Muscle Memory II -- Position

[fanofflyn]

I am a neurosurgeon by trade, and there is a story about Harvey Cushing, the father of modern neurosurgery, having one of his residents come over to the house while the staff watched him play the piano. They determined that there was not enough time to consciously process the thought of pressing the keys with timing and the right order. When learning the piano, you learn good posture and position, and then by repetition are able to do the motor actions to reproduce the music that you hear as you do it, and it occurs in subconscious circuits that are much shorter and do not require conscious processing. Only by much practice and subconscious learning can this occur. I see no reason to expect a difference in learning to place a shot into a sight picture. Once we learn the proper positions and mechanics of discharging the weapon under control, we begin the process of repetition, so the subconscious circuits can then learn to place the shot into the point of impact visualized, much faster than we can think of the individual processes required to do so. If we start of with poor mechanics, it will be harder to maintain the control to be as accurate.

Of course, "muscle memory" is a misnomer. The muscles remember nothing (unless that is what one has between his ears). But the patterns of position sense and control can be learned at a level no longer requiring complex conscious input, which is just another way of saying exactly what LR1955 said.

I vote for initiating proper mechanics, balance, and technique, then working through repetition to gain speed with subconscious learning.