please bear with me. On a bewitched episode, darren gets changed to 12year olds by Endora. His body is 12 but his mind is still an adult. He ends up playing basketball with the neighborhood kids as Samantha’s nephew. After he is changed back , the kids come over and what the “nephew” back to play basketball against their big rival. Darren allows to be changed back and says something like “how can they lose with a college player on their team?”. My question is: if he were turned back would he lose his skills physically, and just possess his mental skills. or would he try things that his body doesn’t know how to do? would it be like a person with spinal damage whose body wont obey his mind.
I was never a good basketball player, but I played some tennis, and football in high school… so to the extent there’s a valid analogy… I think it’s a bit of both. There are certain learned skills, which preusmably Young Darrin would still have… and certain things made possible by physical conditioning and height, which he wouldn’t have. Still, I suspect that if I were in a 12-year-old’s body, I could outperform most other ordinary 12-year olds at either sport, just based on what I learned as an older child and adult.
Deeper question: is there such a thing as “muscle memory?” My coach was forever on us about practicing things over and over, because “our muscles learned the motions.” I once advanced the heretical opinion that muscles didn’t have brains, and therefore couldn’t learn anything. After I ran the laps, I resolved to keep these opinions to myself.
So - I don’t know to this today if there is such a pehnomenon as “muscle memory.”
- Rick
I would think the answer to the OP would depend on how the spell was cast, hence it is up to Endora (or Samantha, if she’s the one who did the second spell).
Bricker, no, there is no memory in the muscles, but there is “muscle memory”. Someone who knows what they’re talking about will come along and clarify this, but you do learn how to do tasks without thinking about them. This is the kind of memory you have to have for sports, because you can’t consciously decide what you’re going to do, because you don’t have time. If you do have time, the conscious thought can get in your way. As a simple example, when I’m trying to tie my shoes in a hurry, I shut my eyes, and don’t think about it. I’m much less likely to mess it up. The memory is actually stored with the rest of your memory, in your brain (or possibly your spinal cord?).
but, if you go with the assumption that muscle memory would have remained and thus given him the coordination to be a player beyond his years, then wouldnt the same muscle memory be tuned to a 40yr body and thus he wouldnt be able to control a 12 yrold body?
If that is the case, it’d be tuned to a twenty year old body, not a forty year old body. He could probably adapt his responses to his younger body pretty quickly, anyway.
But I still say it’s up to Samantha. 
I’ll give an example as a musician: playing guitar, my best improvised leads are when I don’t think. I know my key, I know my patterns, and they’re un/subconscious. I think that’s what “muscle memory” means.
The General Answer is that it is up to the writers of the show.
Sheesh! It’s fucking Bewitched! You want continuity? They couldn’t even keep the same damn Darren!
Please let this thread die the death it so richly deserves.