As humans, we are limited by a body mass in which takes place sensorial experiences, being the brain the organ that receives and processes them. Body consciousness is composed of complex body signals coming from different senses, including motor and visceral signals. Body-conscious experiences of our own location, identification, and perspective are related to the temporoparietal and pre-motor areas of the brain and these experiences are based on multisensory stimuli detected by vision, proprioception, touch and the vestibular system.
Blanke (2013) proposes that bodily experience is divided into being located in space (self-location); in bodily identifying as a whole (self-identification) and finally, the subjective experience from where the external world is perceived (first-person perspective). Our body identification depends on somatosensory and visual signals and they involve tactile and visual neurons. Body location depends on as well as the integration of vestibular signals and includes visual, tactile and vestibular neurons (Blanke, 2013).
We do not have a body: we are a body in constant process of imprinting the history of our own skiing. It is through our body that we express our skiing, that is why it is essential for us to orient attention towards it because this will generate the evolution of our motor behavior. To evolve, we must meet our body through a greater consciousness of it since the entire body is projected in our skiing. It is common remembering the existence of the body only when pain is felt in any part of it. We need to know ourselves bodily and learn how to take control of our own body; otherwise, we will always depend on someone else for postural references. Our corporeal consciousness is the full knowledge of our own body; it is a reflective approach guided by our motor intentions.
Through the feedback of conscious movements and appropriate muscle contractions and de-contractions, we can orient ourselves towards the search of body knowledge based on the perception of our posture (spatial information from the various body segments) which relates to our actions’ intentions (performing our ski technique). The process of body recognition is listening to ourselves through the inner silence, being aware of sensations by paying attention to them, and determining how our body is sensed at every moment.
Bodily consciousness includes processes such as body knowledge and its parts, the perception of postures and movements in different situations, breathing, and perception of the longitudinal axis as well as laterality. It also includes emotional components in terms of the attitude towards our physical ability and movements. The modification of these movements is essentially carried out through our consciousness as a primary resource, which comes from the experience in body use since it emerges from sensorimotor involvements and through these, our skiing is improved. The absence of body consciousness should be reversed by being mentally present and relate mind and body. A mental alteration affects our skiing form, and a physical alteration affects our mental state.
Laterality is the conscience of both sides of our body, and the knowledge that they are different. We should first perceive our body laterality to apply it then in our skiing. We should be conscious of both sides and know how to use them. At perceiving our body laterality, we perceive the relationship of our skiing posture with regard to our path direction (fall line or a traversing descent). Bilateral integration is our skill in efficiently using both sides of our body, separated or simultaneously, being an important feature to be learned. Many skiers use exclusively one side to stop, which is normal up to a certain level. With an appropriate development, each side will complement each other.
Our body is the instrument by which we act in the environment. To evolve, we should understand the sense of body consciousness and its interaction with the surroundings, i.e., fine tuning with the environment by interpreting it. The comprehension of our body movements is based on interacting with the surroundings by being attentive to what happens to ourselves in it.
Expanding corporeal consciousness helps developing not only technical and emotional aspects of skiing but also creating an intelligent skier. The highest level of body consciousness is the one in which we are conscious of the way we are conscious. The more body consciousness deepens, the more it approaches the definition of being skiers acting from our bodies.
According to these considerations, you can apply the following recommendations in your own skiing:
- Remember that you do not just have a body: you ‘are’ a body, and that you express your skiing through your body, so this is why you should be conscious of it.
- As your entire body is projected in skiing, you need to know yourself bodily to then take control of it.
- Practice the consciousness of body laterality, i.e., the conscience of both sides of your body and the awareness that they are different.
- Expand your corporeal consciousness by being conscious of the way you are conscious.
