Sculpting Movements

Learning new motor skills is like carving a sculpture from a block of stone rather than building up a sculpture from clay. Skills requiring precise movements such as walking, drinking a glass of water, playing the guitar, etc. are more likely learned by triggering large movements and then partially inhibiting them until the right movement is achieved rather that building up the movements from stillness. This idea is supported by the fact that most of the information coming from the cortex of the brain going to the muscles is inhibitory, as can be seen when someone with a spinal cord lesion develops spastic paralysis in the muscles innervated by nerves distal to the lesion. It is also supported by the flailing type movements of babies and the clumsiness of people learning a new skill, i.e. they move too much, not too little