Physical Learning

So this week I spent some time hanging out with a few of my nephews. We ended up hiking some pretty steep side hills. One of the boys is not to much of the adventurous type so he and I hiked them together hand in hand. The whole time. The problem with this is when it got really steep he had a tendency to lean back away from the mountain, instead of in towards it, and when he was holding my hand he was pulling us both back, so I told him, "lean towards the mountain," "lean in," that sort of thing, and he did catch on pretty fast. I just thought it was fascinating because I don't ever remember learning that but I'm sure I did, but did I learn it by myself or did someone tell me, just like I told him. I have no idea? But it got me thinking about physical learning.
They say once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget because it is all about muscle memory. However, no one really seems to talk about other muscle memory type stuff. I remember teaching myself to brace myself with my feet on the school bus so I wouldn't have to hang on. When I worked on the train a month or two back I had to get used to spreading my wait and walking with very deliberate footsteps as I walked the isles as the train jiggled from side to side, and forward of course. The same sort of thing goes for walking on ice (slipping and sliding and knowing when it's thick enough) and walking down talus slopes (those rocks do move but with a surprising amount of consistency).
So here are my conclusions about physical learning. (1) In general it seems more like you learn it through experience than instruction and (2) once you learn it, you more or less always have a feel for it no matter how long between uses. Which really is unfair because book learning seems like it flies away quite fast if you aren't using it on a daily basis. So maybe our bodies are smarter then our minds...