Visual images – Kata | Martial Arts Larry Foisy

The effects of different imaging methods on motor performance are equivocal. Between external visual imagery (imagining performing the movement from the point of view of an external observer), internal visual imagery (imagining performing the movement from the performer’s point of view) and kinesthetic imagery (imagining experiencing the sensations felt during the execution of the movement), the results are contradictory.

This could be due to the confusion between internal visual imagery and kinesthetic imagery, but also to the fact that some methods would be more suitable for certain sports specialties depending on whether they belong to open skills (subject to the uncertainties of an unstable environment) or closed skills (performed in a stable environment), and/or concern a particular level of practice.

Method:

• Population: 25 expert karateka (17 men and 8 women; average age 25 years) (between 4th Kyu and 1st Dan) without knowledge of the proposed Kata.
• Task: learn the Kata “Jion” (52 elements).
• Training conditions: with external visual images, with internal visual images, without images (control condition: with stretching).
• Procedure:
  1. 6 initial 1 hour learning sessions for 2 weeks (covering the presentation of the Kata technique and representation techniques),
  2. 8 training sessions of 1 hour for 3 weeks in one of the training conditions for each of the 3 groups,
  3. a retention test after 2 weeks of stopping Kata training.
• Measured parameter: the technical quality of the movements is evaluated by 5 judges according to the official evaluation grid.

Results (see figure 1)
There was no difference between groups in test 1 after initial learning. In test 2, after 8 specific training sessions for each of the groups, the group with external visual images (Im Vis Ext) obtained a better score than the group with internal visual images (Im Vis Int), which in turn obtained better results than the control group (stretching). The same hierarchy is found in the retention test, 2 weeks later.

Conclusions
External visual images are superior to internal visual images for learning a new Kata for experienced karateka. These external images, allowing one to produce a general representation of the movement, would be more useful at the beginning of learning a new movement, even among already experienced athletes. This does not contradict the fact that, later in learning, internal imagination, giving a representation of oneself in front of an imaginary opponent, could be more effective.

Themes
Preparation of the performance

Primary source
L. HARDY et N. CALLOW Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology 21, 95-112,1999

Publisher
Yves KERLIRZIN Laboratory of Movement, Action and Performance, Department of Sport Sciences, INSEP