Jackie Hudson, Philosophical Scholar

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My philosophy as a scholar is similar to my philosophy as an educator: I seek to understand and encourage skillful performance. Put another way, I aim to alleviate unnecessary clumsiness. This is a daunting task. At present our knowledge of skilled performance is quite limited. We have discovered assorted information about how humans move, but relatively few researchers have addressed the issue of how humans move better. Because this issue is important and intriguing to me, I have investigated diverse performers in a variety of activities to discover some techniques that are associated with more skillful movement. But there are too many movers and movements for the investigative approach alone to be fruitful. We need to integrate what we have discovered about skillful movement and generate theories and frameworks. If these models are predictive, then there is less need to test each mover or movement. At the same time, there is a need to integrate contextual information about the mover with contextual information about the movement. For example, do females and males have different movement capabilities? What are the needs of movers on the margin? And as we gather the information needed for application, what characteristics of movement are observable by both researchers and practitioners? Again, these issues are important and intriguing to me, and I enjoy the challenges involved in addressing them. But the real test of whether our discoveries and integrations are on target comes when we try to apply them. For instance, if we predict that certain movers would be better off with more range of motion, can they modify their movement and does it lead to an improvement of movement? It is exciting now to be on the threshold of doing such experimental studies. Finally, the knowledge of how to study skillful movement and the knowledge of how to move more skillfully must be transmitted to and transformed by many, many others. For this is what it takes to alleviate unnecessary clumsiness.