A short instructional video by Mary Wanless demonstrating how habitual body perceptions prevent improvement in riding. Through a simple guided arm-position exercise (arms at shoulder height, one arm raised 45°, eyes closed, then returned), she shows how familiar but incorrect body sensations feel "normal," causing learners to revert to ineffective habits. The piece emphasizes that coaches must deliberately create unfamiliar sensations to produce correct motor patterns.
The changes you make when you're learning.
Will always feel bigger than they look.
And because of that, people tend to.
Balk at what's required.
So I want you to fold your arms, and that, I'm imagining, is no difficulty at all. And now your aim is to unfold.
Your arms and fold them the other way. So for me, that's relatively easy because.
I've done it many times. But I'm imagining that some of you might be sitting there kind of going. Because what happens is, first of all, the old habit hijacks you. You'll do it in the way that's normal. And if you do get to the new way, it'll feel so weird.
You'll be unconvinced that it's in any.
Way the right thing to do. And most people, if this were a correction within their riding, would go, this.
Feels weird, this feels odd, this feels really strange.
I don't like this. It's really weird. She can't mean that. I think I'll go back to the old way. And the moment their teacher isn't looking, they go, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
That feels better.
One of my roles as coach is.
To get you to feel weird, do.
It in a new way, because the.
Old way is what doesn't work.
You're going to put your arms out.
At shoulder height, like this, and in.
A moment, you're going to lift one arm through 45 degrees and lower the other arm through 45 degrees. So one's going to be halfway up to the ceiling, one's halfway down to the floor. But before you do that, you're going to close your eyes.
So close your eyes, lift one arm halfway to the ceiling, drop the other.
Arm halfway to the floor, and you're going to stand or sit like that.
For a little while.
And in a moment, but not quite yet, what you're going to do is to bring your arms back to shoulder height, but with your eyes still closed. But we'll give it a moment, two more before we do that. With your eyes closed, bring your arms.
Back to shoulder height and then open your eyes.
I could have sworn my arms were level. And of course, I would have sworn blind my arms were level.
Because the reality is that you only have to do this for a minute or so to have it distort your perception of what level is given, that it's normal that this will happen.
And, you know, I've been doing this exercise for years. I've done it so many times. I've done it both arms Da, da, da. Whichever. Every time, I'd swear blind I was level.
And the reality is that I'm not. You cannot trust your body's perceptions. What feels normal or straight to you just feels normal. Because it's home.
Not because it's right, only because it's familiar.
