Spatial ability

The dad was worried about three things.

He said that he's kicking, so he's using his toes more so than any other part of his foot, concentration levels, and spatial awareness.

Okay, so...

And I get this because on paper it makes total sense that if your child is a little bit behind or needs some help with their football, then getting them private sessions, one-to-one training seems like the obvious choice.

and and again people are forgiven for thinking this but some of the things that that people want to work on it's just one-to-one is not the best it's not the best thing for them and that's what we're going to talk about and i'm not trying to talk myself out of earning a living here that's a line that i use all the time with these parents it's just we don't want people to spend their money on things that that don't make the difference we want if they are going to spend some money on this it'd be better to spend it on things and invest it in things that that are going to make the difference and that's what we're going to talk about so i thought it'd be good to give you the three things that this parent wanted his child to work on because it makes it a bit more real and these are things that we hear all the time so number one was kicking so he said his child uses the toes more so than any other part of the foot so a lot of toe poking and all that sort of stuff and the good news with that for anybody listening we actually did a a little clip a little video that you can do at home with your child on this a few weeks ago but that does work itself out that it does work its way out with with age and time and and lots of football it just starts so they start to feel the ball in on different areas of the foot and yeah they start to realize that connection's a little bit better than at all but the other thing is we don't want to completely coach out of them because sometimes the toe the toe punt is the is the best decision in the time but I know what this parent means you see it a lot with the beginner players they use their toes more so than the than their laces or their insteps and things so yeah if you are worried about that parents that does work its way out but You know, I won't kid you here.

A one-to-one could help in this scenario for that particular element.

But as I say, the problem there is if you could... you could work it could work its way out with good quality group training whereby then they've also they've not only sorted the toe poking issue they've also developed game iq game understanding and all that good stuff as well at the same time but a little tip is um half volleys i love half volleys bounce the ball down let your child hit it and they'll start to realize that the connection comes from the laces and I do a lot of that in my one-to-one training and also with my kids at home they start to get that feel of the ball on the laces and yeah that can really help but that's a conversation for another time so yeah stuff like that it can help a bit and we're always happy to help people with that sort of stuff and just show them a few things they can do but there's no guarantee that it shows up when it counts either that's the other thing and that's why the group stuff ordinarily wins so that was number one worry number two was spatial awareness now I assume this meant within the game context so on a on a match day maybe this child is standing next to the opposing team's players too much instead of trying to find themselves some space now In a one-to-one, it would ordinarily be a coach and possibly some mannequins.

And you start to understand then why spatial awareness becomes something that's really, really hard to work on in a one-to-one because it's not real.

Three D space is something else, right? So especially at scale.

So there's not a lot that in three D space that is inherently sequential, right? So that can be expressed as, as a sequence of like a stream, right, so of, you know, like tokens, artifacts, kind of you name it, right? So it doesn't have to be text, of course, right? Transformers can deal with other types of structure than, than just, uh, than just text, right? So but spatial reasoning at scale, it's still something that where, again, amazingly, even the state-of-the-art actually models actually don't do phenomenally well, right? So and so while it is possible for Astra or, or Claude to, uh, let's say, operate a CAD tool to do fairly simple operations, you know, you can move a wall, you can construct a kind of simple kind of, you know, geometric shape, right? So even to, you know, kind of decent engineering grade, right? So but very long-term tasks that require large scale understanding, contextual understanding of space, right, so and the function of space, and especially the function that the space has once it's built.

It's, I mean, to our, to our best knowledge, is still far beyond actually kind of what, uh, what, you know, even kind of a state-of-the-art actually models actually afford, right? So again, this is a moving target obviously, right? So again, it is recent, uh, days, the introduction of, of, uh, GPT Astra, uh, which is a, you know, substantial leap forward in the space, right? So but again, creating something at the scale and the level of fidelity and complexity of a building, not only in a way that, that represents well in a digital picture, but where it can be functionally demonstrated, where it is, uh, adherent, uh, to construction code, to requirements that come from engineering, right? So this is something that, that is still, like, quite a, quite a bit actually kind of beyond the capabilities.

But not only that, right? So there's a limit to how, how long, how big an individual task actually can be, right? And so again, designing a whole building actually from scratch, it's a very, very long-term, long-running activity, if you will, that requires coordination from a number of, uh, specialists with specialized knowledge, right? Uh, so this is actually still something that is beyond.

She's a board-certified optometrist.

She's a spatial awareness expert, which you're gonna learn what that means in this conversation, and she's a leading authority on the eye-brain connection.

She's really redefining vision as a gateway to cognition, longevity, and overall wellbeing.

She actually coined the term spatial awareness processing disorder, which a surprising amount of children are suffering from right now, and she describes how screen-heavy modern lifestyle, which we're all dealing with, and so are our children, disrupt the brain's ability to judge distance, track motion, and navigate real world space.

And she's on a mission to help people understand that 20/20 eyesight tells us way less than what we think, way less than the potential we have to learn from our actual eyes.

And she's also the host of a podcast called Uncover Your Eyes: The Truth About Health and Wellness.

You've-

Thank you so much.

The baseline knowledge of 2D cross-sections is strictly non-negotiable.

Why is that? If the computer does the spatial reasoning for you, why do it manually?

Because a 3D model is ultimately a computer-generated interpretation.

Right, an interpretation.

You need this mental map to be second nature.

Which means it's time for a review.

We're going to put you, the listener, in the hot seat to test your spatial reasoning.

Let's see how well you've built your grid.