Muscle Memory and Mental Imagery

Abstract

How can we walk and chew gum at the same time? How can a tennis player learn and improve his serve? How can a musician play the piano and sing at the same time? The actor needs to understand how the process of learning works for his body and brain. There is a best way to learn a text and an easy way to learn a choreography, all you need is to understand how our muscles are linked to the brain and what muscle memory is. Distributed attention does not exist, at least as we think it is. Our brain cannot focus on two actions at the same time. It will make one action a priority and the other will become secondary. All the secondary actions that we perform are controlled by our body memory system. That is why we can have only one action that is new to us. If we are trying to do something new and demanding, we lose our focus on other things. We need to start easy and simple and then build up speed until the movement becomes a reflex does not need our attention. The body will move by its own and we can add a new movement on our routine. After we learn a new move how can we improve it without practicing it? We can use our imagination to improve our throwing posture and precision. If we visualize our movement like a slow-motion film, we can correct and improve it just by thinking about it. For an Actor it is a powerful tool that he can use to get closer to his characters.