concept task level cycling

8.1. Concept: Task-Level Cycling — Transcript (English)

Summary:

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Transcript

Welcome to segment eight of the Baseworks primary course.

And congratulations on making such great progress.

In this segment, we’re going to talk about a very important concept in Baseworks called cycling that informs how we approach practice for better outcomes.

This lesson is all about task level cycling.

And the next lesson is going to be about session level cycling.

So cycling is a way to approach movement and learning that might feel a little different from what you’re used to in other disciplines, but it’s a very powerful tool in building awareness and control, which is very important in Baseworks.

So in many movement or learning systems, there is a clear progression.

You start from a simple task, you master them, you move to more complex tasks.

It’s kind of like going up a ladder, when you go from beginner to intermediate to advanced step by step.

But in basework, we take a different approach.

Instead of always moving forward and always to harder tasks, we encourage you to cycle back to the same tasks over and over again.

Why?

Because each time you revisit task, you experience it from a fresh perspective, which is shaped by your growing skills, your current physical and mental state, and even the context of the day.

To help you understand this a little bit more, let’s connect it to a well known framework in water learning, which is called the three stages of skill acquisition developed by Fitz and Poznan.

This framework describes how we learn new skills in three phases, cognitive, associative, and autonomous.

So let’s break these down a bit so that you can see how they relate to Baseworks.

In the cognitive stage, you’re just starting.

So you need to understand the goal of a task, what you’re trying to achieve.

For example, if you’re learning a new dance move, you’re really figuring out what exactly the movement is supposed to look like, what are the definitive features, how to perform it and so on.

And at this stage, your movements may feel shaky or jerky and it takes a lot of mental effort to get it right.

And you rely a lot on clear instructions and external feedback from your teacher, for example.

Then comes the associative stage.

Here you’ve got some grasp on what you’re supposed to do, but you still need to focus to perform the movement correctly.

Your movements are smoother, but they still are not yet automatic and you might still make mistakes.

Practice is key at this stage to refine your skills and make things more consistent.

And then finally, there’s the autonomous stage.

This is when the skill becomes second nature.

You don’t have to think about every detail anymore.

The movement feels smooth, coordinated, and it’s completely effortless.

For example, think about walking or, you know, like turning your head.

You do these things automatically without consciously planning each step.

Now here’s where Baseworks flips the script.

Most of us are already at the autonomous stage for basic movements like turning a trunk or bending units, right?

These are things we’ve done thousands, maybe millions of times, so they’re very, very automatic.

But in Baseworks, we ask you to pause and to question this automaticity.

Are you really aware of every detail in that movement?

Are you in full conscious control of how your body is moving?

Because often when a movement is well learned, we lose conscious access to the nuances, the little habits and patterns that we’ve developed over time without noticing.

So in Baseworks, we take you back to the cognitive stage, even for familial movements.

We break them down to their smallest parts and we ask you to explore them with fresh eyes.

For example, in a movement like Start Tilt, we might ask you to notice whether your arms are truly aligned with each other on one line.

This can be surprisingly challenging because our brains don’t always have clear access to these sensations.

And in fact, research and water learning shows that physical training doesn’t just improve muscle control, but it also changes how we perceive our bodies and space around us.

So let’s think about this with an analogy.

Imagine perception like vision.

There are studies with cats that show that if a kitten grows up in an environment with only horizontal stripes, it actually struggles to see vertical lines later on.

And if this happens with vision, which is our dominant sense, imagine how much more it applies to our sense of our bodies or somatosensation.

If you never needed to check, if your arms are really on the same line in any possible position of your body, you won’t easily feel these lines.

Our culture doesn’t typically teach us to notice the symmetry or geometry of our internal awareness, But in Baseworks, we’re training you to do just that, to sense your body in a new, more detailed way, like tuning up a resolution on your camera.

So this is why task level cycling is so important in Baseworks.

By revisiting the same movements again and again, you’re not just repeating for the sake of repetition, but you’re building your ability to notice subtle differences in how your body moves, feels, and interacts with space.

And each time you cycle back, you might catch an unconscious habit, feel a muscle working in a new way, or discover a more efficient way to move.

And instead of relying on external feedback, like a mirror or a teacher, the practice in Baseworks develops tools to use internal feedback, the sensations and cues within your body.

This process helps you develop greater control and awareness, which is what Baseworks is all about.

And this is something that is useful, of course, not only and Baseworks, but in any domain of physical learning and daily life.

So as we move forward, keep this idea of cycling in mind.

And when you repeat a practice lab, you’re not just doing the same thing over again, you’re re exploring it with a new perspective, noticing new details and building skills that go beyond the movement itself.

Right?

So before you move to the next lesson, where we’ll talk about the session level cycling, we encourage you to revisit a practice lab with a task level cycling concept fresh in your mind.

And then see you in the next theoretical lesson.