From an old 2007 blog
Basketball Hands
A while back I read an interesting college lab study on reflex response, a subject near and dear to us all here these last two months. First, the study collected and identified volunteer students who were sports players and who were not. Then specific sports were listed on the interview sheet in amongst mnay other non-sport questions. One of the check-off sport boxes was for basketball.
In the test, the testee student had zero idea why he or she were there. The testee stood still in an empty room. The tester quietly approached from the rear, shouted, “hey!” while throwing a basketball very hard at the testee.
All the test takers turned and saw a basketball speeding toward them. As you might have imagined most of the testee's with no basketball experience flung their arms up in the direction of the ball, in a reflexive movement of self-protection. The ball bounced off their forearms. But, the experienced ball players tried to catch the ball with the palms of their hands. Some caught the ball, some failed. But they tried with their palms up and out. The difference being...arm-y versus hand-y.
We do not know the level of experience the people whom had checked off the “played-basketball” box had. But the moral of the story is full of common sense. People with some level of experience responded instantly with a trained response. This struck me as yet another in a long string of experiments that strongly suggest proper training leads to quick, instantaneous responses.
Since I really dislike basketball and NEVER have played it, except when forced to in public school, I know I would block the basketball with my arms like a caveman. If you tossed a football or baseball at me, I would try to catch it. Even after all these years.
THAT is what a little practice does for ya'! And THAT is what proper martial training can do for ya' too!
Hock
