Why should JY lie about this? I don’t see it. There were other people over there. If you would make this up and you are discovered the consequences will be huge. So why would he risk that?
It sounds very plausible to me. The only visual learning I recognize is the learning of elite players. They are so familiair with the movements that they can implement a new element much easier in the rich library they already have.
Read:
http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=23500
“Discovery of the AON has revitalized interest in motor simulation theory, which holds that we use our own motor memories to figure out what other people are doing. When we watch a video of a dancer, motor areas of the brain might activate automatically and unconsciously—even though our bodies are not actually moving—to find familiar patterns that we can use to interpret what we are watching. In other words, some sort of resonance takes place between the circuits for observing and for doing. If this is true, the AON should be more active when we observe actions that are physically familiar than it is when we observe unfamiliar actions.”
“In an innovative paper published in 2005, Beatriz Calvo-Merino and colleagues at University College London used functional MRI (fMRI) to compare brain activity in two groups of trained dancers—one skilled in ballet and the other in capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian dance based on martial arts movements. Both groups were exceptionally skilled at dance, but each knew a set of profoundly different dance movements. The study found greater activity in the AON when dancers watched videos of familiar dances than when they watched videos of unfamiliar dances. This result is consistent with the simulation hypothesis.3”
Henin/Carlos would have had a demand for information for a specific problem or just in general a need to improve. Very wise. In those days videoing was not that common. So when you run in to someone like JY it is very wise to let him film you. Although his experience probably was not what it is now he is good in describing caracteristics of strokes and compare them to other players. JY didn’t say he changed the stroke. And I am convinced he didn’t. But he gave Henin/Carlos so much input to start their own research to a new stroke. And like in the mentioned thread Henin had to start a process to combine the new information with the old.
That process could have taken years and maybe went in a way that maybe had nothing to do with the first meeting with JY. But that is not the issue.
