Blue Sombrero wrote:
"Instincts are inborn complex patterns of behavior that exist in most members of the species, and should be distinguished from reflexes, which are simple responses of an organism to a specific stimulus, such as the contraction of the pupil in response to bright light or the spasmodic movement of the lower leg when the knee is tapped. The absence of volitional capacity must not be confused with an inability to modify fixed action patterns. For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without a sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated.[1]"
I don't think you can teach instinct. The very definition of it precludes that. I think reflexes can be improved upon and learned but instinct is inherited, not learned.
The day any one on here is actually referring to primal instinct, feel free to correct my comment as though it were a literal comment on evolutionary neurophysiology and how it relates to football.
I'm obviously referring to the more colloquial version used in sport, how quickly and well one reacts to given stimuli, which again cannot be summed up as just 'reflexes'. Instincts, physiology and reflexes set the ground work for raw potential, but ultimately it is a learned behaviour in concert with these factors and it's pretty obvious to any one who's even seen a child grow up that they're never a naturally born footballer, but they can be naturally inclined towards an interest in football.
The average level of skill generally wouldn't be getting any better with each generation if that weren't true. Psychologists, neurologists, skill coaches, biomechanical experts, sports scientists and a whole host of other professions will fuel that insight more and more over the coming decades, but obviously the player has to be hungry to learn, and intelligent and receptive enough to accept that their capacity to improve their abilities is probably more malleable than most junior coaches, parents and peers will ultimately tell them.
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