Dance and Basketball Study for Shadowboxing

• LMA Curriculum

“Mine was definitely drill work. Of course, started out with cones, then I'm just using my imagination at this point. I really just try to figure out where a defender will be and just use my imagination with different combos and different body movements. I think the shifting, I just learned that just naturally. I just try to get my defender leaning and just try to really just see him out of the picture. I want to just see the rim or another help defender. So I think just being crafty, different movements with your bodies, I think that'll just change a lot of your ball handling skills.” – Darius Garland

I consistently mention throughout the curriculum that perception is more than vision. Perception is also imagination.

I use a small weightlifting studio for my one-on-one martial arts training. Yet despite moving around with my practitioners, we never run into any of the equipment because even though we are not looking, we can imagine where the equipment will be with high accuracy. Fighters and nonfighters alike use this skill all the time.

For martial artists, imagination is not only a thing that can be developed but should be developed.

In two different examples, we see how imagination informs movement and gameplay. The dance sequence has been edited to show the pretend ball of energy that the dancer uses to drive his actions. Perception should drive your decisions; otherwise, your decisions are uninformed.

The ball of energy is consistent, which is important because, just like an object or opponent in real life, it will not disappear and reappear somewhere else. This is the level of consistency and imagination we want to work toward in our shadowboxing and shadowplay. Just as our imagination can tell us where objects in a room are, it can also do the same for the actions of our opponents.