fitness

Translating Fitness Skills Across Disciplines

Diane Harper

A few years ago, my friend Bess came to visit and I took her to my ballet class. She has zero interest in ballet but was fascinated to hear the feedback we were getting: it was just like what she uses when heavy weapons fighting.

Bess, on the right in a red surcoat and holding a sword and shield, has her feet ready to advance on her opponent, who is wearing a black surcoat.

Use your core muscles. Keep your spine aligned. Bend your knees so you can spring up and land without injury. Engage those quick twitch muscles so you can move around the floor. Pay attention to the angle of your wrists: it can mean the difference between a “killing” blow and a wasted hit with the flat of your sword. Or if you are dancing, it’s the difference between a graceful line and strong back muscles vs looking like you have chicken wings for arms.

A woman in a long flowing blue dress holds her arms above her head with her elbows bent. To the left is a pair of white chicken wings with the words “chicken wings” below the,. Image: Zarely.co

That experience has stuck with me, especially when I realized it applies to other sports.

When riding my horse, all those instructions about core, posture, and arm position also apply. Swimming is also all about core, alignment and precise use Of arms and wrists for maximum efficiency when moving through the water.

From watching other sports, especially things like martial arts, it appears these principles are pretty universal.

This discovery has allowed me to take feedback from one sport and apply it to another. Mental images that helped in ballet turned out to be really useful for correcting my riding. Figuring out how certain muscles feel when properly engaged helped me recognize when I was working my core in the pool.

Equally important was the recognition that those translatable skills can make it possible to try a new sport with less fear of the unknown. This is probably that magical knowledge (whether conscious or unconscious) that makes natural athletes “natural”.

I haven’t yet decided to take up anything new, but I like the idea that I could do so and not be starting at absolute zero. In my heart, I’m like the character in the children’s book Brianna Bright, Ballerina Knight, who isn’t very good at ballet but bumbles and stumbles her way through other sports until she discovers fencing,

Brianna Bright, a cartoon girl with long brown hair in a pony tail, eats dinner while images of her as a ballerina and a fencer float above her head. Image copyright Liana Hee, 2018, text copyright Pam Calvert, 2018. Courtesy of Two Lions.

Published by Diane Harper

Diane Harper is a retired former public servant who lives and swims (and bikes) in Ottawa. In her hobby life, she is Siglinde Harfnerstochter, a 6th C Merovingian housewife from the city of Metz. Her primary interests are cooking, textile arts and bonecarving. Siglinde lives in the canton of Caldrithig, Barony of Skraeling Althing, Kingdom of Ealdormere.

One thought on “Translating Fitness Skills Across Disciplines”

  1. Being strong, balanced, agile and flexible are always useful (physically, and why not mentally and emotionally, too?!)

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