Wednesday, September 19, 2007

'Primal Talent'

This is my frist post here on 'Something Different' and I had trouble coming up with an idea to do this post on. I thought and I thought and racked my brain for an hour or so until I finally realized what I was doing wrong. I was Thinking too much.

Now you may think that Im crazy but I find that the best ideas are had when the mind is somewhere else. The brain can process things much faster and more thouroughly in the sub-concious. This is true in many things, such as sport. When someone begins a sport, they have to conciously pay attention to every little detail of their form/technique/positioning, whichever the sport demands. This takes away from what I call the 'Primal Talent'. When these things like form and technique become Second Nature to us, we progressivly stop thinking about them more and more. This is when the brain can stop concentrating on the fundamentals of the activity (it doesn't even have to be a sport, but for the sake of it, im using sport as an example) and can start to tap into the 'Primal Talent'. In respect to what graeme had said in his post about Talent, it is something inherant in everyone of us. We all have talents and many of them. Unofrtunatley we can not Learn talents, as graeme alluded to. For instance, I will never be a great painter or sketch artist because I don't have the talent for drawing. I Could take classes, but int he end, the talent of one artist will win out rather than the practiced skill of another.

So what I call the 'Primal Talent' appplies directly and mostly to sport, competittion and 'dangerous' situations where the body is at some sort of risk. While in a sport, with the Skills practiced to the point of 2nd or even 3rd nature, the brain can enter a state called 'Kinesthesia'. This means that at any given point in time, the brain knows where each and every part of the body is and what it is doing. This gives us the ability to control our bodies with incredible authority. People do things they normally could never do, go faster, jump higher, hit harder. The body can take more punishment thatn normal. Yes, this is IN PART due to adrenaline and endorphin chemicals in our bodies but I believe our minds play the largest factor. This state can be different for every person so I can only speak of my own experiences. In hockey, when I reach this level of 'Kenesthesia' the 'Primal Talent' in me comes out. My instincts control my actions and I do things i could never do in practice or pick-up hockey. My 'Primal Talent' takes hold and runa away with me, I personally have a problem controling it at times because it can increase emotions also (but maybe that's jut me). I have asked other atheletes of all sports about this state of mind and they have all given me an answer that was close to what i experience, especially in martial artists. I think this is because in a Combat sport, the body knows that it is in risk of immenent pain/injury so this Primal state takes over.

Just goes to show you, you never know what you re capable of until you're put into the situation that stimulates your 'Primal Talent'. Whatever it may be. Being up in front of a crowd may help some musicians play better, having money bet on a card game could make gamblers sharper, all these things contribute. So next time you're wondering "What's my talent?" take a chance, dive right into soemthing.....you never know what you might find....

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