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The present article written by Ch. Klein on the occasion of Joachim Wittstock’s 70th birthday concentrates on a kind of balance, starting from the story Karussellpolka of the writer from Sibiu. Wittstock wrote the above mentioned story at the age of 40 and, consciously or not, he suggests the necessity of each of us to make the balance of his/her own life as soon as possible. Ch. Klein regards the story Karussellpolka adequate to this purpose, i.e. for balance, as it is the only prose narrative which deals with such a balance, not only generally as a human condition, but also with regard to the community of the Saxons of Transylvania to which Joachim Wittstock belongs.
The role of attentional focusing in motor tasks has been highlighted frequently. The “internal–external” dimension has emerged, but also the spatial distance between body and attended location. In two experiments, an extended attentional focus paradigm was introduced to investigate distality effects of attentional foci on balance performance. First, the distality of the coordinates of the point of focus was varied between a proximal and distal position on an artificial tool attached to the body. Second, the distance of the displayed effect on the wall was varied between a 2.5 and 5 m condition. Subjects were instructed to focus on controlling either a proximal or distal spot on a tool attached to their head, represented by two laser pointers. Subsequently, they needed to visually track their own body-movement effect of one of the laser pointers at a wall while completing various single leg stance tasks. Center of pressure (COP) sway was analyzed using a linear method (classic sway variables) as well as a nonlinear method (multiscale entropy). In addition, laser trajectories were videotaped and served as additional performance outcome measure. Experiment 1 revealed differences in balance performance under proximal compared to distal attentional focus conditions. Moreover, experiment 2 yielded differences in balance-related sway measures and laser data between the 2.5 and 5 m condition of the visually observable movement effect. In conclusion, varying the distality of the point of focus between proximal and distal impacted balance performance. However, this effect was not consistent across all balance tasks. Relevantly, the distality of the movement effect shows a significant effect on balance plus laser performance with advantages in more distal conditions. This research emphasizes the importance of the spatial distality of movement effects for human behavior.