Perceptual Skills in Movement Education: A Study of Baseworks

Created 2026-03-06

Status presented

Location McGill University, Montreal

Tags conferenceabstractscienceinternal

Abstract

Perceptual Skills in Movement Education: A Study of Baseworks

Ksenia Shcherbakova, PhD — Baseworks

Our research explores the role of perceptual skills in movement education through the study of Baseworks, a training method developed through an iterative refinement process involving thousands of learners, aimed at optimizing communicability and understanding of movement. This process led to a focus on perceptual skills, such as kinaesthetic and proprioceptive awareness — capacities often overlooked in conventional approaches focused predominantly on the muscular system and techniques. We draw on concepts such as “idiosyncratic” frontoparietal maps, chunking, and Adaptive Resonance Theory to explain successful learning outcomes and reported perceptual shifts. Our research also highlights terminological difficulties and the ambiguity in movement goal setting in conventional learning environments. Our findings aim to inspire new pedagogical frameworks and applications in movement education, neurorehabilitation, and physical therapy, encouraging further research into perceptual skill development within cognitive neuroscience.

Poster Text

Background. Movement education often suffers from ambiguous goal-setting, leading to misinterpretation (motor equivalence problem; Bernstein, 1967). Conventional approaches prioritize effects on the muscular/cardiovascular/autonomic nervous systems or focus on techniques, placing little to no focus on perceptual processes, limiting learning efficacy.

Perceptual skills (sensorimotor discrimination capacities) are critical for motor learning but are underexplored in physical education (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). Learners with “low body awareness” (LBA) (a recognizable term in movement education settings) struggle to interpret and execute instructions, creating learning bottlenecks and are more susceptible to injuries. Instructor-learner communication relies on uneven understanding of movement (Rizolatti et al., 2009). No standardized frameworks exist to optimize mutual intelligibility in diverse learner groups.

Baseworks as a Model System. Baseworks evolved through a unique process of iterative refinement to optimize communicability and perceptual skill development (Table 1). Its unique instructional algorithm and movement patterns offer a naturalistic case study for cognitive neuroscience and motor control research.

Research Aim. Investigate Baseworks’ development process, mechanisms (e.g., motor primitives, perceptual learning), and implications for pedagogy and neurorehabilitation. Propose Baseworks as a “model object” to inspire experimental studies in cognitive science.

TABLE 1. Development of the Baseworks Method

Baseworks is a system of sensorimotor training, which went through an unusual process of iterative refinement (~10 years) with a goal to reduce instructional ambiguity by adjusting both the movements and how they were instructed.

#	Step	Agent	Goal	Input	Output
1	Initial Formulation	The Founder	Create a movement system for safe and sustainable practice and effective skills acquisition	Athletic/teaching experience, physiotherapy & sports science	A safe and effective exercise system, consistently delivered 7 days a week from 7am to 10pm
2	Iterative Refinement	10-15 teachers teaching 10,000+ students and each other for over 10 years	Refine the system to improve efficacy and ensure that everybody “understands the movements” and “performs the same movements,” including the LBA learners	Fine-tuning movements and instructions	A movement system with improved efficacy and unusual applications that required explanation
3	Reverse Engineering	A researcher who did not participate in the IR	Deconstruct the unusual applications of the method	The system itself + observing and teaching students	Formalization, literature review to hypothesize mechanisms

Methods

Systematic Observation and Teaching of Baseworks. Observed 1000+ students, 10+ teachers, over 4 years. Personally taught >300 h. Used manuals and audio class recordings to identify the key narration strings used in instruction.
Textual Analysis of Movement Instructions. Conducted cluster and thematic analysis of standardized instruction cues to identify 2 movement pattern types (Macro, Micro) and 6 principles. Transcribed class narrations into time-coded strings. Categorized instructions: Macro/Micro movements, Variations, Praise, Silence. Compared Baseworks narration patterns to other movement practices.
Keyword Analysis of Student Interviews. Analyzed transcripts of interviews with Baseworks students (n=25, conducted by other staff) and text-based feedback (n=61) for keywords and themes.
Survey on Muscle Activation Sensations. Administered a web-based survey to non-Baseworks participants (n=36) on awareness of sensations of muscle activation at rest and during exercise. Analyzed responses for vividness, frequency, and pleasantness of sensations, by age and sex.
Development of Perceptual Skills Framework. Synthesized observational and interview data and conducted a literature review to define 3 perceptual skill categories that map on the Baseworks principles and tentatively explain the effects of practice reported by the students: Interoceptive, Spatial, “Proprioceptive” (see Table 3 for details).
Literature Review for Theoretical Grounding. Reviewed literature on motor control, embodied cognition, and perceptual learning theories. Key relevant frameworks: Adaptive Resonance Theory (Grossberg, 1987), affordance competition (Cisek, 2007), mirror neuron systems (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Hypothesized mechanisms for Baseworks’ efficacy.

Results

Recurring Themes in Reported Salient Outcomes:

Developing “body awareness” (86%)
Improved performance in other physical modalities
Conventional fitness gains (strength, flexibility, balance, posture) but in a more safe and comfortable way than elsewhere
The experience of learning, realizing things, being more mindful
Stress regulation, self-regulation skills, self-acceptance, self-esteem
Enhanced aesthetic perception
Self-reported improvements in conditions such as anorexia and autism

FIG 1 & 2. Micro & Macro Movements in Movement Instruction

Macro-movements = visible movements that result in a visible change of body position (example: “bend your knees”). Micro-movements = movements that are almost invisible: (1) MICRO-Contraction: isometric contraction with no change in limb position, (2) MICRO-Relaxation: signals to relax muscles, (3) MICRO-Position: reaffirms the position. Baseworks instructions disproportionately focus on micro movements, mostly on Position and Contraction.

Figures below show proportion of time (in ms) taken by strings in each category within an analyzed fragment of narration. For FK, Pilates, and yoga, video lessons were randomly selected on Youtube.

	MICRO	MACRO	VARIATION	PRAISE	SILENCE
BASEWORKS	60%	23%	4%	0%	13%
FELDENRAIS	27%	40%	0%	3%	31%
PILATES	1%	49%	4%	3%	42%

	MICRO Contraction	MICRO Relaxation	MICRO Position
BASEWORKS	27%	3%	70%
FELDENRAIS	0%	64%	36%
PILATES	100%	0%	0%

TABLE 2. Principles

The following principles were defined based on the analysis of the recurring movement patterns and mapped onto the perceptual skills they primarily target.

Principle	Description	Movement Pattern Type	Corresponding Perceptual Skills Category
Distributed Activation (DA)	Activate as many muscles as possible at the same time in any movement, but at low level.	Micro	Proprioceptive
Micro Movements (MM)	Keep “repeating” the movements that establish DA, as if “tracing” around the current macroposition.	Micro	Proprioceptive
Gridlines & Symmetry (GS)	In macro-movements, imagine gridlines in your peripersonal space and trace those gridlines with various points of the body, such as the hipbones, the bottom of the ribcage, the base of the neck, etc.	Macro	Spatial
Fixing-Separating-Isolating (FSA)	Whenever moving, isolate one joint movement at a time (which results in forward kinematics rather than inverse kinematics). Use DA to stabilize the non-moving part prior to moving.	Macro	Spatial
Natural Breathing (NB)	Keep the breathing “natural,” such that you could comfortably have a conversation throughout, even when doing more challenging movements like planks or squats	NA	Interoceptive
Intensity Modification (IM)	Modify the intensity of the movement (in terms of ROM or load) to comply with (1) NB, (2) GS and FSA (“stop” progression of the movement when you “hit” a morphological limitation and don’t allow another joint to be moved to increase a perceived range of motion; don’t break the symmetry).	NA	Interoceptive

TABLE 3. Sensorimotor Discrimination Capacities: Framework

Framework for sensorimotor discrimination capacities underlying perceptual skills, focusing on conscious, localized sensations. Excludes proprioception as a synthesized sense of position/movement to emphasize distinct sensory modalities.

We propose “muscular mechanosensation” as a distinct sensory modality, separate from proprioception (sensed position/movement; Sherrington, 1906) and interoception (visceral awareness; Craig, 2009).
We hypothesize that training muscular mechanosensation (e.g., via Baseworks’ DA/MM) enhances perceptual discrimination, supporting motor learning and well-being (Price et al., 2018).
Current body awareness scales (e.g., Mehling et al., 2009) associate muscle sensations with stress (e.g., tension, pain) but overlook their role in positive sensory awareness or skill development.

This framework describes sensorimotor discrimination capacities (perceptual skills) to detect localized sensations. It excludes proprioception in its traditional sense of sensed position, since it is a synthesized percept.

Localized conscious sensation	Pathway	Cortical target	Sensory Modality	Receptors
YES, subtle	Lamina I spinothalamic → (VPL/VPI), VMpo, IL	anterior insula, ACC	Interoception (organs)	Visceral mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors, nociceptors
YES, obvious, vivid	DCML → VPL	S1 (3b - raw, 1 - integrated)	Exteroception (skin)	Mechanoreceptors (Merkel disks, Meissner’s corpuscles)
YES, subtle / NO (sense of position is a synthesized percept)	DCML → VPL	S1 (3a: muscle signals, 2: positional integration)	Proprioception / Deep somatic perception (muscles, joints)	Muscle spindles, Golgi tendon organs, joint mechanoreceptors

FIG 3. Awareness of Localized Muscular Sensations

Answers collected via a web survey, mostly from non-Baseworks practitioners (n=36, 20F, 15M, 1O), evaluating awareness “at rest” vs “during exercise” and ratings (1 to10) of Vividness, Pleasantness, Importance, and ease of Communicating about these sensations. *Subject #263 is blind.

Significant individual variation in awareness of muscular sensations (4.3 ± 2.1, excluding the blind subject)
No effect of sex
Subpopulations in Vividness/Pleasantness, possibly due to ambiguity in recognizing the sensation
47% of “aware at rest” said they “never knew what to call it” when discussing it (data not shown)
Regular athletic activity was not a predictor of awareness “at rest” (data not shown)

FIG 4. Reports of Muscular Sensation “Splitting”

Rendition of described patterns of enhanced sensory discrimination after Baseworks training: “splitting” of the felt muscular sensations (n=2). Reportedly, the muscular sensation “shifts under the skin.”

Possibly, due to remapping following functional separation, similar to the consequences of surgical separation of fingers in syndactyly (Allard et al., 1991), and suggesting a dissociation between the skin-based and muscle-based maps.

FIG 5. Baseworks Pedagogical Framework

Conventional movement instructions emphasize actions (“do X”), relying on unconscious sensorimotor planning, which often leads to misinterpretation of movement goals (motor equivalence problem; Bernstein, 1967) and defaulting to habitual patterns (Ashby et al., 2010). Baseworks employs a WHILE-NOT-IF-DO instructional algorithm, aligning with sensorimotor control architecture.

We hypothesize that Baseworks enhances learning via the following mechanisms:

Explicit positional (GS, FSA) and sensory (DA,MM,NB,IM) cues reduce ambiguity (Wolpert et al., 2011).
Forward kinematics-based movements (FSA) approximate motor primitives (Mussa-Ivaldi & Bizzi, 2000), eventually leading to a shared understanding of movement goals (Rizolatti et al., 2009), enhancing imitation in other movement modalities.
Spatial and joint-specific focus (GS,FSA) refines frontoparietal action maps (Cisek, 2007).
Precise instructions (FSA,GS) favor BG-based sequence learning over cortical habits (Ashby et al., 2010).
Increased sensorimotor discrimination (DA,MM) amplifies WHERE stream mismatch signals (Grossberg, 1987), reducing the need for external feedback (Fitts & Posner, 1967).
Self-monitoring (WHILE-NOT-IF-DO) and interoceptive cues (NB,IM) train self-monitoring skills and interoceptive awareness (Price et al., 2018), contributing to well-being.
Shared spatial reference frames (GS,FSA) enhance affordance perception, potentially contributing to aesthetic spatial experiences (Gallese & Di Dio, 2012).

Conclusions

Baseworks as a Sensorimotor Framework

Evolved to reduce instructional ambiguity via iterative refinement (Table 1).
Employs a WHILE-NOT-IF-DO algorithm to enhance sensorimotor clarity (Fig. 5).
Targets perceptual skills (spatial, proprioceptive, interoceptive) through distinct movement patterns (Table 2).
Reported outcomes of training: Training improves body awareness (86%), motor skills, sensory discrimination (e.g., muscle sensation “splitting”; Fig. 4), and well-being (e.g., stress regulation, self-acceptance).
Hypothesized Mechanisms: Micro movements (DA, MM) enhance muscular mechanosensation, potentially reorganizing somatosensory cortex (Allard et al., 1991); forward kinematics (FSA, GS) approximate motor primitives (Mussa-Ivaldi & Bizzi, 2000); precise cues amplify WHERE stream mismatch signals (Grossberg, 1987); spatial focus refines frontoparietal action maps (Cisek, 2007).

Implications

A novel pedagogical model for movement education, emphasizing perceptual skills over muscular/cardiovascular/technique outcomes with a potential to overcome learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
Potential applications (DA,MM) in neurorehabilitation (e.g., sensory reeducation; Carey et al., 2011).
Proposing “muscular mechanosensation” as a sensory modality for motor learning and well-being (Table 3).

Further Research Directions / Collaboration Opportunities

Partner with research facilities for fMRI/EEG to study brain activity during Baseworks tasks and before/after focused training.
Collaborate with EMG/motion capture experts to quantify movement patterns and improve motion capture algorithms.
Work with clinical researchers for RCTs on therapeutic applications, using standardized protocols (“placebo” group: same macro- but no micro-movements)
Develop scales and assessment methods for conscious muscular mechanosensation (Fig. 3) and updated “body awareness” frameworks