Not practicing makes perfect??

[mattbell]

I use a video game (Dance Dance Revolution) for aerobic exercise.

I usually play around three times a week.  However, I didn't play at all between mid-January and this week.  Six months of no practice.  The first time I played this week, I was not as good as I used to be.  However, the second time I played this week, I broke my all-time records on five of the ~40 songs.  This is kind of shocking.  I don't know if it was my running around the world and feeding my brain lots of interesting data that led me to be more nimble at this well-practiced skill.  Maybe it was also those brain games I started playing around with earlier this week that are helping me track the arrows faster.  Maybe it was a complete fluke.  Unfortunately, running a controlled experiment on this one would take a lot of time.

Generally being an expert at one skill (eg tennis) actually interferes with your ability to perform a related skill (eg racquetball).  However, perhaps at my fairly moderate level of physical dexterity, picking up a variety of physical skills instead of purely focusing on one makes them *all* better. 

Comments

[jhogan.livejournal.com]

Danielle and I just did a 45-min DDR workout in a Tokyo arcade a few days ago. I haven't played in at least a year (since I lived with you), but I found my skill hadn't really rusted at all, and was maybe even better. I think the difference is that I'm in better shape so I could really sustain myself on faster songs more.

My knees were starting to get sore, though. I have some doubts about whether I want to keep using DDR for exercise for this reason... if running is supposed to be bad for the knees, DDR must be fucking horrible.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I do think that for long DDR sessions, doing it barefoot on a soft pad is better on your ankles and knees than doing it with shoes on a hard pad.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

Running is much better for you if you're doing it with proper form and the right shoes, that are replaced so they're not worn out. Most shin splints/knee problems happen not from running itself, but running improperly, or with improper prep/materials.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

(That said, I can still get occasional twinges in my knee if I do high-impact for too long. There are ways to do DDR lower-impact, or to build up flexibility and endurance and such for any exercise.)

[arethiel.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it is a mixture of good physical fitness and unconscious awareness.

The first is more straightforward, but the second is a little more obtuse. The thing is, when you are traveling and really making an effort to experience rather than simply going about your day, your brain is constantly taking in new information and observing the world around. As a result, your brains is more able to observe and process things without really "seeing" it. With DDR, I always noticed the times I did the best was when I stopped looking at the arrows and simply was "aware" of them. Your brain essentially becomes an overcomplicated mechanism for processing visuals into a physical response.

That would be my guess. Though maybe some luck played a role too :)

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's some interference with similar skills at first, but does this last if one practices both of them? It seems plausible that once one gets past the initial confusion and separates the two skills in the mind/muscles there would be benefits, because they'll each work out things that are hard to work on doing the other, but may still occasionally be useful. This is all naive armchair thinking on my part though.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I do know at least with perception studies this is true. The guy who went around with the goggles that inverted his view of the world for a week (and got very good at not bumping into things) started going back and forth with wearing and not wearing the goggles and eventually found that he could attain close to full visual-spatial abilities within five minutes of taking the goggles off or putting them on.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

Tennis and racquetball are a bad example (or perhaps a great one, for my point), because they're superficially similar, but very different in the fine techniques that define scoring.

One is more wrist, where swinging with the arc of the entire arm+shoulder is a detriment, and the other is almost precisely the inverse.

Generally, though, having good, say, speed and general physical fitness would be good for both of them.

[ekesobriquet.livejournal.com]

Here's an activity to consider to build that cognitive fortitude:

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Wow... I wonder if he's taking in all the visual info in real time or if he has sections of it memorized.