Glossary
Note: Drafted by Claude. Needs fine-tuning.
Definitions of terms used in Baseworks Practice.
Baseworks Practice
Section titled “Baseworks Practice”A structured application of the Baseworks Method — designed to build body awareness, perceptual, and foundational movement skills.
Baseworks Method / Approach
Section titled “Baseworks Method / Approach”A systematic approach and set of principles designed to build body awareness, perceptual, and foundational movement skills. Unlike methods focused on physical or health outcomes and performance, Baseworks focuses on how you move instead of simply achieving movement outcomes. The method can be conceptualized as a procedure of applying the Baseworks movement principles to any movement.
Baseworks Movement Principles
Section titled “Baseworks Movement Principles”Six principles that define how all movement in Baseworks is performed. They are not separate techniques but a single integrated approach applied simultaneously to any movement. In principle, any movement that can be performed without momentum could be adapted to perform it according to the Baseworks Principles.
- Distributed Activation (DA) — Activate as many muscles as possible at a low level of intensity.
- Micro-Movements (MM) — Continuously repeat the subtle adjustments that maintain DA, as if tracing around the current position.
- Gridlines & Symmetry (GS) — Imagine gridlines in the space around you and trace them with specific body landmarks.
- Fixing-Separating-Isolating (FSA) — Move one joint at a time, in a strict step-by-step order. Stabilize everything else first.
- Natural Breathing (NB) — Keep breathing easy enough that you could hold a conversation throughout.
- Intensity Modification (IM) — Adjust range of motion or effort to stay within the limits set by the principles above.
Macro- and Micro-Movements
Section titled “Macro- and Micro-Movements”A key distinction in Baseworks.
Macro-movements are visible movements that change body position — bending the knees, lifting an arm, transitioning between positions. These are the movements most practices focus on and call them “movements.”
Micro-movements are nearly invisible: subtle adjustments that refine or maintain a position without an obvious positional change. They fall into three types: isometric contractions, positional refinements, and (rarely) signals to relax. Examples include drawing the shoulders down (contraction) or ensuring the torso is in line with the back leg (position).
Baseworks dedicates a disproportionately large amount of instructional time to micro-movements. This is intentional: micro-movements enhance conscious awareness of muscular sensations and help develop refined sensorimotor perception.
Movement Pattern
Section titled “Movement Pattern”A movement action that recurs across many different forms in Baseworks — applied again and again regardless of which position the body is in. Examples: drawing the shoulders down, pulling the legs away from each other, stacking the ribcage over the pelvis.
Movement patterns are always micro-movements, and they must be performed simultaneously — this simultaneity is one of the central challenges of Baseworks practice.
The basic unit of Baseworks practice (e.g. Squat, Star Tilt, Forearm Plank). A form can be thought of as an empty contour that is filled with Baseworks movement patterns — like coloring in an outline. The form provides the shape; the movement patterns provide the content.
In principle, any movement that can be performed without momentum can be used as a form in Baseworks. However, for pragmatic reasons, the Baseworks Practice curriculum consists of a finite number of specified forms.
Forms are organized into a set for a practice session (see: Set and Sequence).
Set and Sequence
Section titled “Set and Sequence”In Baseworks, these two words have specific meanings that are distinct from everyday usage.
Sequence refers to the strict ordering of movements within a form — the step-by-step execution through FSA. The sequence cannot be changed without changing the form itself.
Set refers to the arrangement of forms in a practice session. The practice portion of a session consists of a set of forms — not a sequence.
The distinction matters: thinking of practice as a “sequence of forms” encourages moving through them automatically. A “set” reflects a different intention — each form is an experience to inhabit, not an item to complete — like tracks in a DJ set. The use of the word “sequence” to refer to the movements the body actually does in order to perform what everyday language would typically label as “movement” also intends to highlight the automatic nature of movement.
Perceptual Skills
Section titled “Perceptual Skills”The core of what Baseworks develops. Perceptual skills are sensory discrimination capacities — the ability to detect and differentiate sensory information from your own body.
A more familiar term is body awareness, but in Baseworks we use perceptual skills to emphasize that these are trainable, practical capacities — not a vague general quality or ability that is always there. They vary between individuals and change with practice.
Baseworks distinguishes three types:
- Proprioceptive (localized muscular mechanosensation) — the ability to consciously sense muscle states, engagement, and fine differences in tension or contraction.
- Spatial — the ability to sense and accurately represent body position in space: the position of body parts in relation to each other, without relying on a mirror.
- Interoceptive — the ability to detect and interpret internal physiological signals, such as breathing, exertion, fatigue, and arousal.
Sensory Resolution
Section titled “Sensory Resolution”The granularity of sensory experience in a given domain. For example: can you feel distinct sensations in two neighboring muscle groups, or do they feel like one undifferentiated region? Can you tell whether your spine is straight without looking?
Sensory resolution develops with practice. Experienced practitioners often describe qualitative shifts — sensations that were previously invisible becoming distinct and accessible.
Sense – Control – Adapt
Section titled “Sense – Control – Adapt”A framework that describes what Baseworks practice develops, and also how it works.
- Sense — Perceptual skills: the capacity to detect and discriminate sensory information from the body.
- Control — Movement vocabulary: the ability to execute movement patterns, sequence movements step by step, and independently control body parts that usually move together.
- Adapt — Self-regulation: the capacity to adjust effort, intensity, and approach based on current conditions — within a session and over time.
Each pair also runs in reverse, capturing a distinct mechanism, for example:
Control in order to sense — deliberate, structured movement (DA, MM, FSA) creates the conditions for the body to generate sensory information that would otherwise remain below conscious threshold. In Baseworks, movement is often a tool, and sensation is the goal.
Sense in order to adapt — by developing awareness of fatigue, tension, breathing, and effort, practitioners learn to make better decisions: when to reduce intensity, when to rest, when to change approach. This is how Intensity Modification transfers into daily life.
Learning Objectives
Section titled “Learning Objectives”Baseworks defines learning objectives in Baseworks Practice in terms of the three dimensions of Sense – Control – Adapt, not in terms of conventional outcomes commonly pursued in sports and the fitness industry. Improved strength, flexibility, mobility, or relaxation are byproducts of practice — not its targets.
The method is designed to develop the practitioner’s capacity to sense their body with greater precision, control movement with greater intentionality, and adapt their effort and approach based on what they actually feel.
At the level of individual forms, learning objectives are captured by the Focus framework.
Each form in Baseworks has a Focus — a description of what is being practiced at the macro-movement level. The Focus framework describes movement goals in terms that are specific to Baseworks, distinct from conventional fitness categories.
There are 12 Foci: Structure, Gravity, Ascend, Torsion, Converge, Expand, Inflect, Intent, Equate, Transit, Transpose, Isolate.
Ignition
Section titled “Ignition”The first part of a Complete practice session. Ignition is not a warm-up — Baseworks uses Intensity Modification, which means no physical preparation is required. Its purpose is different:
- To shift attention from everyday activity into practice
- To observe the current state of the body, which informs how you’ll apply Intensity Modification
- To release unconscious muscular tension
- To create conditions of stillness that prime the quality of subsequent practice
The six principles and movement patterns do not apply during Ignition.
Assimilation
Section titled “Assimilation”The final part of a Complete practice session. Assimilation is not a cool-down — if recovery is needed, it means Intensity Modification was insufficient during practice. Its primary purpose is learning consolidation: brief wakeful rest after motor practice improves skill retention. The body and nervous system continue integrating what was practiced.
The six principles and movement patterns do not apply during Assimilation.
Practice Session: Open and Complete
Section titled “Practice Session: Open and Complete”A Complete session in Baseworks Practice follows the full structure: Ignition → Form Practice → Assimilation.
An Open session consists of form practice only, without Ignition or Assimilation.
Complete sessions are recommended. Ignition and Assimilation are not optional add-ons — they directly affect the quality and retention of what is practiced. That said, Open sessions are appropriate when time is limited or for specific practice goals.
Module
Section titled “Module”A selection of forms with specific learning objectives. On the Baseworks Practice platform, two modules are available: Foundation and Elements. Both strictly follow the six principles and movement patterns to develop perceptual skills and movement vocabulary.
Other modules exist (notably Strategy and Integrate, which involve more complex and physically demanding movement), but these are not currently offered on the platform.
More loosely, one can think of any other structured practice as a non-Baseworks module that can be integrated with the Baseworks Practice within the conceptual framework of “Cyclical Practice”
Cyclical Practice
Section titled “Cyclical Practice”An approach to practice built on active cross-referencing rather than linear progression. The key distinction is not simply alternating between activities — it’s paying attention to how practice in one context changes your experience in another. You do Baseworks, return to another physical practice (golf, running, yoga), and notice things you hadn’t noticed before. Those observations change how you return to Baseworks. That changes what you notice next. Without this active noticing, alternating between activities is just variety.
In Baseworks, skill level determines the depth of engagement with the same material — not access to more difficult material. Even the most experienced practitioners revisit the same sessions and forms. The value is in discovering more, not moving on.
This operates at two levels:
Session-level cycling — moving between different types of Baseworks learning (different modules, different practice sessions, practice labs) as well as between Baseworks and other physical practices. On the platform, Foundation and Elements are the two available modules, each offering a distinct set of forms and learning objectives. The Primer introduces shorter-format practice labs that drill specific aspects of the method in isolation — a different kind of experience than a full session, and one worth alternating with longer-format practice as you develop.
Task-level cycling — returning to the same forms again and again, not to complete them but to discover them with progressively refined attention. Most basic movements are already automatic. Cycling at this level is a way of re-entering what has become habitual and finding more in it.
Nodes & Clusters
Section titled “Nodes & Clusters”On the Baseworks Practice platform, content is organized into Clusters (higher-level groupings by topic or module) and Nodes (individual content items within a cluster — a practice session video, a tutorial, etc.).
This structure reflects the cyclical nature of Baseworks practice: content is not arranged as a linear path from start to finish, but as a set of resources to return to and revisit at different stages of practice.