Change the Ball, the Child Changes Gesture Without a Word

Hello,

Give a child a large ball, they catch it with both hands against their belly.

Give them a small one, they open their fingers and grab it differently. You said nothing. It's the ball that spoke.

What the body reads are not your words first, but the possibilities for action offered by the world.

In movement science, this is called affordances, what an object or space suggests doing with it.

A high step suggests climbing, a low step suggests stepping over. The body responds to this suggestion even before thinking.

Learning a gesture is largely about becoming sensitive to the right affordances, the right information in the situation.

This overturns a persistent habit. We believe that movement is regulated by instruction. It is also, and often better, regulated by what we place in the environment.

Change the distance, the height, the speed of arrival, the size of the object, and you bring out the right gesture without a single correction.

What this changes concretely: before correcting someone verbally, ask yourself what the task really proposes to them. The right adjustment is often in the situation you set, not in the sentence you say.

This kind of lever is a foundation of motor learning. Knowing which information to make visible for a body that perceives poorly is where NRP, Neuro-Postural Reprogramming, begins.

We open this to you with the introduction to NRP, offered.

👉 The link to the offered introduction!

The body responds to what the situation proposes, well before responding to your words.

The LabO-RNP team