Emergence of Meta-Stability and the Extent of Metastable Regions in Fencers with Different Motor Skill Levels

Meta-stability is a relatively stable region in which system components tend to cooperate to reach performance goals of movement while maintaining their separate and flexible characters. Participants were assigned to 3 skill groups: coordination (n=10), coordination control (n=10), and optimized control (n=10). Each two fencers fought in each group. Results of cluster analysis and empirical density indicated the emergence of a metastable region in coordination control group (between 1.689276- 2.270372), two metastable regions in optimized control group (between 0.9824658- 1.00113699 and 1.843131-2.333738) and no metastable region in coordination group. Moreover, the binomial test showed that the proportion of using modes of actions in metastable regions in coordination control and optimized control groups had no significant difference (P=0.4888). But the extent of metastable region in the coordination control group was significantly greater. Findings of this study showed that fencer's motor system is metastable depending on their skill level and the extent of metastable regions was different in each level. To design learning and organizing practice, sport coaches can lead the athletes to metastable regions to emerge the most functional motor responses.