My fingers still remember the control-codes for Wordstar. Now that I’m mostly using a laptop with a tiny set of arrow keys, I wish they were still around. I’m a typing demon, the best I ever clocked was 125wpm but the last time I tested, I only managed to rate 110wpm. Damn crappy keyboard on the test machine…
I type blind with a Dvorak layout. I have to type blind-- because I use a standard keyboard. It’d be really bizarre looking at the ‘k’ key and typing a ‘t’.
I can also handwrite without looking. This truly freaks some people out-- but maintaining eye contact during an interview is really good at developing rapport.
Nothing thrilling here.
Typing, of course.
I’m the queen of wastepaper basketball, but usually don’t make it if I think about it.
Throw a softball. When its all instinct during a play is when I throw the best. Concentrate too hard and it’s all over.
Me too on that. And I thought I was the only one with that problem. Also on typing, I don’t have to look at the keyboard to type correctly. My fingers already know where the letters are (except on some of the newer/ergonomic models…grrr).
Definitely the typing and numeric keying. The last time I tested, my data-entry score was over 10,000 keystrokes per hour, which is outstanding. (Also consider that my error rate was negligible, maybe 4 errors)
[/bragging]
Robin
I’m with jadailey on the whole driving thing.
Sometimes I’ll leave my house in the morning and arrive at work 15 minutes later with absolutely no clue how I got there, how many people I hit, how many red lights I ran, etc.
It scares me, cos it feels like I haven’t been paying any attention to anything. I’m sure I have though. 
I’m a close-up magician, so I’m able to do quite a few magical things with my hands. Many of the sleights I do are done 2nd nature for me. I am also a juggler.
Just as many others have posted, I can type without having to think all that much.
Ok. In this case, the above statement was probably true, but what I MEANT to say was that I can type fast without having to think about where the keys on the keyboard.
Like those of any ex-soldier in the world, my hands know how to load, fire, field-strip and re-assemble the weapons I used to carry - in my case the H&K G3 and the MG3. The brain doesn’t even get involved.
Specifically, I couldn’t possibly write down the sequence for loading the MG3 without doing the hand movements first. (Note to self: Close door before loading imaginary machine guns in the office. Important.)
S. Norman
Wow.
This may be my problem.
I do just about none of this. I weave and can teach it better than other friends of mine because I choose my speed. I understand every bit of what my fingers are doing and can explain them in detail.
I have to say phone numbers to dial them.
I have been actively doing everything on computers for about 11-12 years and I still can’t touch type. I can fake it for a bit, but my mom says she knows when I’m on the computer by the odd rythym I use.
Nor can I play any musical instrument at all well. I can sing, and sightread and have a great grasp of musical theory, but my fingers don’t work with out me thinking at them.
Is it possible to have a nearly non existant amount of muscle memory?
Sleight of hand (card tricks, mostly) and massage therapy (professional, now that I finally finished my license training).
Both of those things often require that you talk about something completely different than what your hands are doing. Magic tricks; because you’re (hopefully) entertaining and distracting your audience. Massage; Great Bob, but everybody spills their life stories to their MT. And you’d better be able to respond to a question in both instances, or your client/audience will be unhappy with your services. I’ve gotten to the point in both instances where if someone asks me what I’m doing, I have to look and see. Stopping to look usually screws me up.
Seems to me this must be related to dance training, when you get your arms to do one thing and your feet another. If you have to think about each movement, you won’t be able to do it well. Unless you’re Medea’s Child, in which case it sounds like you write your own rules.
I was right! I thought I learned this while teaching 4th grade.
From About.com: “A healthy cerebellum is crucial for the development and maintenance of posture, balance, subconscious motor control, and fine coordination (hand and eye for example).”
This is all available here: http://biology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://isd.saginaw.k12.mi.us/~mobility/cerebell.htm
So you all have well trained cerebella.
There is no such thing as “muscle memory.” Muscles are made up of two long, skinny molecules, and when a nerve squirts some juice on them, the two molecules slide along each other, shortening their combined length. That’s it. If this change of state were used as a memory, your muscles would stop moving as you practiced.
What happens is that your sense of kinesthesia is constantly sending information back to your brain about the tensions in your muscles and the positions of your limbs and joints. As you practice a motion - typing, piano playing, or sleight of hand - this kinesthetic info, as well as other sensory input and the conscious effort that practicing a new skill requires combines with the mental reward of success to reinforce permanent associations in the motor cortex that describe specific motions of your limbs, fingers, etc.
Think of it as “programming a macro,” or “writing a batch file.”
The vertebrate brain is hardwired at the deepest levels for sensorimotor interactions with the physical world. The cerebellum is largely responsible for things that require coordination, from simple walking, to the OP’s string figures, to advanced Tai Chi or acrobatic moves.
And there are other parts of the brain, deep in the cerebrum, that coordinate sensory inputs with the motor cortex so you can do things like catch a fly ball, brachiate from limb to limb, evade a fist strike, or play music by ear.
It’s fascinating, really. As my college neuro professor said with regards to catching a fly ball, returning a tennis serve, or swinging from tree to tree, “It’s remarkable - like Newtons’ Laws are hardwired in your head.”
Any musical instrument I play, I really don’t have to think about what I’m doing, be it piano, bassoon, mandolin, or the others.
Type. I don’t think about hitting the letters. I don’t have to look at my fingers. (I never really learned keyboarding, and I really don’t keep my fingers on the “home” keys. They sort of go all over the keyboard.)
I also have a “keyboard” memory with phone numbers. I can’t remember the numbers, but can press them out on a phonepad automatically. I’ve had to pick up and touch a phone a few times just to be able to give a number to someone: embarrassing, and weird brain wires, I guess.
A lot of tasks I do in a photographic darkroom, with film development and color printing, are totally by touch. I can do them quickly in a darkroom, but, oddly enough, even after years of practice, find it easier if I keep my eyes closed, although there isn’t any light. ???
as a long time professional cook (retired, from cooking, not working), i can use a chefs knife in a slicing motion (e.g., mushrooms) w/o looking. it definitely freaks folks out.
I’m like this with some phone numbers-- every time I have to teach a new intern or assistant our voicemail passwords, I have to stop and watch myself dial because I don’t remember.
Also the typing-- I haven’t been timed, but I can fly on a keyboard with fairly few typos. People will sometimes walk past my cubicle and tease me about the rattle of the keys going so fast. But when someone is standing over my shoulder waiting for me to type something up quickly (which in theory should not be a problem), I make mistake after mistake, because I get really self-conscious about my speed.
Finally, chopsticks. I remembered this just this evening while I was out with a friend, at a Japanese place. I managed to eat an entire bowl of soba noodles with my sticks, only because we were chatting away and I wasn’t concentrating on how I was holding them. The instant I think about whether my grip is “correct” or not, my hand cramps up and I can’t do it without dropping stuff. I have also had this happen with pencils or pens but not as often.
I’m only good at one thing with my hands.
Any of you ladies wanna find out what it is? 
Guitar and bass. Bass mostly.
When playing, I have a really good ear, so if I know the key, even not knowing the song, but knowing song structures, I know where it’s going next and my hands just go there.
I can type words without looking, but never got that point with the numbers line and puncuation marks, so I have to slow down for those.
Juggle: I can juggle elaborate patterns, or recover from objects thrown into the pattern, but once I try to pay attention to what I’m doing, it’s a lost cause.
Typing: Nothing new here. (Although I want to try using a dvorak keyboard to see how long it takes me to break the innate qwerty-kinesthesia I have.)
Fencing: More of a whole-body thing, but it still applies.