A well-structured practice can always benefit from good feedback. However, feedback can sometimes have an adverse effect if not used appropriately. What we are aiming for in physical culture is not to mimic a specific shape from the outside. Rather, we’re attempting to increase our coordination, refine our control, and define the line between effort and relaxation. When a student is provided with feedback, they often immediately tighten up, as if each joint needs to be precisely controlled and placed. This typically results in a worsening of their technique. Good feedback should help your body become more defined, not bottled up in its instructions. The best feedback is always quality over quantity.
You want to limit the amount of information you’re providing a student at any given time. Within one exercise, you should only have one focus point at a time. For example, while performing a squat, your focus point might be to keep your heels down. While doing a standing reach, your focus point might be to keep your ribs down instead of flaring them up. In a balance exercise, it could be to keep your eyes level, instead of allowing them to roam around the room. You want to keep your feedback small so your body has time to adapt. When you begin to give too much, your attention becomes dispersed and your movement technique suffers as a result.
One of the most common pitfalls I observe in giving and receiving feedback is overcorrection. If you see the shoulders rolling up as you raise your arm, you may squeeze your shoulders back down so much that your chest becomes rigid and your neck strains. If you see the knees caving in as you squat, you may attempt to push your knees out so much that you lose the line of your foot. When you correct your form, you want to do so in a way that is always softer than you think. Make the necessary adjustment to regain your balance, and then perform the movement a few more times without increasing the tension. Physical culture is a practice that is meant to be subtle.
A slight adjustment that you can repeat comfortably is always more effective than a large adjustment that you cannot sustain. Here is a 15-minute example practice to help you understand the effective use of feedback: Spend three minutes standing and breathing to relax your body before you decide to change it. Spend five minutes on a movement you are familiar with and practice it slowly to identify a repeated pattern in your technique. Spend the next four minutes performing the same movement while making only one adjustment. Don’t try and perfect the technique. Instead, focus on the feeling of the adjustment and see if the movement becomes smoother, more stable, or less tense.
Finally, spend the last three minutes performing the movement again without thinking and allowing your body to integrate the change you just made. When receiving and giving feedback begins to get murky, always revert back to the question of whether or not the movement feels more spacious or cluttered. Good feedback should always provide you with more space in your breathing, more support in your feet, or more flow in your movement. Poor feedback often results in holding, clenching, and overthinking.
If you find yourself pausing in the middle of a movement, slow it down and reduce the feedback to a single point. If it still feels forced, perform the movement without the adjustment, then with it, and observe the difference. Sometimes comparison can teach you more than forcing yourself to repeat the movement while straining. Over time, feedback will begin to feel less like someone telling you what to do and more like your inner navigation system.
You will start to recognize when your pelvis is rotating too soon, when your neck is engaging too much, or when your movement loses its rhythm halfway through. This type of awareness is one of the understated benefits that come from the practice of physical culture. It doesn’t mean your movement becomes rigid. It means your movement becomes authentic, and authenticity is what will always allow you to refine your movement without stripping your body of its inherent wisdom.