The Plan

We are tracking the pathways a front kick takes through our nervous system.  We started out with light waves (or particles? I don’t know) hitting the back of our retina. That triggered a cascade of events (it has been a wild ride, you should start from the beginning) and has landed us in the prefrontal association area of our frontal cortex (fig 1) with a developing mental picture of our situation.    

Fig 1. Left frontal lobe highlighted in red. The prefrontal and premotor cortex are both within the frontal lobe. By Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2]. - Polygon data are from BodyParts3D[1], CC BY-SA 2.1 jp, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32489917

So how do we use that internal imagery to plan our next move? Via the process creatively named sensorimotor transformation or sensorimotor coupling.  Meaning we are going to take all that sensory information and act on it.  About 100-150 msec since that reflected light from what we have come to realize is our sparing partner’s exposed midsection hit our retina and it is time to plan.  Finally! Feels like this has been dragging on, literally, for months.

Well, time is a wastin, we probably should do something. For the next few steps, we are essentially staying put in our frontal lobes.  But what to do, what to do...   Let’s start by recapping what we know so far.  We know that we are sparring, our partner just moved her hand up and now there is an opening in her midsection.  We have determined the opening we created is about 4 ½ feet away, she is moving to the left slowly.  (We know she is moving thanks to working memory, which we had not talked about yet, but is another function of our prefrontal cortex- basically it stores several seconds of visual information, allowing us to link multiple still images into a moving picture) Thanks to our sense of proprioception, we know our guard is in place, we’re on our toes, bouncing slightly, and our left leg is forward in a natural stance.  We also know we are a little annoyed at all the jabs to the shins and the fact that she left her cereal bowl out this morning, again.  And we know from memories of previous sparring sessions that she will keep backing up rather than move to the side.  But we also know that fluorescent light that keeps flickering annoyingly in the back corner of the dojo, the flickering light in the front isn’t as noticeable because the sunlight glaring off the Wal-mart sign through the windows is blinding, and doh, forgot to buy sunscreen last time I was there, and …ouch, ouch, ouch quit hitting me.  Oh yeah, still sparring, focus, focus!!  

 We can talk in more detail about attention in a later post, but will touch on it now.  There is a person standing just a few feet away who wants very much to hit us, which is arguably more important than the flickering fluorescent light.  We have to sift out what is important. This started a little earlier in the visual processing pathway, but now, our prefrontal cortex is directing our attention on the important visual information.

So what, oh what, should we do?  So many options. Too low, too far to backfist.  Maybe we could punch.  Or punch, lunge, then reverse punch.  Running away, always good, but she is expecting that, need to try something new.  Sidekick maybe but the angle is a little off. Front kick.  She would see that coming.  Front kick with the back foot.  That covers the distance, and she wouldn’t be able to see it until the last second.  Again, we are using our prefrontal cortex to come up with our plan.  Unfortunately, our reaction time is inversely related to the number of options.  That is called the choice effect, and can be improved with practice.   

We will pick up next time and look at how we actually get our muscles to move in a coordinated fashion, so we actually kick instead of flopping on the floor like left shark. As always please reach out to us via email or facebook email questions or post ideas!