The Practice

27. Ten practical principles

With explicit tier marking: [strong evidence], [plausible], [practical convention].

1. Feel is not measurement — it is prediction [strong]

Perception of your movement is a weighted combination of prediction and sensation, and the weight falls on prediction — which is produced by the very pattern you want to change. So what is familiar feels right, and what is new feels wrong. For anything involving correction, you need external reference that does not pass through the model: mirror, video, hands, or an objective marker.

2. Pain is output, not input [strong]

It does not measure damage — it estimates threat. So information, safety and expectation actually change pain, and imaging does not predict who hurts.

3. There is no correct posture; there is a next posture [strong]

Alignment does not predict pain. The duration of stillness predicts it. And telling someone they are sitting wrong is more likely to harm them than to help.

4. Less force, more information [strong principle, plausible application]

The just-noticeable difference is proportional to intensity. To notice detail, lower the effort — in anything, not only movement.

5. Repetition without repetition [strong]

Ten hammer strikes on the same spot are ten muscularly different movements. The system does not store a recipe — it solves the same problem anew each time. So learning is not inscription but expansion of the solution space: it requires novelty, variation and error. If you do the same thing the same way, you get better at exactly that and nothing else.

6. For execution, look outside [strong, and uncomfortable]

External focus of attention consistently beats internal, and the mechanism is known: conscious attention to detail dissolves the synergy and raises control to a slower loop. So: internal attention is a tool of reconstruction, not of execution. Useful when building a pattern slowly and outside pressure — sabotage when executing in real time. Same tool, opposite effect.

7. Slow exhalation works, and the mechanism is boring [strong]

Around six breaths per minute, with longer exhalation. No theory needed — and its reliability comes precisely from not needing one.

8. Touch is not “nothing” [strong]

There is a specialised nervous system for slow, gentle touch, projecting to areas of emotion and not of discrimination. Care has neurobiology.

9. “It released” means “threshold changed or synergy reorganised” [strong]

The result is real. The explanation usually is not — nothing lengthened and nothing was released. And the correct explanations are more useful, because they tell you what to pursue: less threat, more variety, lower intensity, external feedback.

10. And the limit: ask which tier [practical convention]

To anyone offering you somatic work: what is the documentation, and of what tier? The answer “there are not many studies, I work empirically” is entirely honest. The answer “science has not got there yet” is a warning sign — because it is the only answer that can never be refuted.

The essential about the essentials

They are not ten. They are one, seen from ten angles:

The body is not an organ of measurement. It is an organ of interpretation — and the interpretation can change, and that is all the work.