Move Slow, Learn Fast: Another Look - Part II

Greetings,

The following is the second of three parts of this subject. I will apologise to my dear reader as these are quite long. This was the only way for the appropriate information to be included in the document as a whole, and to not drag it out into more parts. Unlike my regular blogs, while the first part appeared on its usual monthly date, the following parts will appear one week after one another so that you are not kept waiting too long for the next part. This is a subject that has been spoken about previously; it is now presented with more detail and new evidence.

Cheers,

Henry.

Motor Skill Learning

“neuroplasticity is what allows for the acquisition and retention of motor skills. By motor skills, we are referring to finely coordinated muscle movements such as batting, putting, and free throws.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016) 

          The same category of movements also apply to all those found in fencing. The following part discusses the science behind the acquisition of motor skills and how they are implanted in the brain. There is enough science presented here to demonstrate the basis for these ideas, but not so much that to confuse the issue. To this end, only a single source has been used to keep things simple, though other sources during this investigation will refer to the same processes.

Motor Skill Learning: Two Phases of Learning

“Motor skill learning is defined as the process by which movements are executed more quickly and accurately with practice. Motor skills are acquired over multiple training sessions until performance reaches a plateau. There are two phases of learning: a fast phase and a slow phase. The fast phase involves rapid improvement over the course of one single training session. The slow phase involves small, steady gains that develop over multiple practice sessions, eventually reaching a stable peak.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016)

           In the acquisition of a skill this plateau is the sign that the skill has been learnt as the skill level does not increase for a period of time; at this point in time the basics of the skill have been acquired. The ascent to this plateau is marked by two phases, as noted, a fast phase and a slow phase. The acquisition of the essential skill happens rapidly, the accuracy in this skill occurs over a longer period of time. It is in this second part of the process that most will get frustrated.

“In your subsequent practices, you begin the slow process of gaining accuracy so that the vision in your brain matches the movements of your body.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016) 

          The slow process of gaining accuracy in a skill is what bogs many down and also discourages many. Here, many will want to move on to the next thing because they have the basics of the skill, thus think they have learnt enough. The important thing is to stick with the practice and gain accuracy in the skill so that it can be performed properly and so that the brain retains it accurately. From a slightly different point of view, skills are gained in a three stage process.

Three Stage Axis of Acquisition

“In addition to the division between fast and slow, motor skill acquisition can be separated into stages across another axis:
 1.     Encoding
2.     Consolidation
3.     Retention & Recall.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016)

The three stage axis of acquisition presents a slightly different approach to the previous acquisition of a skill, but gives more detail about some of the specific processes involved. For skills in swordplay, this approach is more useful when examined. The encoding stage is when the skill is learnt, the consolidation is when the skill is more deeply processed, usually in the mind so that it becomes a part of normal process, and finally the retention and recall is the final part where the skill becomes a part of the individual so that they can call upon it without conscious thought, thus having built an appropriate neural pathway, or muscle memory.

“Encoding overlaps with the fast learning period and refers to the process by which a motor skill is converted from an experience to a construct that is stored in the brain. The majority of encoding will occur online — or the interval during training sessions.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016) 

Encoding is the first stage and is where the skill is initially learnt. The skill must be learnt properly in this process. Slow training is most useful here because the body can move through the action slowly and thus remember each movement in intimate detail, rather than rushing through the action, possibly missing some of the nuances. It is also here that mistakes can be made if the learning process and the skill is not the focus of the student.

“In contrast, skill consolidation happens offline — or the interval between training sessions. Sleep is a critical offline period; it’s when the majority of skill learning is consolidated in the brain. Consolidation can be thought of as an intermediate phase between fast and slow learning.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016)

           Consolidation happens after the class has finished. If the student goes over the skill in their mind with a vivid image of what they have learnt, there is a likely chance that they will remember what they have learnt and it will be stored properly. The mind most definitely has its part to play in the process. The moving image of the skill which is given by the brain, or to the brain, is the one which is going to be repeated, thus a vivid image remembered from the class is best for the process. Thinking about fencing, helps your fencing. 

“The last stage of learning, retention, occurs simultaneously with the slow learning phase, during both offline and online periods. The result of retention is the commitment of the learned skill to muscle memory and the ability to retrieve this memory at will. Muscle memory refers to the ability to perform a skill without any conscious effort.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016) 

The last stage of learning is retention. Once retained a skill can be corrected, but it takes a lot of work due to the effort put into placing in into the muscle memory as it is. This is the reason why practice must be made accurately initially and where slow training has an advantage because corrections can be made more easily as they can be more easily seen. Once retained, a skill is then used without conscious effort, it is simply applied to the situation at hand; this is the goal of muscle memory. A different part of the brain is used to operate the skill as the skill is moved toward muscle memory. 

“Once a skill is committed to muscle memory, the motor cortex is less involved, and activation switches to lower-order processing areas such as the cerebellum where subconscious motor memories are stored. This reflects the behavioral shift that occurs as the motor skill improves — i.e. less and less reliance on thinking until the skill can be completed with no conscious effort.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016) 

          The advantage for the fencer is that  they do not have to think about how to do the action, just doing the action, or in some instances not even that. The fencer’s mind is then free to think about other things such as observing the opponent to see what they are doing, and planning ahead for their next series of actions. This is where much of the advanced fencer’s speed comes from, a lack of conscious effort applied to skills.

          Understanding the learning process allows a person to see where and how they need to apply themselves. The use of slow training techniques in a training routine allows for skills to be learnt in an intimate way allowing for an accurate retention of the skill. This aids the learning process, even if it would seem to slow the process down somewhat. In the end the fencer will have learnt the skills much more effectively than if they had rushed through and only used drills at speed.

Muscle Memory

 “studies have shown that even elderly people can generate new neural pathways and increase their capacity for learning and memory. Simply put, our brains are malleable, moldable, plastic. Thus, it makes sense that this phenomenon of rewiring the brain is known as neuroplasticity.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016a)

           Neuroplasticity was discussed previously. There are elements of neuroscience which cannot be avoided when discussing the subject of memory, more so when discussing the building and retention of skills. Neuroplasticity is the phenomenon which occurs every time a skill is learnt, and this does not matter whether the skill is a motor skill or a more mental skill.

          What is most interesting is that this investigation began simply focussing on training and methods using slow techniques, it has branched out to include such subjects as have been included due to the research which has been performed on subjects in sport. “Pop culture calls it "muscle memory." Science calls it "neural pathways."” (Ox, 2016). While not knowing it, many practitioners of the arts of the sword had been discussing the subject of neuroscience, in layman’s terms admittedly, without even knowing it. It is these neural pathways which will be the focus of this part.

Old Pathways

          Neural pathways form an important part of our everyday lives that we take for granted. We walk, we pick things up, we move things, all sorts of activities, “it's just a fact and a consequence of the neural pathways ingrained in your brain that have made these things second nature.” (Petrosino, 2018). Neural pathways make activities part of our second nature, they make skills so that we do not have to think about them, we just do them. This gives us great advantage because it allows us to be thinking about other things while doing something else. Of course, it is not all that simple. Old habits are hard to break.

“In the gym and in training, most people’s defaults are to go to whatever movement pathway has become their autopilot. I mean, heck, that's even true in life. People take the same routes to work, and they default to the same behaviors when stressed, etc.” (Petrosino, 2018)

           Everyone has at least one habit that they would like to break. Of course that means that they have to fight against the neural pathways which have, for the most part, been unconsciously written. For those who are participants in sport or other activities, these habits may be a part of the activities, in which case the neural pathways have probably been somewhat more consciously written, but also in some cases there is also some unconscious activity. In either case the task of re-writing is difficult.

 “The brain is an amazing super computer, capable of directing and coordinating complex motor and mental skills. Once a movement pathway becomes embedded into it, however, it becomes very set in its ways.” (Duke, 2015)

           Luckily, due to neuroplasticity it is possible to write new neural pathways, or even re-write old neural pathways. The brain is most definitely malleable in this respect, and this is a good thing. It means that we can get rid of those bad habits.

New Pathways

“The science community has done a lot of work in recent years showing that the brain can both make new neurons (neurogenesis) and new neural pathways (neuroplasticity). Neural pathways are just a series of neurons connected by single or bundled fibers that connect to send signals from one region of your brain to another or to the rest of your nervous system. Hence, these neural pathways allow your body to consciously and subconsciously carry out activities.” (Petrosino, 2018)

           What this means is that all of those poor neurons that most of us killed in our late teens and early twenties with the consumption of alcohol are not lost, they can come back. You just have to encourage them to do so, and this means using your brain. This is not the focus of this investigation to gain knowledge. The focus is on the gaining and the development of neural pathways for skills. For neural pathways, that involves the training of both the body and the brain, and both need to be involved in this process for the most effective result. Petrosino (2018) describes three stages of making a new neural pathway.

“To make a new neural pathway, you go through three stages: cognition, association, and autonomy. The cognitive stage is where you learn a new thing, like a new way to squat, by watching, doing, and thinking. It's the introductory phase to the new “motor pattern.” It's a hard phase because you need to figure out how to do the damn thing without reverting to old patterns. In the associative stage, you start doing the new thing more. This stage is where the newly learned motor pattern starts to become more natural. However, in this stage, the new skill/pattern/thing isn’t natural yet, making it somewhat frustrating. The final stage, the autonomous stage, is where you finally do the damn thing without consciously thinking about it. It’s the stage we all want to get to immediately but need to go through tons and tons of repetitions to get to.” (Petrosino, 2018)

           The three stage model presented, describes a process for the development of a new neural pathway, or a new skill. It resounds much like the process that was given in the previous part of the investigation about motor skill learning, with little surprise. It is the association which will take the longest period of time as it is here where the repetition will come in, slow training will be most useful in the cognition stage, but also useful in the association stage to ensure that the skill is correct and practiced correctly. For the improvement of a skill the same process applies, but more focus needs to be applied.

Improvement of a Skill

          While Duke (2015) is discussing the acquisition of a skill in his discussion, if a person wanted to improve a skill, the same process actually applies, but there more focus is needed, “not only is performing repetitions of a new movement a key in learning it, but to both feel and see the movement will only make your swing hologram more vivid.” (Duke, 2015). His discussion uses a golf swing as an example, but the same can be applied to any skill. You need to feel and see the movement which is being made, and this needs to be performed slowly so you can see and feel exactly what’s going on.

This idea of Duke’s is further developed to include, “Eyes-open, slow-motion swings will increase your visual awareness, and eyes-closed swings will further enhance what you are feeling.” (Duke, 2015). To enhance the two different senses he focusses on one and then blocks out the other so that the individual can focus and find out exactly what they are doing. All the actions are done slowly.

The whole idea of both the slow-motion with eyes open and eyes closed is so that the brain can register every movement of muscle, joint and bone so a firm image of what’s exactly going on can be formed in the brain. With this image of the perfect form this is the target, without it, what is the target? Or as Duke expresses, “If you don’t have a vivid image and feel for your movements, what are you expected to recall when you hit the start button on your golf swing?” (Duke, 2015). This same approach can be applied to the skills of swordplay, and any other skill, and used to both improve the skill as well as learn it.

Neural Pathways: Easy to Establish, Hard to Develop

“I’ve been told it only takes 30 seconds of consciously thinking about something to build a new neural pathway, and that might be true. But it takes hours of repetition for it to become second nature.” (Petrosino, 2018)

           Neural pathways are relatively easily built, but it takes quite a bit more effort for that neural pathway to become developed and significant. It is a pathway which is being built, if it is not used particularly much, it will be present but not particularly prevalent, active thought will be required to use that particular skill. The way something becomes second nature, thus to be built into muscle memory so it is second nature, is through repetition, and lots of it.

“To make stage combat a safe practice, it must be ingrained into the actor’s muscle memory through constant repetition. By slowly repeating mechanics, a thin layer of “potential habit” is placed in one’s physical and mental memory. The mind and body begin to make the actions more natural; this is known as kinesthetic learning.” (Girard, 1997:5)

           Kinesthetic learning is essentially learning by doing. It is learning through doing a physical activity. In this particular case it is learning through the repetition of the skills which the individual wants to learn. In the case of an actor it is the directions of the fight director, in the case of a swordsman, it is the techniques of swordsmanship. These are learnt through the practice and making them more natural to the person who is using them. The more natural a skill can become the more likely it will be used.

“it is much easier to engrain a movement pattern if it’s natural, or in accordance with the laws of nature. The point here is that the more things we can “let” happen in the golf swing, instead of trying to make them happen, the less tension and compensations are required. It will also be easier to develop and consistently use these new neural pathways.” (Duke, 2015)

           If an action feels awkward because it is biomechanically unsound, then it is less likely that the person is going to learn it. If it is biomechanically sound then the student is more likely to retain it and practice it as taught. There must be some leeway in teaching of physical skills for physical variance, because everyone is not built the same way. An action which is more natural to a student is the one that they are going to learn. This is also assisted if the skill can be connected to something they already know. The brain will protect those skills which we use the most.

“In fact, neuro science shows us that when you practice something over and over, exactly the same way, you not only create a neural pathway in the brain, but it also gets surrounded by an insulating sheath of cholesterol called myelin. This insulating sheath protects the neural pathway from the performance-robbing effects of adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol and other chemicals that are released in extreme stress situations.” (Ox, 2016)

           Not only does practice reinforce a skill in the sense that it reinforces the practice of the skill but it also protects the skill on a biochemical level. Meaning that even the body gives the individual benefits from practicing. Old skills should be practiced as much as new skills to continue their protection, but as this is a discussion of new neural pathways, these will be the focus. How much practice you put in is not as important as regularity and what you practice.

“we know we can considerably speed up the process of creating a new neural pathway if we are constantly refreshing the correct movement. Ten minutes a day verses 1 hour a week will yield faster results. Note that I said “correct movement,” not “correct positions.” Without getting too deep into the rabbit hole of neuroscience, the Holonomic brain theory supports that people learn motor skills not by linking a progression of positions together like line-by-line computer code, but instead by storing the entire movement as a neural 3-D hologram.” (Duke, 2015)

           Practice needs to be regular and movement-based. Short periods of practice each day are better than large practices in single lumps each week. The idea is to keep the skill fresh so the brain will remember the skill and be reminded what it looks like, so the motions are reinforced. Previously old skills were mentioned as needing practice as well as new skills, and this is very true. Old skills should always be re-visited so that they are reminded and remembered. Thus practice needs to be continued.

“If you continue to practice, the optimized brain-muscle output will be maintained and so will the skill, but if you neglect practice, the functional connections will become less synchronous, resulting in poorer performance. So, there really is a reason why your mother always told you that practice makes perfect. It all comes down to neuroplasticity.” (Halo Neuroscience, 2016a)

           Practice is important for the maintenance of all skills. Anyone who has played any sport or been involved in any activity over a period of time will have noted that if they missed practices over an extended period of time that their skills waned. It was not that they had forgotten how to do things, just that they were not as sharp as they were previously. Practice is vital to continued proficiency at high levels, but the practice must be effective and it must be practicing the right things.

“It takes about 500 repetitions of an action to put it into your muscle memory, but you must practice it accurately. Any mistake you make in the action will also be practiced into muscle memory as well and it will take 50,000 repetitions to remove a mistake from muscle memory, so it is best to do it right the first time. Any action which is placed in your muscle memory can be performed without thought, this means you will react quickly to the stimulus given by your opponent; another reason why you must practice accurately and why your partner must give you the correct stimulus when you practice.” (Walker, 2019:241)

           The problem is that a person may practice a skill over and over again, but if they are not focussed on what they are doing, errors can creep into their practice. This means that these errors can become a part of their skill, thus a part of their neural pathway. Meaning that they have done their practice, but they are not perfect. With this in mind, a saying needs to be modified, “Perfect practice makes perfect.” Each skill that is practiced, needs to be practiced so that it is practiced the same way, consistency is vital, with one another, and with the form that is intended. A veteran player or swordsman will have done their practice so established their pathways, thus they will have much more difficulty in correcting their mistakes than a beginner.

“This is why more experienced students have such difficulty correcting their form – they have so integrated technique into muscle memory that unless they are concentrating on what they are doing in terms of improving their technique, they just revert to what they have done all along.” (Caile, 2017)

           The best way to avoid problems with form or practice is to avoid the mistakes to begin with. Practice accurately in the beginning and there will be no issues to deal with in the later stages of your career. One of the ways to do this is to have a training buddy to watch you and assist you with your form. Another way, or a way to add to this, is to move slowly, taking the time to get it right before moving more quickly.

“It’s also really important to start slow. When you do a motor pattern fast or under a heavy load, this makes you susceptible to reverting to old neural pathways and complicates your neural learning abilities. However, if you slow movements down, and work on doing them right, it will be much easier to make them turn into second nature. Then, once it’s actually natural to you, work on speeding movements up or making them heavier.” (Petrosino, 2018)

           When you are learning a new skill it is easy to develop bad habits. When you are re-learning a skill, or improving a skill it is even easier to revert to bad habits. Speed in the execution of practice will only enhance the chances of you reverting to bad habits, and often without you even noticing. Old habits are easy to fall into; natural ways, which may not be the correct way, are also easy to fall into. Take the time perform the skill properly and slowly until it is correct and you can feel what it feels like. Focus on the movement.

“Even in training and especially for drills the movement at slow speed is very useful. Corrections to technique are more easily made at slower speed than they are at faster speeds. A student can develop a lot of muscle memory by moving slowly because they can focus on the movement of individual parts of their body in order to make the technique being performed more efficient. A trainer can see the movement of each part in slow speed and make corrections to engagement and position of the student in order that they are learning the correct techniques.” (Walker, 2019:279)

At slow speed the technique can be corrected more easily. At slow speed it can be felt more easily, and can be felt if it is wrong more easily. Speed will cover up mistakes, but while this will result in no correction, it will result in bad habits and incorrect movements. It will also result in having to repeat training to improve. Speed is not an ally in many training scenarios. Don’t be hasty. Don’t rush. Take your time and do it properly.

The end of Part II

The Bibliography will be found at the end of Part III.