Articles

Goalies, Guitars, and Transfer of Learning

By Ted Monnich, c.2007
As published in The Goalie News, April, 2007

The link between NHL goaltenders and guitars has been well established in the Goalie News .

From Ryan Miller and Henrik Lundqvist strumming in their own bands, to Sean Burke jamming with Garth Brooks, to Mike Smith and Robert Esche celebrating their off-ice love of stringed instruments on their masks. Turns out, there's more to it than just another case of jock stars wanting to be rock stars.

While these goaltenders may just be avid music lovers – or as Burke playfully suggests, just want to get girls – their guitar-playing hobby actually enhances their puck-stopping abilities. This sounds far-fetched; playing a musical instrument can make you a better goalie? Well, not just any musical instrument, but a stringed instrument, like a guitar, played by ear, as opposed to sight reading sheet music. It all has to do with how our brains work, how we learn skills, and how those skills contribute to and reinforce similar motor functions in a phenomenon called Transfer of Learning.

Contemporary approaches to the improvement or facilitation of one cognitive ability, or motor skill, by prior learning or practice in another skill is usually referred to as "transfer of learning," a phenomenon of learning more quickly and developing a deeper understanding of the task if the student brings some knowledge or skills from previous learning. This type of cross-task facilitation is based on similarities between processes involved in the two skills and is at the core of sports cross training. A common example in motor skill transfer is the way learning to ride a bicycle facilitates learning to skate, ski, or anything that requires learning to maintain balance while moving forward. Likewise, with goaltending, learning to play a stringed instrument enhances motor functions, particularly of the hands and arms.

When a goaltender musician -goal ie learns, practices and plays a song by ear on a guitar he is actually stimulating the same right hemisphere area of the brain – the same side that memorizes the skills use s d in goaltending. By stimulating the right hemisphere , they are stimulating the neural pathways established to make a glove or blocker save, resulting in quicker, more adept glove or blocker responses.

This stimulation is no t necessarily greater than that received in regular on-ice practice sessions, but the variation in the source of stimulation, guitar playing vs. hockey practice, further reinforces the goalie's skill. Guitar playing is not a substitute for on-ice practice, but an augmentation to reinforce the skills developed in practice and training.

Beginning in 2003, goaltending coach/goaltender/musician Ted Monnich, working with sports psychologist Dr. Eva Monsma of the University of South Carolina , began t racking the performance of se lect senior and minor - pro goaltenders, including himself and students, after noticing his own increased glove hand agility and performance after practicing the guitar. He set out to determine if this was only coincidence or if there was a cause and effect relationship. This study, over several seasons, showed glove response and glove save percentage s increased on a game by game basis after practicing music, by ear on the guitar, within a few hours prior to playing hockey. Likewise, the agility of their musicianship increased after playing hockey . In these trials t he time spent practicing music before playing ranged from 45 to 60 minutes. Practicing a more difficult piece of music seemed to produce greater short-term stimulation and enhancement of these functions .



Building and Stimulation of Neural Pathways

In music, a song is composed of a series of phrases consisting of a unique pattern of musical notes, timing and rhythm. The musician learns to play a song by ear by practicing these patterns over and over again . As each is learned and practiced, a new corresponding neural pattern, pathway, or chain, is constructed in the brain. When the musical phrase is “memorized” the musician can, seemingly automatically, play that phrase or line of notes without thought. What is happening in the brain is each neural pattern is firing. When the entire song is learned, and memorized through repetition, the entire series of neural patterns fire, not just individually, but as one entire pattern.

In goaltending the same principle applies to learning and practicing save selection and response, as well as the appropriate post-save response. These can be taught, learned, and practiced so that the goalie responds automatically to the situation, without thought or seemingly conscious analysis.

As a variety of saves and post-save responses are learned, and practiced, neural patterns are established and reinforced. When required in a game the goaltender responds automatically without thought.

Transfer effects from , like playing the guitar actually stimulate and reinforce related neural patterns in the goaltender. Playing guitar by ear reinforces glove response skills. That is the transfer effect.

This last sentence does not follow. You are equating transfer effects with guitar playing but your argument is that the effects come from guitar playing.

You may also want to consider the idea that the guitar strumming with the left hand might resemble the movements involved in making saves. They may also prime the larger movements but of course I do not have any evidence at my finger tips to support this. I am just drawing on general notions in motor learning. When we break a goal ie 's individual save movements down to their smallest components and initiate a repetition of each movement , we construct a neural pathway pattern for that movement. Through repetition the neural pattern is reinforced so that when called upon that pathway fires automatically. When each small movement is linked into the complete save the small pathways are joined into a larger neural pattern that fires sequentially. Through correct and regular repetition of the complete movement in practice situations, the entire new neural pattern is further reinforced and fires, not in stages, but instantly, in one large pattern, to a subconscious stimulus, typically the puck leaving the shooter's stick, along with the proximity of other opposing players. No thought is required to respond as the puck is shot. The save selection and response is seemingly automatic and subconscious.

Likewise in music, the memorized elements of a song are stimulated and recalled by the preceding elements, patterns or notes. The guitarist's hand, typically the left and corresponding to the goalie's catching glove hand, moves automatically and efficiently along the length and width of the instrument's neck, fingering the appropriate notes as memorized and recalled by the simultaneously firing neural patterns. Where the musician's hand and fingers move to is determined by the repetitive practice of the learned song and its patterns. Likewise, through repet i t ive practice and drills, the goaltender's glove responds automatically to the sight of the puck leaving the shooter's stick and predetermined trajectory of the puck, also learned through practice. These skills of efficient ly fretting a guitar's neck and catching a fast-moving puck stimulate and reinforce related , typically left handed, neural patterns in the brain's right hemisphere. Correspondingly, the right hand, typically the goalie's blocker hand, automatically selects the correct the guitar strings to pluck or strum as determined by the song , reinforc ing neural patterns associated with the right hand, or the goalie's blocker response. In order for you argument to be a sound one in supporting the association between guitar playing and goaltending, similarities in actual movement patterns should be made. Keep in mind that guitar playing and goaltending are very different because one involves stimulus - response in a dynamic changing environment and the other does not. Guitar playing is a closed skill whereas goaltending is an open skill.

It is essential to keep each individual movement as economical as possible in order to minimize the complexity of the neural pathway. Any incidental, uneconomical or simply incorrect movements are also included in the neurological patterns, and the goalie expends more energy and requires more time to execute a save movement. Efficient practice has everything to do with the correct use of repetition and variety. It is critical not to practice mistakes. A student can tire out doing the same thing repeatedly and begin making more mistakes than before. Instructors should move on and come back to it later.

Also, when we play faster, we don't think faster: We simply rely more on previously ingrained habits. So practicing movements in the correct order is critical to their correct and efficient execution. Again, in practice we are building a chain of neurons, or neural pathway. Every movement, whether good or bad, practiced and repeated , goes into that path , good or bad . Likewise, every movement, good or bad, comes out in the goalie's performance. The difference between the two is often a save or a goal against.

Guitar playing will not make a bad goalie into a good goalie. Nor will it impart new or better skills. It will, however, stimulate, enhance and reinforce existing skills.

Ted Monnich had been stopping pucks for dozens of years and plucking guitar strings for just as long when he identified a unique connection between the two. He currently works as Assistant Coach and practice goalie for the Columbia Inferno in the ECHL, and a Senior Instructor at Puckstoppers goaltending school in London , Ontario .