In order to pinpoint the specific aspects of importance, we first needed to determine which segment of the gesture (pre-impact vs. post-impact) plays the largest role.  To this end, we created two "hybrid" gestures, mixing the pre and post-impact segments, creating a short-long gesture (containing motion from the short gesture up until the moment of impact, then finishing with the long gesture), and the long-short gesture (containing motion from the long gesture up until the moment of impact, then finishing with the short gesture).  The results indicated that it is the post-impact portion of the motion is paramount - a finding useful in subsequent manipulations.   

Next: Experiment 2 - Inversion & Through-the-bar