Posted by: Hitter (hitguru205@aol.com) on Tue Jul 5 22:52:58 2005

> When you wish to get up from your chair to walk across the room, you first think "get up and walk" (a voluntary action) but then you do not think "shift your weight over your right foot, bend your left knee and raise your left foot, extend the left foot in front of you and land on the heel, transfer body weight to the ball of the left foot while raising your right heel and then........"
> What you do when you walk, is a learned motor task that has become an involuntary action.

I fully understand your point, but I respectfully think you are missing one key point. I am 17 years old. Compared to Wily Mo Pena in the act of swinging a baseball bat, I am like a baby compared to a 15 year old when it comes to the act of walking. A 15 year old does not think "shift your weight over your right foot, bend your left knee and raise your left foot, etc." when he wants to walk. He does it automatically. But a baby DOES think these things, in his own way. A baby is just learning to perform these individual actions. Sooner or later, they will happen naturally. But at the start, you can bet your bottom dollar that babies move one leg at a time. I'm sure you've seen it much more than I have, as I presume you are older than I am.

Isn't this approach more sensible than just assuming that if it doesn't happen naturally at first, in a sense, "forget about it"?