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Basic lessons of having a corporeal body
Jan. 22nd, 2021 09:56 amSome time in the 1990's my mother and stepfather acquired a ping-pong table, set it up in their basement, and got moderately serious about table-tennis. Not competing with other people, but watching instructional videos and trying to put the advice in them into practice. One such series of videos kept repeating the mantra "Move, don't reach" -- that is, it's better to move your whole body in order to be in an optimal arm position for the ball than to put yourself off-balance by reaching for it. And it's not just good advice in table-tennis: it frequently feels like it'll save time to reach for something, but it's usually safer to maintain your balance.
A related piece of advice, which shouldn't take a reasonably-intelligent person this many decades to learn: don't pick up things that are under or behind other things. Sure, it feels like it'll save time, but <python>fings break, dunnay?</python>
In today's lesson, we see the result of reaching off-balance while picking up something that was behind another thing, when both of the things in question were glass jars. One of them still is....
A related piece of advice, which shouldn't take a reasonably-intelligent person this many decades to learn: don't pick up things that are under or behind other things. Sure, it feels like it'll save time, but <python>fings break, dunnay?</python>
In today's lesson, we see the result of reaching off-balance while picking up something that was behind another thing, when both of the things in question were glass jars. One of them still is....
