is temporally compressed by approximately 20-fold relative to the acquired skill, is selective for the trained sequence, and predicts the magnitude of skill consolidation".
The article says "Building “muscle memory,” that is, developing a new skill through practice, does not work the way you probably believe, according to a new study published in the June 8 issue of Cell Reports. You’ve no doubt had the frustrating experience in learning a new skill, that you continue to flub up even though you make repeated attempts over and over. Yet, if you put the challenge aside for a bit and come back to it later, you find that you are now much more proficient. In learning a new skill, it turns out that the breaks between repetitions are where the action is. By monitoring how neural activity in the brain changes during learning a new skill, researchers report that mental “instant replay” after each performance is critical to perfecting the skill. Moreover, these mental flashbacks have been missed by scientists previously for a surprising reason" .
And later writes "Why, then, is this essential post-performance mental rehearsal not obvious to us as we struggle to learn a new skill? It turns out that the “mental instant replay” flashes through the brain at warp speed—20 times faster than the original experience."
A "20-fold" increase is quite dramatic and would suggest that the student needs time to establish a relax storage of the memories of the acquired skill. Because in Coaching Seminars it is suggests that a 15 minutes to 20 minutes practice session is sufficent with new students. Of course it should be followed by a mental evaluation discussion of the Performance and the student's Feedback. The Cell Report also suggests that better acceptance of the training is possible with a rest period which allows for mental "re-organization" of the data collected and developed by the brain.
As a "Subconscious" mentor and a coach developer of "mental interruptions" within the "Subconscious action"; I often allow the student to play with his practice. If a coach is busy doing continual correction and suggestive advice during an athletic training session the saturation period is arrived at faster. By letting the student "play" allows for mental evaluation of the suggested training actions.
In Coaching you suggest a corrective action and explain the raison or change it will cause in the final performance; but only with the "play" period of the practice will the student fully understand that change. The coach suggestion is his projection to what the change should do in a physical and mental correction to the athletic's performance; but the athletic's "play" allows him to see various "what if" siturations and understand the intended resulting change the coach's suggestion was expected to produce. Good communication (listening skills) are important as the student explains their view of the changes and the results expected or achieved.
Sometimes these "play" sessions develop "Perfromance tools" which are useful later when the athletic's encounters a adjustment to the performance. As an example The coach has suggested "Do not allow a " bounce delivery" during the bowl's delivery becauses the delivery energy to be thrown into the playing surface. Now knowing that the bowl loses about two to three feet delivery with a bad delivery, the student working on improving their delivery by a better "laydown" delivery also see what level of bad delivery affects his bowl. If the bowl is now stopping in front of the jack; the student may attempt to use this as a "takeoff Tool". The student will probably during a practice use the "play information" to create a partial bounce and know what distance it will arrive in front of the jack.
This "Tool for Delivery take-off" is fine tuned with the pride of a good delivery and the need to have that extra control of the Subconscious "Muscle Memory" of the jack distance. Because the Delivery performance can be modified with a "Tag" the athletic may allow the subconscious to use its feeling of "Jack Distance" rather than use a "Tag" to modify the distance evaluation.
This example show how the student changes his "tag" as to what is the objective of the "Muscle Memory" modification. When the student rolls up the green with an exact practice distance jack and roll back down the green with the same jack distance they find that during the delivery going back toward the club house his bowl always stops two feet short of the jack. The raison may be that the large clubhouse behind the green causes the subconscious to miscalculate the distance as the clubhouse makes the jack seem closer. A "subconscious" teaching "Tag" might be to use a quick look at the clubhouse in the Delivery routine. This micro-second thought or quick view of the clubhouse has remained the subconscious that the large clubhouse causes it to mis-calculate the distance. The athletic may instead of looking at the clubhouse (as a "tag") decide to concentrate on a good smooth "laydown Delivery".
A "Tag" is a "subconscious interruption" or action which was taking a micro second in the start of "muscle memory" performance and does a quick subconscious re-calculation. In the above example the quick look toward the clubhouse was used to make an adjustment of the subconscious feeling of the jack distance. The athletic may have found that such a "Tag" of looking pass the jack to the club house and back to the jack immediately prior to the "Muscle Memory" confirmation still does not make the adjustment wanted. I use the word "confirmation" because during a delivery there is a moment in the athletic's decision to transfer to "Muscle Memory". During the athletic's "Delivery routine" they have moved into the Subconscious with a "ok do the delivery" and "Muscle memory" did the delivery. The "Tag" is always an action just prior to this confirmation and is sort of the last image (if visual) or thought (if verbal) that the "subconscious mind" see or thinks before "Muscle Memory" is activated.
Actually, as you learn to use "Tags" you will sort of feel that "pre-void" interruption as a feeling of something different. A strange feeling felt immediately as you exit the "void of thought" of the "Muscle Memory" delivery. As you exit that void your Delivery routine is now looking to the delivery result or bowl placement near the jack. Often the athletic feels that sort of satification that you have after performed a proper delivery. But in this case it is not "luck" as new bowlers experience but a satification of properly executed delivery with a "Tag".
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