What is “Skill Learning”?

A lot of what we focus on at Kinexology is skill learning. Skill learning is very important for both Pilates instructors and Pilates clients to learn about. So that brings me to the question of what exactly is skill learning? How does skill learning apply to teaching Pilates as well as learning pilates?

Well, I am here to tell you that it has EVERYTHING to do with teaching and doing Pilates!

Skill Learning is a term that we use in Motor Learning Theory that basically means that the learner (aka our clients) are able to produce a skill (or what we refer to as an exercise) with the correct biomechanics and the proper coordination of muscle groups to produce the action. Everytime we teach a client an exercise we are asking them to learn a new skill! So we are basically professional skill teachers. :)

If you are a student of Pilates, each new exercise you learn is a new movement skill! Pilates is inherently comprised of different movement skills that you need to learn and build upon to lean more and more challenging exercises. Therefore, for a student of Pilates skill learning is essential to progress and retention of strength and mastery.

So now that we are on the same page about what skill learning is let’s now talk about why skill learning is important to track and know when a client has truly learned a skill.

It is important for a Pilates teacher to check in to see if their client has actually LEARNED the skill that was intended for them to learn. This is where corrections and cues come into play. Cues and corrections help clients performance of the skill. Through this feedback it is our intention as a Pilates teacher to have clients produce the skill accurately with the correct muscles initiating the movement with the correct alignment of their body. 

However, our feedback as an instructor can often cause a dependent relationship. Clients can become dependent on our feedback to execute the skill. When a client is that dependent on our feedback, the movement skill has not been truly learned. This is very important to note as when a skill have been truly learned and can be retrieved from memory is when real neural change will be seen.

Here is a way for you to test if your client has learned a skill (exercise). I challenge you to say to your client “Okay, we are going to do knee stretches (insert whatever exercise you want of course) and see if they can perform the action without any prompt or correction from you! 

Do you think that your client will do the exercise correctly or will they need your prompt to even know how to move their body?

This is what we call in the science world as a retention test. True learning is measured in retention. If we never give our clients a test how do what know what they have absorbed and learned or not?

The results of a retention test can go two ways.

• Pass: The client knows how to do the exercise with minimal to zero prompting. They have shown that they are able to retrieve the sequence of the exercise and perform it.

This give you the opportunity to look at see how their body wants to naturally move. This is the most important part of this whole challenge of the retention test. Since you are silent, you are not able to influence their movement and you will be able to see their weaknesses and mistakes.

• Fail: The client cannot retrieve the proper sequence to execute the exercise without your prompt and feedback.

If the client cannot retrieve the proper sequence you know that have not learned the skill yet, and that is okay! This gives you insight to see if your client is too dependent on your feedback and that you might need to adjust your cueing.

When it comes to skill learning this all happens on a spectrum. It is not a linear process. However, keeping track of what skills your client has acquired and learned will be helpful for you as a teacher with their programming.

If you are reading this post as a Pilates client, knowing and recognizing that Pilates is a bunch of skills that repeat over and over again in more complex exercise this will help you be able to learn more challenging exercises faster!

Skill learning is essential to learning any new movement! Pilates is full of new skills to learn. By recognizing when your client or even yourself has truly learned and mastered a skill this will help with proper programming and seeing lasting results.

I encourage you to give yourself or your client a retention test and see the results! This will only give you more information that is essential with seeing progress!