Question 1538: It's not just a problem that happens on paper
For work-related reasons, I have spent a long time doing illustration work for tennis magazines. In the past, there were many technical explanation illustrations, and I would complete them by turning reference photos sent by commentators (usually famous players) that included arrows (drawn with felt-tip pens, etc.) into illustrations. Since it was a magazine (paper), that was unavoidable, but there were many times when I was drawing them and thought, 'There are too many arrows; will the readers actually understand this?' (laughs)
The trajectory of a serve is a prime example of this.
Since it is a movement that occurs in three dimensions, it is not something that can be reproduced on paper in the first place (laughs).
Commentators almost always fall into the illusion that because they have the image of that movement themselves, it can be understood through arrows. Naturally, since readers do not have the movement image that the commentator has in the first place, they cannot infer the movement from the arrows.
However, this is not actually a problem that only happens on paper.
Coaches often guide students by holding their arm or wrist that is holding the racket to trace the swing trajectory, but while the coach has a chain of kinetic energy within their own body that results in that swing trajectory, that is actually what doesn't get conveyed.
In other words, the same thing is happening as the problem of the uncertain arrows on paper.
I don't necessarily deny all such things, but I do feel the difficulty of conveying information.
What I hope for from coaches is, so to speak, a sharing of that 'difficulty of conveying information.'
I think that leads to both the heart of conveying and the technique of conveying.
I apologize for the long message.
Please forgive any lack of clarity in my words.
The comment above was written after I read with great interest the part of the article titled'▶That is a magician's trick'in the article.
It was a very good article.👏👏👏
Thank you.
Answer
▶Because the premise (image) is different
I see, I see.
So that's what it is.
Even if a tennis coach places their hand on a student's racket to trace the swing path, the student doesn't feel the invisible kinetic energy, so the reproducibility isn't conveyed.
I thought that perhaps the illustrations Morio-san draws and the texts I write might be the same.
For example, even if I, who write about tennis, were to place my hand on someone's pencil to write a text, that person wouldn't be able to write a text with the same ideas.
That is because
the premises (images) surrounding tennis are different, so it's impossible for it to be the same. Whether it's a swing, an illustration, or a text,
tracing only the "superficial form" will not convey reproducibility. Nevertheless, I felt that conventional tennis instruction is a
misleading notion that if you place your hand on a pencil and trace it, you can write a text with the same ideas.
▶ When you get caught up in "phenomena," you lose sight of the "essence"
Regarding the "magician's tricks."
To be able to hit a serve, you need spatial awareness to accurately imagine where the service box and net are without looking, and a sense of hitting that integrates your own swing speed and force control—knowing that if you hit at this timing, it will go in. Yet, to convey that tracing this trajectory increases reproducibility, people explain the trajectories of flat, slice, and spin serves with arrows.
Of course, I don't intend to deny everything, but when attention is focused only on the phenomenal aspect, the essence is blinded.
"Sometimes when I'm drawing, there are too many arrows, and I wonder if the reader will understand this."
You are absolutely right.
The reader ends up taking it as "If there are too many, any one of them will do."
It's hard to say, but it's probably "over-stuffing"
caused by the confusion of the commentator themselves trying too hard and failing to summarize it well.
▶ Where does the essence lie?
"Sharing the difficulty of conveying something"
This is probably the same for swings, illustrations, texts, and even songs.
I don't think what the 'Yojohan Folk' (four-and-a-half-mat folk music) that Morio-san taught me wanted to convey was "a red hand towel becoming a muffler" as a substitute, or "having 24 colors of crayons" as a variation in number, or "the apartment along the Kanda River being a single three-mat room" as a cramped housing situation.
Would it be an exaggeration to say that "conventional tennis instruction" is just explaining those phenomenal aspects?
Where does the essence lie?
Is sharing that the "heart of conveying" and the "technique of conveying"?
Postscript
Yojohan Folk captured people's hearts with its "shared worldview."
That "heart of conveying" and "technique of conveying" must have been masterful!
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