I have known a few men whom I regard as Ph. D.s in "Body". These have been people (I'm sure there are women too, I just haven't met them) who can watch something and then do it.

They can ski, surf, play football, baseball, do obstacle courses, swim, climb, anything they may want and seem to learn it effortlessly and in no time. I regard them as geniuses in their own way.

May be dumb as boards, crude, coarse, but damn, they are good. High school may have been too much for them, but they will be on a Black Diamond ski run two hours after putting on skis for the first time.

There is a block, called a neck, between learning something and doing it. Most people can sort of trickle things down, slowly, with practice, but like a great jazz pianist the work has all been done before the performance and there is no thought. Surfing, I don't think, can't be done well if it has to be thought about. Just as typing this, I don't have to think about what key to hit, and when I did I couldn't type well. And understanding how the keyboard works, why each key is where it is, what happens to the impulse when I hit a key, has nothing to do my typing.