I photoread a book called The Inner Athlete this evening. It brought to mind a few thoughts that I wanted to share.
1) Modelling:
I heard that a guy in the states recorded top bowlers from all angles, making a video tape that showed an athlete making perfect shots viewed from all angles, and at many different speeds (from very slow to very rapid). He watched this every day for a short period of time, and his game improved remarkably. I was wondering whether any of you have heard of it, and know who did this, and also whether it is being developed for other sports (like gymnastics, for example, where it is not so easy to find perfect examples in real life, and many trainers are less than ideal, and even with a trainer who can *tell* you what to do, it would certainly help to *see* what is correct. This would help visualisation, as well).
A guy in Sweden made a system where you learn to golf with modelling and direct feedback. You watch a recording of someone making perfect (or near to perfect 
) shots - this on a special screen that you wear like sunglasses. At the same time, you make a shot and see yourself in realtime, and can directly compare your shot to that of the professional player. I have a friend who tried it and says it is awesome. He was already a good player, so the effect wasn't as incredible as it could be, but a girl he brought to the green who was a TOTAL newbie learned to play a verrrrry decent game in less than an hour.
2) awareness.
A neat thought that came out of the Natural Athlete book is that when you have a skill and subsequently improve it you will generally FEEL like you are worse for a while. At first you are not so skilled, but your (kinesthetic, in the example of sports) awareness is also relatively low, so you are not aware of the mistakes you make, cannot sense them so well. Then you improve. You become much more aware of your body, balance, movements, and thus notice all the mistakes you make, and even though your skill improves a lot at this point (generalising and paraphrasing like crazy) you will have a much higher level of awareness, causing you to feel as though your skill has, in fact, regressed.
Just sharing random thoughts 
Kosmik
[This message has been edited by kosmik (edited August 18, 2003).]
