IJ study archive

The kinesthetic-drilling regime — the documentary substrate of E.T.A.

echoes

From: Federer Both Flesh and Not

  • Early text: "refining the kinesthetic sense is the main goal of the extreme daily practice regimens we often hear about"; "Hitting thousands of strokes, day after day, develops the ability to do by “feel” what cannot be done by regular conscious thought"; "Repetitive practice like this often looks tedious or even cruel to an outsider, but the outsider can’t feel what’s going on inside the player". [the kinesthetic-sense passage] [e-text]
  • IJ echo: E.T.A.'s entire pedagogy — the grinding daily drill culture, the Schtitt/deLint regime, tennis as a discipline that trains the body past conscious thought; the academy's ethos that repetition tedious-or-cruel to outsiders is the medium of excellence. Federer's "do by “feel” what cannot be done by regular conscious thought" is, almost verbatim, the state E.T.A.'s drilling is built to install.
  • Weight: shared-preoccupation (documentary substrate)