"Feel it in your hands ".... "Can't I watch you first?"

I attended the European Association for Psychological Type Conference in Copenhagen 2 weeks ago. As well as running a half-day workshop session on Type in the Training Room (for 33 type professionals), I got the chance to meet new people, talk type, and gather new perspectives of type.

After a typically extraverted and engaging evening on the Friday night (culminating in a group of 10 of us failing to find a salsa bar in the centre, but making a long evening of it even so), I wasn't sure that I was in any fit state to attend a session on Type and Sport. But I'd chatted to one of the presenters and he had assured me we didn't have to do it! So at 9.00 I was there in body if not in spirit, but soon woke up.

It was amazing to see how type preferences play themselves out in all sorts of ways; you can make a pretty good prediction of some type preferences in watching how people stand, or how they approach sport.

We're eagerly waiting for the book on Action Type to be translated from the Dutch (though the authors say that they won't do it till after the Olympics so as to keep the competitive advantage... is that really sporting?) but in the meantime, just consider this:

ST (specifics and thinking) work with fine motor skills ... so from the elbow to the fingers, and the knees to the soles of the feet and the toes (the precise kicking of David Beckham, for example)
SF (specifics and feeling) work with gross motor skills ... they launch their whole body into their activity.
NF (big picture and feeling) combine the gross and the fine - so are elegant movers

and NT (big picture and logic) ... they run it from their head (the thinkers). They need images for the movement, they need to collect and connect lots of images to make the right move. For them, the images are the commands to the body to move in a certain way.

There were lots of "ah ha's" through out the session. And I've been looking and listening to discover more.

So fast forward a week to Marseille airport (I get around, you know) where I was picking up a friend who had just done a 2-day Kayaking course on the med. She's got a director/INTJ preference. She hadn't ever done kayaking before. So getting into the boat and getting the started, the sailing tutor said "Feel it in your fingers" .... Her response ... "but I can't I watch you and follow you first".

I'll be tuning into sport in a whole different way from now.