I got better at badminton relative to other people in the class, and other non-athletic people in the class were always relatively better at me at basketball.
Me too. I always explained it as: everyone else has practiced basketball more than me. But nobody has practiced badminton. My ability to really focus and try is higher when I’m relatively better than my peers.
But your theory (of differing native gifts weighted differently for each sport) makes sense too. I know at least it holds with limb lengths and muscle types (e.g. swimming vs. running vs. cycling). The commonly accepted existence of specific native talent in non-athletic learning domains seems plausible by analogy. I’d like to know the truth of it, but to first approximation it makes sense to say someone is especially good at learning additional languages, remembering certain types of things, at creating art or music, at acting, etc—what we mean is that their brain learns and holds such capabilities unusually well.
I enjoyed badminton more than other sports largely because I felt safe doing it. Remove the fear of being hit with heavy balls, and it was actually fun.
Me too. I always explained it as: everyone else has practiced basketball more than me. But nobody has practiced badminton. My ability to really focus and try is higher when I’m relatively better than my peers.
But your theory (of differing native gifts weighted differently for each sport) makes sense too. I know at least it holds with limb lengths and muscle types (e.g. swimming vs. running vs. cycling). The commonly accepted existence of specific native talent in non-athletic learning domains seems plausible by analogy. I’d like to know the truth of it, but to first approximation it makes sense to say someone is especially good at learning additional languages, remembering certain types of things, at creating art or music, at acting, etc—what we mean is that their brain learns and holds such capabilities unusually well.
I enjoyed badminton more than other sports largely because I felt safe doing it. Remove the fear of being hit with heavy balls, and it was actually fun.