Fractal Dynamics in a Whole-Body Dynamic Balance Sport, Slacklining: A Comparison of Novices and Experts

The present study investigated whether fractal dynamics can be observed during single-leg standing on a slackline. We also examined whether the temporal structure differs with skill level. To address these questions, we compared single-leg standing performance between novices (N=5) and experts (N=5) in terms of fractal dynamics in both ankles (i.e., stance and swing legs), center of mass, and head acceleration time series using detrended fluctuation analysis. Participants were required to perform single-leg standing on a slackline. To collect motion data while slacklining, we used a three-dimensional motion capture system and obtained time-series data on the position. We conducted detrended fluctuation analysis on the original acceleration time series and random shuffled time series to examine the fractal dynamics in each body part's fluctuation. Results suggest that experts showed persistent temporal structure in the swinging leg, center of mass, and head fluctuations in the horizontal direction, while that of novices did not differ from random fluctuations. These findings revealed that experts performing a single-leg standing task on a slackline show fractal dynamics. This might reflect their flexible or adaptive exploratory behavior in the performer-environment system and contribute to the dynamic stability of whole-body dynamic balancing.