Different Eyes

Everyone has a bias when they look at movement. This was underscored in the past few days when as we did the Physical Competency Assessments in Trinidad. The people that were physical therapists looked at the movement different than the doctors who looked at movement different than the coaches. Each had (have) what I call perspective bias. We all tend to look at movement from a perspective colored by our experience. I was constantly imploring everyone doing the evaluations to look at movement with a “coaching eye”.  By coaching eye I mean taking a more global perspective, focus on the linkages and connections rather that the links and the connectors. Step back, change observation points and perspective. If you zero in on one part you lose perspective, then the output is reductionist and segmented. No part of the body works in isolation in movement, that concept should drive us to look at movement with different eyes. It was revealing on Sunday when we all sat down and analyzed the results. The numbers came to life. Everyone in the room was looking at how the numbers on the various tests connected. A score of 1 on ankle range is poor, but when you look at it in relation to the glute or a hop test it assumed even more significance. Seeing movement with different eyes, to observe quality of connections and flow of movement moved everyone toward evaluating the training and rehab with a different perspective. That translated the testing numbers into action, it put the focus squarely on solutions instead of dysfunction, but to do this effectively you need a well developed “coaching eye”.