While I don't disagree, Jerez, that's an interesting analogy that may not, actually, hold true. I've related this story before....
Many years ago, at Keystone, I had a fascinating intermediate-skiing student who was a recently-retired prima ballerina from a renowned ballet company. Such was her body awareness, balance, flexibility, and precise body control that she could reproduce--perfectly--any movement I could describe in detail and any movement I could demonstrate. I could point to a skier, and she could imitate like a perfect double. What she could NOT do, to both of our fascination, was find "her" way to ski. She could ski tall, short, or medium, on command, but she was unable to find the functionally optimal "natural" stance that just worked best and "felt right." She could ski to any rhythm--but could not find her own.
On reflection, she realized that for her entire career, she had trained herself (and was among the best in world) to make movements precisely and on command, with robotic perfection and consistency, regardless of how they "felt," how "efficient" they were, or what effects they produced. It was her job to make movements and hold positions that were often unnatural and painful, and to ignore the pain.
Unlike skiing movements, this student's ballet moves were not means to an end. The movements themselves were the end and the purpose, and she had trained herself to ignore their often painful consequences. I'd argue that, left to themselves, our "genius" bodies would never learn to make some of the unnatural, painful movements of ballet!
On the other hand, my wife Susan, who also danced ballet, often describes the best dancers as dancing "with abandon"--but with still extraordinary precision and discipline. I suspect that even my intriguing student must have been able to progress to a stage of "abandon" where conscious self-direction quiets and highly-trained movements arise from the music, the dance partner, or the emotion of the performance. But since the precise movements came first and foremost, she had to focus on them directly, at first, and only then could she "forget about them" with the confidence that her body would do it right when she is lost in the moment. "Discipline," as champion skater Elvis Stojko says, "will set you free."
For all its flow and elegance, beneath the surface, ballet is one of the most technical, precise, and unnatural mechanically-based disciplines there is. I suspect that great ballet instructors are actually very good at breaking down and analyzing the movements into their tiniest components. I suspect that many of them are strongly grounded in physics and biomechanics--if not formally, then through experience. Dancers themselves--like skiers--need not understand all these things, but their coaches and instructors must.
You don't need to understand much of anything to ski well--witness the naturalness of children, and the "unconscious competence" of top athletes. But any significant misunderstanding will devastate your performance--whether it is your misunderstanding or your instructor's. Accurate working knowledge (at least) of physics principles, biomechanics, technical models, movement analysis, and so on are very important for instructors and coaches. Again, they are not what is taught, but they are a critical foundation that underlies the simplicity and accuracy of what is taught. Students who have little interest in these things (and there are some who do have that interest) should be grateful that their instructor is up to speed on them, and willing to put in the time to learn these details!
Best regards,
Bob
