The Other Stuff - Page 4

Yeah. I just tried that. While riding my bicycle. Couldn't see a thing. The clock was in the way. Not a pretty ending.

I really agree with this. And I try to help them enhance their ability to use any style effectively. It's like Fastman says, you can see the clock from both sides. You just have to choose and get better at the one that you don't prefer.

But I still don't previsualize in the sense of seeing myself doing it, or seeing the turns unwind before me. It just keeps coming back to memories of feelings. I'm soooo stuck in my ways.

But I do use my eyes to lead me down the hill.

FWIW: Three is on my left hand side. That means external visualization right?

Funny thing is I've never used that sort of visualization. I only visualized internally -- inside looking out.

Maybe I'm turning it around because I know clocks are meant to be looked at?

Weems, feelization is an important part of visualization. Without feelization, visualization is grossly incomplete. Picturing in your mind your intended journey down a slope or through a race course (from an inside looking out perspective), and feeling the sensations afforded by your planned method of execution along that journey is an excellent method of pre-programing oneself for that coming performance.

In fact, I would suggest it is the better method. Better than visualizing from outside in, because it better simulates the perspective you will have as you actually perform. The more authentic the visualization experience, the more transfer will occur from mental practice to physical execution.

I see the clock from the inside out and I am an ENTP, with moderate numbers for everyting but the T. On one MB test I got all the points on the F-T spectrum as T (40 out of 40).

I am failing in my effort to imagine how you can "feel" your turns down the hill without at least some visual sense of the hill. For example, if there is a fallaway, how do you "pre-feel" that fall away without having an idea that it's there and when you're skiing over it that would indicate some "seeing?" Is it as though you are skiing the run with your eyes closed? Is the fallaway then effectively a "surprise?"

nolo, is this it?

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Best-Spor.../dp/9992655755

Your Best Sport: How to Choose and Play It
by Jonathan P. Niednagel

To add to that thought, Steve, without an imagined turn shape the imagined feelings will have no context. The feelings change with the type of turns and transtions being made.

So do you REALLY think that personality types define better athletes?

This is very dangerous thinking, boardering on testing for a "genetically superior mind". Or worse yet: the orwellian categorization of 1984.

I dearly hope that no public access sports groups or sports funding bodies take such a divisive and exclusionary concept seriously.

Imagine that you and I and our children could be condemned and excluded by the interpretation of a few simple questions.

If anyone suggests that such rubbish should be used to screen individuals for entry onto elite teams, they'll need their head examined.

Undisputed, and my apologies for not being clear on the original question:

Change in preferred learning style through practice in the sport, NOT practice in the destination learning style:

The more you do the more you can mimic.

It would be great to use if the personality profiling was correct. This wiki levels such criticism at the entire technique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Criticism

It appears that the nature of this criticism shows that the technique is fundamentally flawed. Using this in dealing with real people is silly at best. IMO, similar to asking which sign of the Zodiac they were born under -- it's an interesting parlour trick, but no more.

edit BTW: I just took two short MB based tests. The results were very different for each test. It should be repeatable.

I think MBTI stuff is pretty established and accepted, but I don't know about the sports applications.

By the way, I am definitely INTP, and I ski inside-out, not outside-in. Of course, INTPs aren't supposed to be into sports much at all, especially team sports, and I am a bit of a sports geek, team and individual. I guess it's the geek part that proves the INTP.

Personality profiles are useful for getting some ideas about what might work, and for recognizing that everyone is not the same. However, they are not absolute and should not be taken as such. Just as one in a box of tools that a coach may use with her charges.

Their mission statement makes them extremely biased. As does there revenue stream -- that of selling MB tests etc....

http://www.capt.org/about-capt/history-mission.htm

GM cars are great! Just ask GM.

Not at all. Homeopathy is accepted only by homeopaths just as MB is accepted by MB practitioners, and PMTS by PMTS folks.:

It's a fun game to play at management retreats, but only a fool would use the MB results to actual interact with people - it's demeaning at best, alienating at worst.

If the purpose is to have everyone appreciate true diversity, then I see MB as a valuable tool. I hate to see the kind of workplace diversity where everyone has a different skin or genitilia, but all of them think in lock step because they all have similar personalities. If I wanted a team to approach difficult issues I would try to assemble folks with various educational backgrounds and with differing personality types so that there would be fewer blind spots or weaknesses of the team. If I am teaching a ski lesson, OTOH, then I want to make the lesson as comfortable for the student as I can, which means presenting to his or her dominant learning style, although I will present to other learning styles as well, and to his or her personality type. I have a limited time in which to assess how I want to interact with a student. A model which categorizes, however roughly, is very useful in this context.

As far as the theory behind MB, it is tied to Jungian psychology. As someone with a statistical background I am uncomfortable with the untestable hypotheses behind most psychology and learning style literature, but I also accept that many educators have had what they perceive to be good results relying on the literature. More to the point, my ski area mangement agreees with that point of view, and has been very successful, so I see no reason to dispute it.

MB claims that a 75% repeatability figure signifies success. Thank goodness they are not making drugs.

Anyhow, I have no dispute with the notion that different people learn things in different ways.

It's not possible that in the context of the lesson, there is sufficient time to determine a personality type to adjust your style of delivery. Certainly in a one-on-one lesson you can discover some likes and dislikes, but to suggest that you can uncover their "personality type" (if one exists) and therefore tune your lesson is a pipe dream. You're lucky if you can actually "connect".

Certainly we need to know about people. But I would not administer an MBTI test, even if I thought there was validity to it. (BTW, the MB test I had took 4 hours to deliver.)

To me, the important thing to acheive on a lesson is to create a real connection with the student. At a miminum , this means trust and respect. An additional element that is key is to motivate -- that does not always mean being a cheerleader, but to pass on the excitement of learning and doing. Sometimes your passion can be fully expressed, other times, it is quite inappropriate and a more reserved tone is best.

You ought to be able to figure out how to interact with another human being without the formality of psuedo-scientific test procedures or calls to Jungian psychology.

I do not see that as such a daunting task.

It is not necessary to understand every facet of the human psyche to be a good teacher. However, it is necessary to have a complete grasp of the subject.

I don't mean to create an ad hominem dispute here, but I don't see a post saying that Big E is a ski instructor. If he is, then I am incorrect, but perhaps nolo and I, and others, find some use for the tools we have suggested because we have both been on the hill trying to make that connection which will help the student learn, and we are trying to make that connection in a very limited time with limited resources. If Big E is a ski instructor, I apologize, however I stillmaintina thatt I find the tools discussed here useful. I also find these discussions get a better class of person posting than do the posts on how to ski. A lot more people fancy themselves expert skiers than believe that they are expert instructors. I don't fancy myself either, but I can get down the mountain in one piece, and I can teach lessons, after which my students appear to me to be skiing better.

It seems to me that all the best instructors, teachers and coaches find ways to deliever a lesson to their students so that it is enjoyable and effective. The choice of how and what to present in the lesson is distilled from all their knowledge about the subject at hand and every thing else they know as applied to the student. At the time a lesson is being given the only thing the instructor can learn more about is the student not the subject being taught.

I don't know if a MB assesment of a student is practical or even accuate, but knowing that there are different learning/personality types, and that each type may respond better to different forms of instruction will help me choose what process may work best for a given student.

The best instructor I ever had was able to make calculus class fun and educational for an auditorium full of hormone crazied teenagers more days than not.

My lessons use a simple process, that has been glamorized as creating a "concrete experience". That is: "say it, show it, do it, review the results. repeat with changes as required".

This has elements of all learning styles. In the effort to review the results, if you have determined that some folks just are not getting it, you may have to resort to more invasive means, like physically repositioning the body, or adding static exercises or rephrasing the drill from a different perspective or otherwise ensure the goals are clear.

If you used guided discovery as a tool, the review is a critical element where you guide the process towards a repeat of the drill or a new and perhaps more appropriate drill and perhaps even change focus. I usually use a minimum of two repetitions of a drill before changing it, unless the first drill was extremely unsuccessful, then we'll switch to groundwork right away.

nolo, I am simply suggesting that an in-depth personality profile is not all that important, and can be detrimental if misused. I'm saying that the methodology that we use to teach should not need deep insight into the student.

In particular, "the concrete experience" addresses all learning styles because it is believed that everyone needs to visit each learning style in order to truly learn the subject.

IMO, to limit your teaching to dwell on certain types of learning styles abandons "the concrete experience" and therefore is less efficacious, regardless of the students personality profile.