In a way, it's way deeper than "subconscious". A large portion of the science behind CLA is based on Nikolai Bernstein's works from the 1930-s (the guy who coined the term "biomechanics"). He wrote about the hierarchical model of motor control, where 5 different systems (that evolutionary are completely different) must work in synergy to solve the movement problem.
There is a great book that explains the science behind CLA called "How we learn to move" by Rob Gray.
- was it legato?
- were you playing free from tension?
- was your tone even?
- were you in time?
Very rarely would he actually ever tell me anything. And whenever I'd ask for more or feedback he'd just loop back to the questions and ask if I was actually listening to myself play. It was a very frustrating start but eventually it all clicked what he was doing was teaching me to understand my own constraints and then also understand what are the outcomes I am aiming to achieve - if I can't hear how even my own touch is how will I ever play evenly.
Was the most valuable coaching I ever got and was probably life changing for me in terms of levelling up my ability to learn new things.
Prior to meeting him I held the belief there was a "perfect way to play" the piano and would occasionally peruse books and videos on the subject. Of course, as my teacher was keen to point out, no body is the same so how can two anatomically different pianists play with the same technique?
If you have small hands so much of the repertoire will be different vs if you have rach hands
> I held the belief there was a "perfect way to play" the piano
Yes, CLA is actively debunking the myth of a "perfect technique" which is very popular in sports. Like a coach/teacher is one who knows the "perfect" way, and their job is to make students repeat an exercise over and over again, fixing deviations from "perfect" technique. This couldn't be more wrong according to CLA.
Already mentioned Bernstein introduced the concept of "repetition without repetition", which claims that repetition is important in learning but for a different reason. Each attempt of a movement will have slightly different "inputs" - constraints – and thus can't have a single "perfect" technique that will work for all variations of inputs. Each repetition will be slightly different (hence "without repetition"), and the goal of the proper learning process is to give the body enough "input data" to _discover_ the proper movement solution.
It's important to note that "constraints" is a wide term here, and there are few classes of constraints. Task and goal given to the student are constraints, so the size of the hand or level of fatigue. Even environment temperature, mental state, and light conditions are constraints.
Another important concept in CLA is action-perception coupling rooted in James Gibson's theory of perception. This one was mindblowing to me when I first read it. In essence, the brain perceives the world not as a set of geometric objects but as "actionable" items. What you can do directly influences how you see the world. That has direct implications for learning as well – mastering any skill (including playing a musical instrument) is coupled with perception, as your body has to react to how it sees/hears the result of its own movements.
But the core of CLA as an educational philosophy lays in acknowledging that the actual learning still has to happen inside your nervous system. You can't really "teach" a skill, only facilitate a discovery inside the student's body.
It's really fascinating how it all works in practice. One related concept in motor skill acquisition science is the Method of Error Amplification (MAE). Let's say, golf players make a fundamental error of not shifting weight onto the back foot after swinging. Instead of giving them verbal instruction "Shift weight to the back foot", coach might do the opposite – ask them to move weight to the *front foot*. This will increase the error, which will amplify the signal in the nervous system and the body will react to it as it now feels "more wrong" by itself. It's not super clear to which types of errors MAE is applicable, but the research on MAE is fascinating.
I love the concept of increasing the error - it definitely helps. Makes me think of reductio ad absurbum for the body. Do it more wrong to prove the opposite.
I totally get the idea of the learning having to come from the self and have held the belief that is why taichi and yoga use very poetic metaphors to describe their movements. This was a solution our extremely smart predecessors came up with to be prescriptive without being prescriptive to teach motor skills.
Just like my singing teacher telling me to stop thinking and just be a parrot and copy the pitch (which worked almost instantly)
I will definitely be digging into CLA thanks for sharing!
We don't see the chair as a 3D object, we see it as an affordance to sit (along with a wide windowsill or gym ball). The wall is a barrier for an elderly person, but an affordance to the parcour performer. The pole dancer perceives the lamp post very differently from the non-pole dancer. An experienced tennis player sees the ball in mid-air as much bigger than the newbie player. Fatigued hiker perceives the hill as much steeper than full-of-energy hiker. If an athlete is more capable, objects like a baseball or tennis ball, or basketball hoop look bigger.
Gibson's theory on affordances started with his 1979 book "The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception". My understanding is that it has some criticisms, but still considered as one of the leading theories in perception studies and is heavily used in the design community.
After a game, Lebron James can explain what happened in a play moment by moment for every player on the floor, and everything he was thinking and planning as the play developed. He’s done it in post game press conferences off the top of his head.
Granted he’s maybe the all time greatest, but it’s illustrative. He’s not thinking at all about how his body is going to do what it does. That’s completely automatic. He’s thinking a lot about the higher level strategy of the game.
I recently read a post about how Nadal gets an unfair stereotype of being brutish due to play style but from a young age in his post match interviews (in Spanish) we would refer to specific points in the match and give critical analysis for how he made adjustments etc.
"Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick."
As applicable to fighting as it is programming. You will see it in high level sports - athletes will do all kinds of unorthodox things from weird positions to eke out a result, because the result is all that matters.