Typing, tatting, hardanger, 10-key, identify which of my black cats just sat next to me in the dark, insert an electrolysis needle 1/4 inch into a person’s skin without them feeling it - although they do feel it when I turn on the juice.
Motor memory feels wonderful!
Everyone seems to HAVE something they do better without thinking about it, but does anyone else get the charge from this that I do? I suppose typing doesn’t give me much of a thrill…but the piano sure does. It just feels…RIGHT sometimes. Almost like it’s a relief. Maybe this makes me sick in some way?
My “motor memory” includes:
Beethoven’s Pathetique
Mozart’s Sonat in C
Bach’s Solfegietto
A bunch of Chopin I can’t name
The 1st and second movements of The Moonlight Sonata
Brahm’s Lullaby
Confidence, one of Mendlehson’s “Songs Without Words.”
The Maple Leaf Rag
Hmm…there may be more. I have to go find a piano and get back to you.
-L
Muscle memory…
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Tae Kwon Do. I can still throw a punch or block, and it’s been almost a year since I trained at all.
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Due to the years of operating a Steadicam, I can tell with my left hand if I am holding something ABSOLUTELY level. And, if I’m not. I can apply exactly enough force to rotate a device around it’s axis and stop it smoothly.
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Touch type. God bless AOL, 4 years in a chat room full of ninnies DID yield one great benefit, I can touch type with pretty good spelling and speed.
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After I’ve been at it for a few hours, I can feel the vibrations through the stone as I work it, with a file or chisel, and can tell if there’s a bad vibration ( pardon the pun ) in the alabaster that will show as a fissure or terminal separation. It also…it feels different after my hand’s been on a stone for a while, almost as though it’s more malleable than when I first handle a new piece.
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My fingers remember my HS girlfriend’s telephone number to this day.
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I know just how much pressure to apply to give my kids the shivers when I troll a finger up the back of their neck. VERY important
The rest isn’t appropriate for MPSIMS 
Cartooniverse
As my name implies, I play goalkeeper in soccer.
There have been a number of times, when a really hard shot is flying toward the goal, but a hand shoots out and knocks it down. My teammates say, “Great save, keep.” And I reply, “Was that my hand? I don’t remember telling it to do that.”
Nothing.
How depressing.
I mean I type, and play the piano, and knit, and weave, and do string figures, and use keyboard shortcuts rather than the mouse, and other stuff.
In fact, I’ve always thought of myself as having really good manual dexterity. For all of the above activities I don’t generally have to look or think about it while I’m doing them. But, my head still knows what my hands are doing. Looking or thinking about it doesn’t slow me down, and I can generally explain how to do any of those things.
hmmm…
My hands can fold t-shirts into perfect rectangles, like you see in stores, except I don’t need a folding board.
My hands can type 60WPM on a good day; 50 on a bad.
My hands can massage Mr. Rilch’s feet, or his neck, till all the tiredness is out of them.
My hands can roll and cut cookies, mix hamburger patties, slice fruit and vegetables, and knead dough.
My hands can make dolls and stuffed animals move like they’re alive. (Well, sort of.)
Linus: These are hands that may someday change the course of destiny!!
Lucy: They’ve got jelly on them.
With my baritone, the fingering patterns for a few scales (mostly B-flat concert scale and part of the chromatic scale) are automatic. I really can’t think about what I’m playing because it throws me off. This also applies to the music I memorize. Can’t think about notes, just rhythms, or I second-guess myself.
I am a relatively fast typist, about 50 or 60 WPM, but I can’t look down at the keyboard. Having to concentrate on the exact positioning of my fingers instead of going on autopilot slows me down tremendously. I hated my typing class because I had learn how to keep my hands in the proper location. I couldn’t go by what I had taught myself before, so it just felt wrong.
Telephone numbers. I remember them by feel. I still can’t be sure of my best friend’s telephone number unless I look it up in the phone book, but I can feel if I’m dialing it correctly. Some of that also has to do with the sounds of the phone, I think.
jessica
I can tie a one-handed knot. The funny thing is that it takes two hands to do it. To wit: my brother is an M.D. and apropos of nothing special this came up today. It’s the knot that sutures are tied off with when stitching up a patient. The point of it is that you don’t need anyone’s finger to hold down the first half of the knot (put your finger right there, wouldja?) in order to keep tension.
I know, who cares, but a fun skill to add to ones repetoire.
Arrrrggghhh! My first post and I got it wrong! It is of course a SINGLE-HANDED knot, as in defeating someone single-handedly.
Oh well…
“For the want of a nail…”
A lot. Thats why I call myself ‘handy’. I’m handy around the house. A handy guy.
I can type pretty fast too.
Draw my own blood (if someone helps with the tourniquet)
Set up a dialysis machine and prime the tubing.
Eat M and M’s.
Brush and floss.
Type, crochet, and phone numbers. Lots of them. I have to dial the number in order to get the number and write it down.
Catch something that is falling. Very handy when breakables fall, a bit dodgy when knives fall. I have to override the catch reflex or lose fingers. Same issue for “catching” with my foot if out of hands’ reach. Glass bowls = good. Butcher knife = bad.
Shower. I often forget if I have washed my hair, or washed the rest of me. I check the soap to see if it has been used in the last few minutes. I know, it is sad growing old.
Tie shoes. If I think about it, I am lost.
Take my contact lenses out. My hands can do this with no involvement from my brain. I know this because of all the times I’ve come home so drunk I couldn’t even remember to take my shoes off, yet I never wake up with my contacts still in …
Type, especially cartain combinations of keystrokes that I use or have used in programming over the last 20 years.
Tie shoes. I had a pair of heavy hiking boots that had 4 pair of open hooks for speedlacing. I could put the laces in one hand, and my hand would zip left and right, and lace all of those in an instant.
To a limited extend, juggle. And in this case, my left hand is smarter than the right, as I can juggle 2 objects with my left, but not the other. I think I’ll have to hold it back and make it repeat a grade.
Ever get interrupted when you’re signing your name, and try to finish signing? I have a big problem doing this one!
Yeah, that happens with me, too. Can’t EVER finish.
Other areas where my brain takes a break and lets my limbs work for it:
Geting into/out of my car. The whole routine: alarm, door, seatbelt, ignition, lights, parking brake, gearshift - all happens usually before I’m aware of it.
Also, I can unwrap a factory-wrapped CD without thinking. Three steps: Slit the outer plastic with a thumbnail and rip it off, then pop the bottom hinge to get the sticker off the edge cleanly, then pop the front cover back on. Happens instantaneously. I’ve gotten weird (perhaps awed?)looks from people when I do it.
Finally, I can only type by looking at the keyboard. That is, until I’ve been typing consistently for about an hour. Then I can let my fingers take over, and they find the keys just fine. The next day, I’ll start out touch typing again.
Well, that’s it. Don’t let your hands get too far ahead of your brain; that’s how lawsuits get started.
Am I the only one who’s so good at 10-key that there are problems dialing the phone? The numbers on a 10-key are a mirror image (except for the zero) of the phone keys. It makes me absolutely crazy, especially when I’ve been doing a lot of 10-key entry, then I have to call someone. I never, ever get it right the first time (thank God for display phones so that I can check my work before it starts to ring.) I’ve often longed for a rotary phone for this reason.
No, I do that a lot too. I’ll be entering IP numbers or doing reconciliation and go to dial the auditors or something and wind up calling Ulan Bator or something.
In re the OP, empty browser caches in Opera, Netscpe and Mozilla; fieldstrip and clean a M1911A1 and 92F (have to look to do it on the Gold Cups, as they’re my babies and I want to make sure I do it right); and roll a silver dollar across my knuckles. Until last month I would have said pick a tumbler lock, but I had to look. Guess I’m rusty.
Yes, I think I have similar ability. Not with standard massage, though - what’s it called when the massage is not kneading muscles, but rather touching the skin? I recall seeing a book on this technique.
Sensual massage? I’m not sure, I’ve had it referred to as ‘gentle touch’. Brain switches off, hands just flow over the skin, going on instinct to where they are needed. Perhaps I’m just instinctively picking up on subconscious cues, I don’t know. All I know is I can feel it in my hands when they connect to the right spot, like a current being turned on.
Honestly, this is the only instinctive skill I’ve got. Lousy typist, years out of practice on any musical instruments, as well as martial arts. I think driving a manual transmission is instinctive, but that’s more than just hands.