I Have A Confession To Make…
I have a confession to make….
I was an over-cuer.
I know. You might be thinking, “How is it possible that Chelsea was an over-cuer? She is constantly promoting the idea of using less verbal feedback.”
But it is true. When I first graduated from Romana’s Pilates, I was 110% an over-cuer. As a teacher I felt that it was my job to tell the client EVERYTHING they needed to do to succeed. At the time, I measured progress based on how a client carried out a correction, and how many corrections they could apply to the exercise. I thought that this was the recipe for successfully learning a movement. Well, I hate to break it to you, but this recipe is not the recipe for success--more on that a little later.
What were the signs I was over-cueing, and how did I finally break the pattern?
Looking back, it’s easy to see I was trying to do too much. When I was teaching, I would name the exercise the client was about to do. I would say the choreography of that exercise. I would give cues on what needed to be fixed to make the exercise “look” more correct. I would even repeat these “cues” if the client was doing okay but I felt like I needed to say something or make them work “harder” and “feel it more.” Sometimes I even gave general cues like “reach”, “lift” and “stretch” to make the client feel like they needed to try harder or do more. I was talking 90% of the time and didn’t give myself nearly enough time to really observe and understand the body in front of me.
After years of teaching this way and seeing very little measurable progress in my clients’ Pilates abilities, I realized that something was missing and that maybe there was something about how I was teaching that could be improved. I went back to graduate school to study Motor Learning Theory, the science that focuses on how people learn and retain movement patterns. With course after course I realized that my old teaching style went against EVERYTHING in the research. I was so embarrassed. How did I not know how to teach movement after teaching Pilates for years?!?
The more I learned about the science of how people learn and acquire new physical skills and abilities, the more insight I had into what was (or wasn’t) happening with my clients. It explained why my clients were not progressing as I had anticipated they would. This is when I became obsessed with verbal feedback and how to break to promote maximum learning and retention. The great news is that feedback reduction works!
I don’t want you to think that I abandoned all that I learned in my Pilates certification because that couldn’t be further from the truth. I simply learned how to better set up my clients for success with a systematic approach for cueing, corrections, and other feedback. It made my job a lot easier and cured me of being an over-cuer!
As our teaching evolves to address safety concerns around Covid19, effective verbal feedback will be more essential than ever because we will continue to teach virtually, or because we will need to maintain social distance in the studio. Elevating your verbal feedback will help you navigate the new reality like a pro.
Wondering if you might be over cueing your clients? Here are three questions you can ask yourself to figure it out.
What percentage of your session do you spend talking vs. observing?
How tired are you after teaching your classes?
How well do your clients remember exercises from session to session?
Want to get better at structuring your feedback, but you’re not sure where to start? This is exactly why I created Kinexology Method courses Virtual Virtuoso and What You Say Matters. Both will help you address the issue of over-cueing, and will teach you the importance of a systematic approach when it comes to teaching.
The embarrassing revelation I had years ago reading my textbook and realizing that the way I had been teaching for years went against basically everything that has been proven to work in the research was hard but life changing. I wouldn’t be the teacher I am today without this knowledge, and my clients would not be as strong and successful without this systematic approach. As John Wooden said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
This is the perfect time to work on yourself as a teacher, and to refine your actual teaching, not just the choreography of the exercises or your understanding of anatomy. If you have questions about this topic, let’s chat. Drop me a line at chelsea@kinexology.com.