I realize this makes me sound very nerdy, but as I was playing catch with Grant I was thinking about the human body and mind and its functioning.
I am a professional health care educator, registered nurse, registered respiratory therapist, and accountant, and my brain wanders at peculiar times.
I would like for everyone to think about the human body as a miracle of form and function with this thought process:
I am playing catch with Grant and with each throw and catch the human body must calculate, process, and react to a multitude of stimuli.
When the ball is approaching at 40 miles per hour our brain must judge the speed the ball is traveling, judge the trajectory of the ball, set our skeletal muscles in motion and move our body in a satisfactory manner to be in the vicinity to raise the mitt, open the mitt, see the ball enter the mitt, and close the mitt. The human brain then has to process what to do with the ball we hopefully just caught.
What I find even more amazing is throwing the ball. The human body has to calculate the mass of the ball, the correct grip to place on the ball, the distance of the player to throw the ball to, and the force it will take to get the ball from one point to another accurately. To make things more difficult, usually the target the thrower is aiming at is not stationary. How does the baseball player hit his/her target consistently?
You may ask why I consider this simple act a miracle? It’s because the human body does this without cognitively thinking about it and within seconds or portions of seconds. Oh and I forgot to tell you, Grant is eight.
Article Written By,
Robert Thompson
President, Avant-Garde Education
www.hhtrain.com