Recently, my three colleagues and I appeared in a quiz competition. It was based on general knowledge in area of science, geography, history and sports. There were three rounds and there were entirely different querying formats in each round. Most of them were really wonderful and challenging which I never heard about before.
Even if we were recalling our memory to tackle different sort of questions, we had to keep ourselves in a control and remain coordinated to avoid giving wrong answers in both excitement and uncertainty. Our faces and bodies were giving out some clues that we and others could easily pick.
Stroking chin, scratching head and touching different part of face was obvious.However, in such kind of team activities, it’s really hard to keep each other in sync for better performance. Both win and loss is shared by each team member so personal stakes are quite less. Throughout the competition, it gets reflected through body language of whole team members.
We all know that being in a team is really good to compete but what about competing on your own, all alone? In this situation, individual's own body language speaks at great volume. Those who are good observer can easily pick both distress and delight clues given away by the players.
Yesterday, I went to watch a chess competition organized by my company. It was a small competition and many friends were competing to make their challenge to the next round. Watching chess matches on television (which I never did yet) and in still photographs is entirely different than watching players in a close proximity.
When people you know from several years participate in any competition and face any challenging situation, it definitely occupies some space of your mind due to the relations developed with them over the period. It affects the emotional resonses of an observer and ultimately - its body language.
Probably, you might know that the game of chess was originally invented by Indians, during Gupta Empire (early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE). In ancient era, people of India used to call it as Chaturang(चतुरंग) which means means 'four-limbed' or 'four arms', referring to ancient army divisions of infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry.
It can be entirely mythical that Chaturang or Chess was used to be played with the real men in different characters standing on a large board (painted or marked on ground) and two competitors controlling their moves. Perhaps, today's chess board and pieces might be an exact replica of the same arrangement. Unlike poker or card game, playing chess takes lot of mental energy because both competitors can watch each other’s move.
Chess board has 64 houses and each player has to compete with the help of 16 pieces belonging of different characters and having various tactical abilities. Players have to keep their emotions under control (which is really a hard part) to remain into game without loosing concentration and tactical edge.
What exacly our brain needs to in the face of intellectual challenges? It direly needs more supply of blood, oxygen and suger to keep working until we win or give up. Body makes its arrangement itself by adapting a perticular posture to increase their supply to the brain.
We can easily figure out that a player is paying the great attention at chess board and also sitting (or choosing to seat) in a shrunken or submissive posture i. e. narrowed shoulders, one or both hands touching the face, leaning forward by torso (upper body) and the legs entwined at ankles.
Players has to engage themselves into getting visual clues wiz current location of pieces of its own and of the competitors and the number of pieces available (alive) for competition. We can call it as the Tactical Thinking posture. Players submit themselves to the game, keep anticipating next move of an opponent and juggling with tactics.
Mature and veteran players show very less emotions on their faces because they think an opponent might take unfair advantage by knowing their emotional responses. However, body gives away certain clues through alteration in posture, eye ball movements, self-touching, scratching of different body parts and face.
They unconsciously make macro, micro and subtle muscular movements on their faces which an experienced observer can easily pick and decode in given context. Since players have to concentrate on the positions and the tactics, they seem to pay less attention towards an emotional body language of their opponent. Audience not only watch the game but try to make predictions.
As players age and becomes mature, they give away less obvious clues. Their clues remain miniaturized, subtle and complex, often intermixed with displays related with cognitive or physical processes. Hence, it becomes really hard for both opponents to gauge or judge each other on expressional basis.
However, a seasoned or trained observer can systematically observe both players and accurately predict that who's going to win or loose the game. As players are deeply submerging in game, an observer has to pick both obvious and not so obvious clues by burying its eyes in their moves.
Related articles:
1) Observation is the key 2) Micro Expressions
Even if we were recalling our memory to tackle different sort of questions, we had to keep ourselves in a control and remain coordinated to avoid giving wrong answers in both excitement and uncertainty. Our faces and bodies were giving out some clues that we and others could easily pick.
Stroking chin, scratching head and touching different part of face was obvious.However, in such kind of team activities, it’s really hard to keep each other in sync for better performance. Both win and loss is shared by each team member so personal stakes are quite less. Throughout the competition, it gets reflected through body language of whole team members.
We all know that being in a team is really good to compete but what about competing on your own, all alone? In this situation, individual's own body language speaks at great volume. Those who are good observer can easily pick both distress and delight clues given away by the players.
Yesterday, I went to watch a chess competition organized by my company. It was a small competition and many friends were competing to make their challenge to the next round. Watching chess matches on television (which I never did yet) and in still photographs is entirely different than watching players in a close proximity.When people you know from several years participate in any competition and face any challenging situation, it definitely occupies some space of your mind due to the relations developed with them over the period. It affects the emotional resonses of an observer and ultimately - its body language.
Probably, you might know that the game of chess was originally invented by Indians, during Gupta Empire (early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE). In ancient era, people of India used to call it as Chaturang(चतुरंग) which means means 'four-limbed' or 'four arms', referring to ancient army divisions of infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry.
It can be entirely mythical that Chaturang or Chess was used to be played with the real men in different characters standing on a large board (painted or marked on ground) and two competitors controlling their moves. Perhaps, today's chess board and pieces might be an exact replica of the same arrangement. Unlike poker or card game, playing chess takes lot of mental energy because both competitors can watch each other’s move.
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| Vishwanathan Anand (India) |
What exacly our brain needs to in the face of intellectual challenges? It direly needs more supply of blood, oxygen and suger to keep working until we win or give up. Body makes its arrangement itself by adapting a perticular posture to increase their supply to the brain.
We can easily figure out that a player is paying the great attention at chess board and also sitting (or choosing to seat) in a shrunken or submissive posture i. e. narrowed shoulders, one or both hands touching the face, leaning forward by torso (upper body) and the legs entwined at ankles.
Players has to engage themselves into getting visual clues wiz current location of pieces of its own and of the competitors and the number of pieces available (alive) for competition. We can call it as the Tactical Thinking posture. Players submit themselves to the game, keep anticipating next move of an opponent and juggling with tactics.
Mature and veteran players show very less emotions on their faces because they think an opponent might take unfair advantage by knowing their emotional responses. However, body gives away certain clues through alteration in posture, eye ball movements, self-touching, scratching of different body parts and face.
They unconsciously make macro, micro and subtle muscular movements on their faces which an experienced observer can easily pick and decode in given context. Since players have to concentrate on the positions and the tactics, they seem to pay less attention towards an emotional body language of their opponent. Audience not only watch the game but try to make predictions.
As players age and becomes mature, they give away less obvious clues. Their clues remain miniaturized, subtle and complex, often intermixed with displays related with cognitive or physical processes. Hence, it becomes really hard for both opponents to gauge or judge each other on expressional basis.
However, a seasoned or trained observer can systematically observe both players and accurately predict that who's going to win or loose the game. As players are deeply submerging in game, an observer has to pick both obvious and not so obvious clues by burying its eyes in their moves.
Related articles:
1) Observation is the key 2) Micro Expressions
