Muscle Memory

Wing Tsun and Muscle Memory

“How can just thinking about practicing a chi sao reflex, a perfect punch, healing an injured arm, or defending yourself against a feared attacker help Wing Tsun students accomplish these things? In essence, we can generate information from our own memory that is essentially the same as an actual experience, and consequently, imagining events can have a similar effect on our nervous system as would the real, actual experience. Imagined stimuli and perceptual or real stimuli have a qualitatively similar status in our conscious mental like. Just think about a past dream. Perhaps you dreamed you fell from a sky scraper and you woke up in a cold sweat, only to find that the fall was only in your imagination. Sport Psychologist have proposed three theoretical explanation of this phenomenon.

Psycho neuromuscular Theory (Programming Muscles for Action)

According to the ideo-motor principle, imagery facilitated the learning of motor skills because of the nature of the neuromuscular activity pattern activated during the imaginable process. This is, vivid imagined events innovate the muscles somewhat like physically practicing the movement. See slight neuromuscular impulses are identical (but reduced in magnitude) to those produced during actual performance (although these impulses may be so minor that they do not actually produce movement). Thus, although the magnitude of the muscle activity is reduced during imagery, the activity is a minor image of the actual performance (self defence application) pattern.

When you vividly imagine yourself performing (a self defence applications) a movement, you use similar neural pathways to those you use in actual performance of the movement (Wing Tsun techniques).

Symbolic Learning Theory

(Understanding Movement Patterns)
Symbolic learning theory suggests that imagery may function as a coding system to help people understand and acquire movement patterns. That is, one way individuals learn skills is by becoming familiar with what needs to be done to successfully perform them. By creating a motor program in the central nervous system, a mental blueprint is formed for successfully completing the movement (the successful self defence situation.)

Athletes who use imagery, or some other form of mental practice, performed consistently better on tasks that were primarily cognitive (mental) in nature than those athletes that were more purely motoric. For example, lifting weights or kicking a soccer ball are predominantly motoric, whereas playing chess or quarterback deciding which receiver to throw the ball to are mostly cognitive (thoughts or mental).

Psychological Skills Hypothesis Imagery

also works through the development and refinement of psychological skills. For example, imagery can improve your focus (concentration), reduce your anxiety ( feel more comfortable in a dangerous situation), increase your self confidence, or becoming mentally tougher. And imagery is a convenient, effective tool to practice and learn a Variety of sport mental skills.

What can Imagery and Visualization be use for?

• Improve concentration (focus). By visualizing what you want to do and how you want to react to in certain situations, you can prevent your mind from wondering. You can stay focused on actual self defence situation decreased chances of bottling out.
• Build your confidence. Seeing yourself perform well in your mind makes you feel you can perform under averse circumstances.
• Control emotional responses. (Psychic energy). You can visualize situations that have caused problems in the past, such as a bad experience or dangerous situation you had. You can then picture yourself dealing with this kind of situations in positive and effective way.
• Practice Chi Sao. The best use of imagery is practicing a particular technique or reflex.
• Coping with pain and injury. Imagery can help speed up recovery of an injured area and keep skills from deteriorating.