Find your mind

No 2: Kinaesthetic intelligence: Are you as on the ball as David Beckham?

If you have ever sat an IQ test you may have wondered what kind of intelligence it was designed to measure. The test is all about numbers, words and images on a page. You're never asked to build a boat, negotiate your way up a cliff or read an expression on a human face.

That's why Dr Howard Gardner searched out and documented the eight kinds of intelligence that human beings displayed. Transition year is all about finding yours.

This week we examine the intelligence of David Beckham, Keith Wood, Sonia O'Sullivan and everybody else whose bodies and minds communicate on a different level to those of the rest of us - displaying kinaesthetic, or bodily, intelligence.

Kinaesthetic intelligence involves using the body to communicate ideas and solve problems. Athletes are obvious candidates, but everyone qualifies who can use their bodies adeptly, from dancers and actors to craftspeople and surgeons.

Students with kinaesthetic intelligence usually learn by doing. They are not comfortable stuck in chairs, listening to instructions. They learn best by having a go.

This is one of the most controversial of Gardner's intelligences. Many people reject the idea that physical skill is a measure of intelligence. Most of us, after all, can control our movement and display some balance, agility and grace.

Some people have a natural sense of how their bodies should behave in challenging physical situations, however. To be like David Beckham (right) and pick the moment to cross a football to a striker - or how to curve it around defenders - takes more than fitness and practice. It demands a complex interplay of problem solving, space awareness, imagination and an understanding of the laws of the physical world.

It's not just about sport. Everyone from plumbers to dressmakers to heart surgeons uses physical skill to achieve their aims.

People with kinaesthetic intelligence may not thrive in classrooms, where they are forced to sit still and use their bodies in limited ways. They are likely to learn more about physics, for example, by testing some of its laws in a practical setting, such as watching a golf ball arcing off a green.

Students with kinaesthetic intelligence may find it easier to get to the heart of a play by acting it out rather than by reading it. They may prefer to build a model rather than draw a picture. If you're fidgeting while reading this, dying to get up and do something, perhaps this is one of your intelligences.

Last year Michael Seaver, the Irish Times dance critic, hosted a forum on kinaesthetic intelligence. He was struck by the way experts in the field are using their knowledge to make companies work better. "Intelligence in the body is often not recognised by general society," he says. "Carol-Lynne Moore, an ex- dancer who now does movement- pattern analysis in the corporate environment, works within companies as big as Hewlett-Packard and ICI, recommending the make-up of senior management teams based on their body language and what she describes as 'integrated movement'." You can find out more about movement-pattern analysis at www.bullus.co.uk/ profiling_options.htm.

Next week: could you be the next Dr Phil? - intrapersonal intelligence