SOM.Preface:5 - Interpreting results and choosing further work

Judge a bodily account together with the action it is intended to serve. Ask what the performer can now distinguish or regulate, under which conditions, with what assistance and with what concurrent result. Check the changed condition that matters to the later work rather than adding variation for its own sake.

Use the following distinctions when deciding what follows:

• A description can be usable before the movement improves.
• A distinction can be available before the performer controls the change.
• Local control can be available before several actions work together.
• A prepared combination can work before it transfers through the required support change.
• A successful supported attempt can be useful without establishing independent performance or retention.

Whether an effort is noticed and whether it is voluntary are different questions. Include involuntary effort when it affects the movement, even if it usually remains outside the performer’s attention. Noticing it does not establish an ability to regulate it. The task is to obtain the needed action, not to eliminate every involuntary response.

The intended gain is a proposed correction that can be tested in a suitable attempt, with observations that help choose what to do next. Learning time, instructor effort, attention and physical demands are costs. Once the intended action works under its required conditions, a finer body map needs an additional reason.

Begin within familiar technique and suitable physical limits, or obtain competent instruction. Stop an attempt that produces pain, dizziness or unfamiliar loss of control. Somatic vocabulary does not resolve an injury or establish that a new exercise is suitable.