SOM.Preface:2 - How the methods work together

Start from the difficulty in the movement you want to perform. SOM.1 connects three accounts: what is experienced, what can be deliberately changed and what happens in the movement. It selects the question for the other methods and receives their results.

When the performer cannot distinguish what a required bodily change feels like, SOM.2 constructs a contrast. SOM.3 works on increasing, reducing or releasing a change that is distinguishable but not sufficiently controlled. SOM.4 makes several available changes usable together, including learning to recall their development instead of reconstructing them serially. SOM.5 revises that coordination where support, contact or load changes.

This is a repertoire with returns, not a five-stage course. An experienced performer can begin with a transition failure and use SOM.5. A result may instead call for a different tool, a better observation or domain instruction, with no new bodily learning. Distinguishing those returns avoids spending practice effort on the wrong contribution.

The methods also involve different uses of attention. A detailed observation can be distributed across repeated attempts when doing it inside one movement disrupts the action. After learning a bodily difference, test whether attending to it still helps during performance. Keep a suitable cue about the action’s effect when that cue gives the needed coordination more simply.