Muscle Memory

Dribbling a basketball. Juggling. Yo-yo. Bicycle. Think about any kind of thing that is very difficult to explain, yet must be mastered through repetition. This involves muscle memory.

It is funny when you learn a new password. I don't know about every one else in the world, but I type it in consciously for a long time and get it right because I have to stop and think about it. Then, as it gets put in muscle memory, I get faster and make many more mistakes. Perhaps there is something to having the pas-phrases that cannot possibly be remembered in muscle memory, thus forcing you to consciously run through it every time.

This is a funny thing, muscle memory. It helps for all kinds of movements. When I was teaching myself nunchucks, I notice early on that if I stopped thinking about what was happening and just thought about which move I wanted to do next, I would throw those things around much more quickly and hit myself in the back of the head much less.

Phone numbers and passwords are a dangerous thing to leave to muscle memory. I can't tell you how many times have I had someone asked me the password to some functional shared account and had to type it in order to remember with accuracy. I'm not the only one. This happened just the other day with someone telling me.

Typing in general relies on the same thing. I cannot see well. I put the keyboard out of sight and have the monitors up close to my face. Some People freak when they watch me type because it seems like I have the entire keyboard memorized. Trouble is, if you ask me where a key is on the keyboard, I have to try to type it to find it.

Even when it comes to the on-screen keyboard for my phone is in my muscle memory. This is not really a good thing because I have such poor eye hand coordination that I get the wrong character and make the same mistakes over and over.

There are places for muscle memory and places to avoid it. Balance is true in all things I suppose.