Do I need to continuely pratice the techniques I learn so it becomes muscular reflexes and I dont need to think about it?
After a while, the "seeing-thinking-doing" gradually becomes "seeing-doing" because your muscles seem to "know" and "remember" just what to do. What you're learning now is speed, i.e. how to perform the task carefully and quickly. That's muscle memory.
Scientists call this "kinesthetic memory" or "neuro-muscular facilitation" and they speak of "sensory-motor" learning, since you are combining sensing input, i.e. what you see with your eyes, with motor output, i.e. what you do with your body.
Of course, during the "drill-and-practice", your muscles aren't really memorizing anything (since all memories are stored in your brain). Instead, what you see with your eyes is interpreted by your brain in the form of nerve signals to your muscles to make your body move.
Now by making the same movements in response to the same visual cues over and over again, the associated nerve-muscle connections gradually become more effective, i.e. the transmission of the signals becomes more effective, and this is how the "thinking" in the "seeing-thinking-doing" is gradually replaced by "seeing-doing", i.e. by muscle memory.
Ummm...in other words, YES!
