There is no separation between brain and body: our brain is as much a part of our body as any other organ, so learning to ski involves the whole body, including our brain.
We change our brain with our mind as thoughts, beliefs, and emotions modify its physical structure during learning. Going through different experiences allows new synaptic connections to be made. Our brain is plastic enough to adapt to different learning and experiences through attention and purposeful perception.
When skiing, our senses provide a lot of information and somehow, our brain needs to filter and order it by seeking to associate it in order to generate the right maps and make skiing coherent. When this information is arranged in different maps, our memory has a greater capacity to anticipate the situations to come.
Our beginner’s brain was different from that of our present one because we have already developed different brain maps of our own way of skiing based on the experiences we have had. These maps are formed by each emotion, thought, and experience that we lived in each moment of our skiing, therefore, it is the mountain environment that shapes our skiing brain.
The data coming in through our senses (terrain conditions, traffic, speed, type of turn, posture, balance) are compared with those stored in the maps already created in order to differentiate them and constantly obtain updated information. If the incoming information does not match the information already stored, we try to modify our behavior to fit the present situation.
Our brain works differently in storing, organizing, and searching for information. When teaching, the instructor/coach generally believes that the learner/athlete’s brain works the same way, so he tends to transmit the information as his own brain understands it, but because they are different, interference occurs. This is the real challenge in teaching skiing: to find a way to reach the learner’s brain in order to optimize their brain maps.
The shaping of neural networks during learning
Repeating motor performance experiences facilitates the consolidation of neural networks. Neurons that fire together connect with each other, which facilitates learning by setting patterns that are difficult to modify, but when they stop firing together they will no longer connect, allowing the habit to fade. In other words, each time we interrupt the execution of a motor habit evidenced in the specific neural network, our neurons stop connecting with each other and start connecting with other neurons forming a new neural network (a new motor habit). This allows for the release of previous behaviors and the formation of new ones.
There is no doubt that the most malleable stage for learning to ski is the beginner stage because the brain is very plastic to mold to new activities. This initial stage is key as new connections are established at high speed for the basic development of the technique. Later, the neural circuits become more rigid because the connections are consolidated.
The plasticity of our brain depends on our learning experiences. Our neural networks are modified, expanding or shrinking depending on the practice or training of our technical skills. Contextual information when skiing is captured by our senses and filtered, processed, and ordered by our brain. To facilitate these processes, we use an approximation mechanism. When perceiving an area of the slope, our brain draws for conclusions according to past situations, which determines the reality that is formed from the context. By establishing it according to our emotional filters and consolidated brain maps, we decree whether it is pleasant, dangerous, easy or difficult to descend. We will then look for rational justifications that support it and, in this way, this will generate interferences that will disturb or settle our learning.
When we are practicing what we are learning, motor neurons fire repeatedly each time the same actions are performed. This leads to the neural network expanding to other neurons through a process called synapses. The established neural networks signify our own ability to execute the technique, while the dynamics of the changes in the connections between neurons translates as the level of learning, according to biology and biochemistry professor James Zull. In addition, motor neurons play an important role in processing explanatory language to facilitate our mental simulation of biomechanical analogies.
The language related to our skiing actions would be taken by us as a stimulus to prepare them since hearing or pronouncing words that denote action activates our premotor neurons. Pronouncing specific words collaborates in the preparation of movements and actions related to words pronounced or heard. This occurs because the semantic information (the meaning of the word) related to the action facilitates the recognition of that action, i.e., the identification of the word-action relationship is generated. In addition, the understanding, repetition, and assimilation of technical vocabulary will become part of our habitual language, making it possible to speak and share these topics with greater appropriateness.
