Soccer, Juggling, and Plasticity
My son Jackson is playing soccer for Red Star and has started learning to juggle the ball. It has been a long time since I played soccer so I thought it would be fun to learn along with him. When we started, we were getting 1 or 2 juggles before the ball hit the ground, and I was hopelessly right-footed. As we practiced, we started to improve. From 1 or 2 to 3 or 5… and then 10… and now I’m up to the 40′s and am using my right foot and my left foot (although admittedly not evenly). My son is improving, too. The Red Star coach set up a reward system, and we both hope to get an award soon.
I wonder what this focused effort is doing to rewire our brains. Before I came to Posit Science I would not have thought about the importance of the brain in this activity, and I would not have thought about my brain’s ability to find a way to add this new skill to its variety of tasks it can already perform. I’m not going to challenge any of the US World Cup men’s team members for a spot in next summer’s World Cup, nor could I have played for the National Champion North Carolina Tar Heel women’s soccer team, but I am happy that I can put in enough time to keep up and enjoy quality time with Jackson.
Possibly Related posts:
Posted: Brain exercise, Brain plasticity, Exercise, Physical exercise
Posit Science's corporate blog is the place where our employees share their thoughts about Posit Science and its products, brain fitness, breakthroughs in neuroscience, and any other topic they find interesting and relevant. 
December 30th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Like the old saying goes, “practice makes perfect”. When you talk about reward systems do you have any examples? Are we talking about praise, encouragement or actual prizes or awards?
January 5th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
The reward system for my son’s team is a mix of peer comparison (how many juggles has each child completed – it has helped it setting the bar for the children for what’s possible), praise for hard work and effort (building intrinsic pride in how a task is done), recognition (coach gives praise publically at practice on the website) and physical rewards (wrist bands, jackets).
Much of the thinking that I have seen on rewards is that intrinsic motivation is the best long-term strategy as it allows for a person to create drive even when noone is looking.