How Are You Cuing Your Clients?

            Image courtesy of payonperformance.ning.com

This past weekend in RTS class we spent a lot of time practicing cuing, in particular for the trunk and spine, seeing as the trunk and spine were our areas of focus for the weekend.  For me, this was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

I realized quickly that there is often times a serious disconnect from the thought or picture that I have in my head, how I am verbalizing it, how the client is interpreting my words, and then the subsequent action they perform.


My biggest takeaways from this weekend regarding the steps I need to take to improve my cuing were:

1.  Use simple verbiage

I've spent a lot of time studying the technical names of anatomical features and joint positions and motions over the past year and ten months, to the point where those words are my easy defaults now.  But in order to improve my cuing, I need to get my mouth to start communicating with, "Move this here.  Move that there.  Don't move that."

2.  Start off with fewer words

Similar to the first point, I would often try to describe motions in the greatest technical detail possible.  In my head, this left no room for interpretation as to what I wanted.  In the client's head, my words didn't have any meaning so I actually wasn't communicating anything to them as far as an exercise was concerned.

3.  One cue at a time

Because I was familiar and comfortable with my verbiage and what I wanted, I was cuing too many things at one time.  "Move this while squeezing here and hold this still and focus on this tissue and now release this."  Much, much, much too much for people to comprehend at any one point in time.  In my head, it made sense.  In theirs', nope.

4.  Drop the metaphors

I would also try to get creative with my cues and give metaphors of what I wanted the person to think about--"Like you are holding feathers", "Like you are stuck to the ground", etc.  (The use of "like" would technically make it a simile, but that is irrelevant in this context.)  While this may provide a different experience for the client, until I get those first three points down pat and we have easy and accurate communication, it will probably end up being more of an experience of frustration than anything else.

5.  Progress cues just like training

Why did I feel it was appropriate to start off with the hard cues before mastering the easy ones.  I don't know, but clearly some type of progression is in order, both for myself and the client.  I have to speak easy cues until the easy cues are easily understood by both parties, and then move on towards providing more than one cue at a time or using metaphors, etc.

How could you improve your cuing in order to improve both the client's experience as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of their time with you?

Your body.  Your training.

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