Habit. Solution or Symptom?
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got"
Ever experienced an undesirable movement pattern that just would not seem to go away. For the girl I was riding with yesterday it is the tendency to be in the backseat at the start of the toeside turn. For me right now it is the tendency to pre-spin too much and too early on frontside 360s. We know that it is not how we want to be moving. Why do we do it?
Weems posted an earlier blog about habits. All habits are solutions. There is some benefit to her in starting the toeside turn with 60% or more of her weight on the back foot. There is a benefit to me in pre-spinning the 360. She can do the turn and I can do the 360. Neither of us is very efficient with the movements we are choosing, but we are making it happen regardless.
So where do these solutions come from that at some point may turn into habits that we eventually decide we don't like anymore?
Is it because of equipment we are using now or once used? Is it our physical makeup, our biomechanical idiosyncrasies? Is it a past or current injury? Could it be that we just happened to move that way once and it stuck? Could it be coincidence? Did we get it by watching someone who had the same habit?
Or is it rooted in emotion? And if it is rooted in emotion, might we be best served by thinking of the movement as a symptom of that emotion, rather than as a solution? A symptom of fear may be going to the backseat. A symptom of excitement (got young kids?) might be not turning at all. A symptom of embarrassment may be an unwillingness to try something new. A symptom of anger may be forcing the skis/board. Though "symptom" has a negative connotation it does not have to be all bad in this context. A symptom of satisfaction might be some nice progressive edging. A symptom of being relaxed/contentment could be rhythm and flow in the bumps.
I get it that this is a real can of worms I am opening with this last paragraph. It is a bit of a chicken egg situation? Which came first, the emotion or the symptomatic movement? Or do we leave emotion out of it entirely? After all, it might just be the result of a wrinkle in a sock.
Posted On: February 08th, 2010 By: Dan Humphries
