good fine motor skills bad gross motor skills

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daydreamersworld
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22 Aug 2012, 1:10 am

I was wondering if anyone else seems to have this. I dont think of myself as having motor skill problems. I know its not that bad and is probly all in my head. Anyhoo I had/have great fine motor skills i learned cursive writing in kindergarten and was told i had one of the best handwriting. As far as i know i learned to eat with a spoon, dress myself at the normal age etc. But however on the flipside of that when it comes to gross motor skills its not very significant but i lose my balance sometimes while walking and sway more to oneside everynow and then (doesnt happen all the time) and also when i do exercise videos it takes me forever to get the moves whereas my sister can pick up on them easy. And one time when i was at a 4h camp with my sisters there was a bunch of kids in a circle including me and my sister and they were doin the chicken dance. And i was embarrassed cus i couldnt get the moves right and wasnt as fast as everyone else doin it. Like when they were doing the kneeling down part i would still be the only one standing up and i was trying to figure out how to flap my arms like a chicken and go up and down at the same time it seems i have trouble doing 2 things at once.
So i know this might sound silly cus its just the stupid chicken dance song..but that was one of the first times i noticed it and i remember i stopped cus i was embarrased. I thought it was wierd and didnt think anything of it that much cus i have never heard of anyone who have great fine motor skills like i was but abit slow and awkward with gross motor skills. Has anyone else been like this? I know its not a big issue cus i dont really do any physical activities but exercise like walking and exercise videos. But i was just curious if anyone else had really good fine motor skills but not so good gross motor skills or vise versa?(sorry bout the spelling)



OneAngryDwarf
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22 Aug 2012, 1:48 am

I have always had difficulties with motor skills of any kind. In school I would get berated by the other kids during recess because I couldn’t throw a ball straight, or would close my eyes and miss it completely if one was thrown at me. Then we would go back to class…where the teacher would berate me for having sloppy handwriting. Then I would go home…where my parents would berate me for not holding my fork correctly. Yeah, childhood is such a fun and innocent time. And don’t even get me started on my last girlfriend, who hated the fact that I couldn’t dance (and never hesitated to remind me of it)…

HOWEVER, I started taking piano lessons at age 7, and stuck with it, and today I make a decent living as a professional musician. I’m far from a concert-level master, but I’ve practiced and picked up things to the level where I can play just about any musical style, or at least fake it most of the time :) Piano definitely involves having very good fine motor skills, developing muscle memory, etc….it’s actually very similar to the skills most athletes must master. (wish more people realized that…)

For a long time I thought I was just some kind of savant, but eventually I realized it’s all just a matter of time, dedication, and determination…just about any skill can be learned with enough of those things.



UnseenSkye
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22 Aug 2012, 2:06 am

Do you have (or have you had in past) any seizure activity? Sometimes we can have very small seizures that are like "losing connections" with our bodies. If you think about it and feel like there have been times when it seems you are "not there" for even a second, you might want to speak to a Doctor and have this checked. This was happening to me infrequently when I was very tired and pushing myself because I had a lot of work to do and some person around me was being continuously critical of everything I did. I tried to dismiss this as "clumsiness" because it frightened me. It is really very dangerous, though.

Are you experiencing clumsiness all the time or just at certain times (when you are feeling stress or anxiety or just around certain people, for example). Sometimes we pick on ourselves and are self-conscious and do it so often, we don't even think about it. It just becomes a habit. No matter how long we've had a habit, we can learn to change that habit. This is something else to think about.

Having great fine motor skills is actually very valuable! There are so many things that you can do that are amazing. You can make jewelry and beading, draw, paint, do calligraphy, learn to weave, take photographs, work with a digital tablet and retouch photographs, become proficient with a microscope... so many things that you can do that capture your interest and use your fine motor skills to advantage.

Another thing is to have your vision checked. Sometimes our eyes can be slightly out of alignment without this being at all obvious. This is true for me. Because of this, I tend to "over-correct to the right" and have slight depth perception problems. A good optometrist will be able to determine whether this is a problem very quickly.

I also find it difficult to "follow and coordinate" to exercise videos because my sense of direction is a bit off-kilter. I have something called "synesthesia", which is not really a problem. Google the word and you might find that you have the same "difference". I'm just one of those people who you'll hear people tell "push the button on the LEFT. No. Your OTHER Left." I've learned to laugh at this because what is the alternative? If I start out in the reverse, I just continue on in the reverse throughout the whole routine and if people are rude enough to make fun, I ignore them. I'm getting through the exercises, after all..I'm just moving to the right when everyone else is moving to the left. As long as I'm not colliding with anyone else, what's the problem? (There isn't any).

If acquiring better gross motor skills really bothers you, you might consider taking Beginning Iyengar Yoga Classes. Is it necessary that your sister go along with you? Iyengar Yoga is recommended because postures are explained in very precise ways and instructors are typically very patient and will assist you in positioning your body in such a way that you won't hurt yourself and will build strength and balance. You might speak with different instructors and tell them that you might want additional help "without a big deal being made". And again, let this be for you and, if possible, not a situation where your sister is involved, as you seem to compare yourself unfavorably to her. That's my impression, anyway. I want you to be happy with yourself! :)



daydreamersworld
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22 Aug 2012, 9:52 am

UnseenSkye wrote:
Do you have (or have you had in past) any seizure activity? Sometimes we can have very small seizures that are like "losing connections" with our bodies. If you think about it and feel like there have been times when it seems you are "not there" for even a second, you might want to speak to a Doctor and have this checked. This was happening to me infrequently when I was very tired and pushing myself because I had a lot of work to do and some person around me was being continuously critical of everything I did. I tried to dismiss this as "clumsiness" because it frightened me. It is really very dangerous, though.

Are you experiencing clumsiness all the time or just at certain times (when you are feeling stress or anxiety or just around certain people, for example). Sometimes we pick on ourselves and are self-conscious and do it so often, we don't even think about it. It just becomes a habit. No matter how long we've had a habit, we can learn to change that habit. This is something else to think about.

Having great fine motor skills is actually very valuable! There are so many things that you can do that are amazing. You can make jewelry and beading, draw, paint, do calligraphy, learn to weave, take photographs, work with a digital tablet and retouch photographs, become proficient with a microscope... so many things that you can do that capture your interest and use your fine motor skills to advantage.

Another thing is to have your vision checked. Sometimes our eyes can be slightly out of alignment without this being at all obvious. This is true for me. Because of this, I tend to "over-correct to the right" and have slight depth perception problems. A good optometrist will be able to determine whether this is a problem very quickly.

I also find it difficult to "follow and coordinate" to exercise videos because my sense of direction is a bit off-kilter. I have something called "synesthesia", which is not really a problem. Google the word and you might find that you have the same "difference". I'm just one of those people who you'll hear people tell "push the button on the LEFT. No. Your OTHER Left." I've learned to laugh at this because what is the alternative? If I start out in the reverse, I just continue on in the reverse throughout the whole routine and if people are rude enough to make fun, I ignore them. I'm getting through the exercises, after all..I'm just moving to the right when everyone else is moving to the left. As long as I'm not colliding with anyone else, what's the problem? (There isn't any).

If acquiring better gross motor skills really bothers you, you might consider taking Beginning Iyengar Yoga Classes. Is it necessary that your sister go along with you? Iyengar Yoga is recommended because postures are explained in very precise ways and instructors are typically very patient and will assist you in positioning your body in such a way that you won't hurt yourself and will build strength and balance. You might speak with different instructors and tell them that you might want additional help "without a big deal being made". And again, let this be for you and, if possible, not a situation where your sister is involved, as you seem to compare yourself unfavorably to her. That's my impression, anyway. I want you to be happy with yourself! :)


Thanks. No i never had any seizures in the past except one when i was an infant but I'm not too sure if it seizure. I'm not sure if its a feeling of "not being there" but sometimes i zone out and dont really think about anything. But i've heard that when you have small seizures like that you aren't aware of when you zone out.
I think i mostly feel clumsiness at certain times not all the time. I'm wondering if it is just that i have trouble multitasking it would explain a little of why i its hard for me to do moves in some of my exercise videos where it requires you to move your upper body while move your lower body at the same time. So maybe its just multitasking issue. As for sometimes balance its very slight and i dont know what could cause that. ITs weird but i think i experience the balancing issues when im really hyper and looking behind me while walking is when i mostly experience them. I remember a few months back when the town i live in had their carnival goin on and me and my mom and moms boyfriend were all walking home and i was abit goofy and i was experience balancing issues and at one point my mom actually kind of guided me with her hand as if i was gonna fall when i became slightly imbalanced. I didnt think much of it because my mom never said anything about it. It could have been cus i was tired too. who knows. I guess its not that big of a deal. Maybe im over analyzing things. I looked up synesthesia and i didnt really get it. What i got out of it was that for example if someone sees a certain color it can bring up a certain smell or taste too. Something that triggers the other senses. ?? I dont think that i have that. I was alittle confused what it meant exactly.
Yes u are right i do compare myself with my sister alot. thanks for the information and the helpfulness.



lostgirl1986
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22 Aug 2012, 9:57 am

For me it's always been opposite. I have really poor fine motor skills and okay gross motor skills. My penmanship is really sloppy and it takes me a long time to do things like tie my shoelaces with my hands.



lostonearth35
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21 May 2015, 5:56 pm

I've been told I could draw about as soon as I was able to hold a pencil and figure out how it worked, which was maybe at 2 or 3 years old, and my writing is pretty good too (for a lefty!), although I may be out of practice since I type so much now. But when I was in grade school skipping rope, playing hopscotch, or catching a ball seemed like nearly impossible tasks. I even had some therapist test me doing such things at school while being excused from class.

Of course, along with every other lovely thing about aging, I have to look forward to gradually losing my fine motor skills. My dad is 64, and his hands shake a lot just from holding a cup to his mouth, although that might not be from age since my mother doesn't seem to have trouble.



Agemaki
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21 May 2015, 9:16 pm

I can kind of identify. Ever since I was a small child I have liked to draw and in most ways I am okay with fine motor skills. I can't drive a car though and in school I could never hit a ball with a bat and I'm generally a bit awkward in most physical activities. I did have trouble learning to tie my shoes as child though. Learning to ride a bike was also hard (I can do it but I tend to crash and get hurt a lot). And I had trouble in pottery class. But when I'm using a pen/pencil/paintbrush it feels like an extension of my own body. Maybe it's just from years of practice though.



BTDT
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21 May 2015, 11:26 pm

I had great fine motor skills from doing my special interests. The gross motor skills--not so good--sometimes I got picked last in PE--or was the guy who wasn't picked...
Later in life I find that I could improve my gross motor skills so now I'm now around average--maybe even better than average considering all the health issues older people get.



TheCrookedFingers
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22 May 2015, 4:52 pm

Ooooh this is me!

I am pretty good at drawing, pipetting :idea: and doing other things that require fine movements, but I truly, tremendously suck at anything requiring gross motor skills, such as walking or driving (being distracted doesn't help).
Maybe you have dyspraxia? I believe it can be confined to only one subset of motor skills.


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EzraS
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22 May 2015, 11:27 pm

Most of my motor skills are really poor. Difficulty walking, throwing and catching etc. Can't tie my shoes, need help with fastening buttons etc. But I am pretty good at working with modeling clay and am really good at target shooting with a .22 pistol.