Bimanual Coordination in a Whole-Body Dynamic Balance Sport, Slacklining: A Comparison of Novice and Expert

As previous studies have suggested that bimanual coordination is important for slacklining, the authors questioned whether this important skill plays a role in the performance of a fundamental task of slacklining. To address this question, the authors compared single-leg standing on the slackline between novices and experts in terms of bimanual coordination dynamics within a dynamical systems framework using relative phase and recurrence quantification analysis measures. Five novices and five experts participated in the experiment. Participants were required to perform single-leg standing on a slackline. To collect motion data while slacklining, the authors used a 3D motion capture system and obtained time series data on the wrist position of both hands. The authors compared bimanual coordination dynamics between novices and experts. Although this preliminary study was limited in its sample size, the results suggest that experts tend to show a more antiphase coordination pattern than novices do and that they can more sustainably coordinate their hands compared with novices in terms of temporal structure in diagonal-related recurrence measures (i.e., maxline, mean line, and percentage determinism).