Re: Teaching Style and Avoiding Confusion

Here is a specific example that might help illustrate what I'm talking about.

One of my first instructors once told me...
"think about sticking your right rib out."

What she really meant was...
"rotate your lower left shoulder blade clockwise and send the energy of that rotation towards your partner through your lower right rib."

Now telling a beginner the "technically" correct second sentence produces nothing because they lack the understanding to take action based on such specific instruction.

My teacher through her experience realized that saying
"think about sticking your right rib out," produced the correct understanding and application in 90% of her beginning students.

Often times one of her beginning student would overzealously misquote my teacher, attempting to teach others by saying "stick your right rib out." Note the key omission of the two words "think about." Now the teaching has become blatantly wrong.