This chapter refers to learning by means of biomechanical analogies, or metaphors of movements and motor actions, which replace explicit biomechanical rules or instructions. They are combinations of already known and experienced movement schemes that merge to form new motor schemes. They facilitate, through comparison, the first contact with the task to be learned which will later become more complex.
The Theory of learning by analogies describes the correspondence between two domains of experience. To understand one in terms of the other is to extrapolate one to the other. It encompasses both the process and the end product, that is, the process of remembering a certain domain or motor skill and the end product as the concrete application of that motor memory to a new domain to be learned.
The most common definition is the evocation of a certain domain or experience, e.g., riding a bicycle, in this case it is abstract because it refers to remembering the ‘how’ to ride, i.e., legs’ movements, body posture, visual anticipation, etc., in order to transfer them to another domain to be learned, resulting in something concrete in immediacy.
The use of analogies in learning skiing aims to reduce the declarative and procedural knowledge of the multiple movements and actions of a technical gesture into a single global image. Its purpose is to direct our attention towards direct execution, eliminating the mechanisms of short-term memory to retain the specific technical indications of the motor gesture to be executed.
When we hear a biomechanical analogy, we give it a personal meaning which is the purpose of the analogy. Our mirror neurons affect the processing of explanatory language to facilitate the mental simulation of the chosen analogy. Getting to incorporate it as a simple method to solve a complex problem of motor execution provides a practical sense that facilitates the relationship between the familiarity of the analogy and the novelty of the execution to be learned.
The intention is to substitute technical rules of motor execution by a simple general rule that we follow almost without realizing it, especially in stressful situations. They serve to reduce or downplay the complexity of the technical concept to be implemented by replacing it with what we already know, finding spontaneity in their similarities. A benefit of analogies is that they help us to recover part of the past, apply it in the present, and project it into the future.
Learning motor skills through analogies requires fewer attentional resources. In contrast, explicit learning requires more information. By decreasing the attentional load on working memory resources, it frees it for use in other operations.
The application of biomechanical analogies instead of declarative and technical knowledge produces a better result in situations of execution under pressure, inducing a decrease in the conscious control of our movements. In this case we’re told only one rule consisting of a specific equivalence, which conveys the technical aspects necessary for successful execution. This type of teaching reduces the amount of information to be processed, therefore, it can be benefited while teaching children and adults as well as people with cognitive and/or physical impairment since it is easily reproducible.
Some examples of biomechanical analogies are:
- Bicycle principle: the leg on the side being turned is shortened as it is pulled upwards while the other tends to lengthen as it is pushed downwards. Both legs are inclined towards the turning side. The trunk is kept stable and slightly forward together with arms and hands. The gaze is directed towards the desired place of displacement.
- Shifting weight from one foot to the other as when using the clutch and the accelerator of a manual gear car.
- Opening the lid of certain pill bottles by pressing and rotating at the same time our hand serves as an analogy for the same movement with the external foot in skidded turns (steering action).
- Turning a door knob by rotating our hand outward is similar to the movement of the inner foot to facilitate the edge change.
- Compare the forward leaning trunk posture as in riding a bicycle, washing our hands, fast-walking or running.
- Relate the attitude of diving into a swimming pool from standing on its border to the action of oscillating our body forward when absorbing a mogul to avoid being thrown back.
- Orienting or pointing the inside knee towards the new turn as in turning on a bicycle.
- Skiing like walking: one foot rests (outside foot to the turn) on the metatarsal/inner arch and the other foot lightens, comes forward slightly and leans and rests on the outside edge (future inside foot).
- Weight shifting and edge change as when popping the cork of a wine bottle: one hand (representing the outside foot) holds the bottle (the outside ski) and pushes down. The other hand (simulating the inner foot) rotates and contracts upwards. The rotation of the hand pulling up the cork is similar to the rotation of the inner foot reaching for the little toe side/outside ski edge.
- Pushing a car compares as pressing the outside foot, extending de outside leg and pushing the pelvis forward.
