Gross Motor Skills

Gross Motor Skills

The rain pasting the windshield seemed heavy with the chill of winter. As the car enters the curve the driver feels the backend losing its grip on the pavement. He silently wished he had been paying closer attention and noticed the ice forming on the shiny steel road signs, especially the one marking "curves ahead." As the rear of the car spun rapidly out of control he hit the brakes hard only milliseconds before the sound of the car hitting the tree broke the black silence of the night. Sirens wailed in the distance.
Let’s rewind this scenario. The heavy rain began forming a thin layer of ice on the chrome strip surrounding his windshield. The driver relaxed his grip on the steering wheel so he could feel the slightest feedback between the road’s icy surface and his tires. As he entered the turn the backend began to slip slowly toward the waiting ditch. Deftly, he feathered the gas and tapped the brake pedal several times. Smoothly easing the steering wheel to correct for the slide. He found himself breathing a sigh of relief as the road straightened before him.
How many times have you heard that in a life and death situation the only thing you can depend upon are your gross motor skills? I am sure that I have said the same thing. So what just happened here? The application of gross motor skills got our first driver killed. He followed his basest instincts and died in the process. That’s not what we wanted to prove, is it! It has taken me many years to realize that you can spend a lifetime learning stupid, overly complicated, suicidal techniques that will fail you when you need them most. You could sit back and do nothing, saying, "When push comes to shove I’ll just fall back on my instincts," like driver number one. Or, you could work at improving your gross motor skills and gut reactions raising them to a higher, but reliable, level.
Some schools I know would not give you a passing grade unless you could tell them the exact degree to turn the steering wheel, the specific number of taps to the brakes, and the correct exit speed for a corner of such and such radius. This is what I mean by stupid. over complication. Another curve, a different speed and you would still die. Other schools say, "Hey if it works you’re good to go." Is the second driver a sissy because at some point in his life he practiced correcting for a slide? If all that can be relied upon are gross motor skills, didn’t he waste a lot of time practicing? There needs to be a reasonable mid-point, a rational approach to your training and education. By the way, don’t ignore the peripheral look for icing on the windshield, or the relaxed grip on the steering wheel for feedback. These are two critical components to any survival situation. Icy roads and knife-fighting may not seem like related topics. The martial arts do not grow in a vacuum, they are an integral part of your life and how you approach life is how you will approach the arts.