The thrill I get from watching Michael Phelps swim is the same thrill I get from watching Tiger Woods put for birdie on the 18th hole or from reading 1930's Auden: the impossible isn't just made possible: these guys make the impossible look easy. So I was struck by this paragraph in an old profile of Phelps:
In testing conducted by physiologists from USA Swimming, Phelps scored as one of the weakest elite swimmers they had ever measured, but that was on such traditional tests as the bench press and how much weight he can lift with his legs. ''He's fine on land,'' Heinlein says. ''He can walk. He can do all the things you want him to do. But he's not extraordinary in any way. What Michael excels at takes place in water, so what does it tell you to test him on land?''
That reminds of the study of spatial memory and chess grandmasters and how they only have better-than-average memory within the narrow domain of chess. Although these chess experts can memorize a chess board in a glance, and play an entire game in their head, they still get lost in cities and forget where they put their keys. Talent, in other words, is excruciatingly specific, which is why Michael Jordan was a mediocre baseball player and why I've never really enjoyed Auden's prose.
Brain & Behavior
Comments (3)
Another story like that is from Ken Dryden's autobiography. The famous hockey goalkeeper took part in a basic reflex test (pinch a ruler that is dropped between your fingers. The faster you pinch, the shorter the distance the ruler falls). He came off as "average" in the reflex department, even though he was widely considered the best goalie in the game.
Posted by: rjb | July 2, 2008 9:39 PM