What is the K Project?

The K project is an experiment to discover if the mesoscopic components of computation can be stimulated by advanced complex training methods. In lay terms, the project seeks to discover if computational skills can be improved through advanced tennis training methods.

In this regard, special needs children (those lacking normal components of computation) provide the very best test case for this project.

Why should this be possible?

In the primitive environment of early homo sapiens, there were no schools, no TV, no books, no standardized methods of stimulating the develop on the intellectual faculties of the human brain. Thus, these abilities had to evolve from the need to survive. Hunting prey, fleeing from predictors required the physically inferior human to be fast, smart, skillful. As a result, by natural selection, the early human brain had to develop its intellectual faculties from the demands of physical stress. To eat, the human had to study its prey's habits and make predictions. This stimulated the development of intellectual capabilities. Also, the need to fashion weapons stimulated their intellectual development. The need to hide and escape from more powerful and skilled predators further contributed to the development of thought. All of these facts imply that a relationship may exist between athletic and intellectual skills.

A long standing belief in this relationship is seen in many schools today that require that students play a sport as well as complete their academic studies. Two informal experiments conducted by EASI using professional level tennis training methods were successful in restoring intellectual skills in subjects with brain traumas.

As a result of these facts, it is a reasonable conjecture that the right level, type and style of training may benefit individuals with special intellectual needs.

What might be the Etiology of analytical skills?

We conjecture that these are the key steps:

• Early humans had to have developed athletic ability first to survive in the primitive world where they were physically inferior to their competitors
• Athletic abilities in the brain are, in effect, powerful computers in that they can synchronize with motion, estimate distances, evaluate the significance of physical forces of the environment, integrate information, and make inferences.
• We conjecture that the brain evolved to utilize existing skills to develop new skills. This is the principle of efficiency in the use of neurons.
• Extreme physical demands for survival in the primitive environment were the stimulus for the development of analytical skills.
• The cerebellum is a likely structure from which inference may have evolved.
• Thousands of years of evolution may have separated the athletic and analytical functions to various degrees depending on the individual. This would explain the present array of athletic and analytical skill combinations.
• However, some linkage must still exist, and if it can be found to exist, it can be exploited to the betterment of human life.

From these conjectures and facts, we postulate that there is a linkage between athletic skills and cognitive skills that passes through the cerebellum. This focuses the K-project on this area of the brain. The training used in the K project must follow the Langer protocol by necessity, and must evolve to make extreme physical demands on the subject.

Tennis as the venue for the K Project

The choice of tennis training as the venue for this research is as follows: 1) Tennis challenges nearly every part of the body and mind. It challenges both athletic skills, emotions, decision making skills, intellectual skills. Tennis makes demands on the frontal lobe, limbic system, visual processing, Parietal Lobe, Medulla, Cerebellum, and the entire neuromuscular infrastructure of the human body. 2) Tennis is an eye-to-eye combative sport so all aspects of combative competition come into play; 3) Tennis is an individual sport so the subject is isolated and must perform on their own every second of match play and practice. 4) Tennis can be studied in a small area of 150 by 50 feet. In this area, video analysis and observation are easily conducted; 5) Tennis requires extraordinary training at the professional level requiring anaerobic fitness, precision movement, strength in every part of the body from feet to neck to eyes. footwork, speed, endurance, spatial judgment, eye-had coordination, ability to synchronize movements between body, ball and racquet, concentration, discipline, both calm execution and intense aggression. 6) Historically. there has been a reasonable correlation between academic ability and tennis skill.

The Langer Protocol

The Langer Protocol is a highly successful training protocol developed by the EASI Academy based on the seminal research of Professor Langer. It has been designated by the EASI Academy as "The Langer Protocol" in recognition of Langer's extensive and revolutionary contribution to training in every enterprise. This protocol has been in use in tennis training and education for at least six years at the EASI Academy and has been the basis for dramatic advances in tennis skills in players of all ages and stages of development.

The detailed reasons for choosing The Langer Protocol for all training in the K Project are many: The Langer Protocol explicitly excludes any rote repetition and correction. Further there is no template based training. Instead, all drills maximize the student's opportunity to experiment, explore and use their individual initiative to discover efficient skills with which to execute strokes and make decisions. Hence, experimentation and exploration are key factors in the Langer Protocol. All drills are designed around conceptually clear purposes and results rather than activities. In place of rote repetition each drill is tantamount to a series of experiments for which there is no wrong or right result. Each experiment simply provides the student with data to be processed by the brain during gestation time or sleep. All learning using the Langer Protocol proceeds implicitly with minimal elaboration or direction from the instructor. The instructor never micro-manages the student. The student is allowed to experiment and discover efficient technique and to adapt their ideas to new situations without restricting their creativity or decision making skills. Another key reason for the choice of the Langer Protocol is that it assures that when the student implements the knowledge gained from their training they will have the ability to continually adapt their knowledge effectively to changing circumstances, on their own initiative, without depending on the direction of others in order to make effective choices. Thus, this protocol provides us with the best approach to achieving the goals of Project K.

Phase ONE

Physical Assessment and Baselining. The objective of Phase ONE of the training program is to bring the student's physical condition up to a standard level needed for efficient tennis training. This level is defined by a set of exercises which are timed, or counted and are directed toward specific body areas needed to control one's body during tennis activities. These exercises target control of the feet, ankles, knees, hips, core, arms neck, head. leg strength, fast twitch fiber development, anaerobic endurance, balance, and core strength. This phase is needed to assure that basic body control is in place. When this is accomplished, a reexamination of the student's computational skills will be conducted to see if a general increase in the control of the body has influenced computational skill.

Computational Assessment and Baselining. In conjunction with the physical objectives of this phase will be a computational assessment phase. In this phase, the student will be assesses for the presence of computational skills. In particular, the student will be questioned to determine their ability to abstract, form analogies, form associations, relate symbols to concepts, and to manipulate symbols based on concepts, associations, abstractions and analogies.

Given sufficient funding, PET may be used to examine the neurodynamics taking place in the subject's brain during these computational assessments.

Phase TWO

Phase 2 will the development of precision movement and enhanced development of existing hitting skills and movement. Development of the ballistic reflex in every stroke will be emphasized. Vocalization at contact will also be developed. Drills designed to provide the opportunity for the student to begin integrating all development into his/her game will be conducted. When this is accomplished, a reexamination of the student's computational skills will be conducted to see if an increase in precision control of the body and tennis skills have influenced computational skill.

Phase THREE.

Phase 3 will use the data from phase 1 and 2 along with consultations with Freeman to target the development of the mesoscopic components of computation. It is impossible to be more specific about this phase until phases ONE and TWO are completed.

The intensity of training will be gradually increased until it reaches a professional level. We expect this to take a considerable amount of time based on our successful informal program that was developed for a subject having viral encephalitis.