You were taught to organise the feet before you cue anything else. You probably were also taught that stability comes from the centre and moves outward. So we learned both but didn’t learn when we need to do which one.
These are actually two different things. Let’s dive in.
Read more: Where to start reading the body: Feet first or centre first?What is from the ground up?
Force enters the body at the base of support. When the foot is poorly placed, the tibia will slightly shift and the femur will follow. This may result in a changed position in the pelvis and up the chain.
So if you start your cueing or analysing the body from top to bottom instead of from the ground up you are kind of building on a wrong foundation.
But here is a catch. The proprioception from the feet matters, but the signal to the brain gets stronger when the challenge increases. So when there is more feedback through the feet there is more feedback to the brain. More feedback happens when the client is doing a single leg work, balancing, have a load or pushes against something like in a leg and footwork for example. (Meyer, Oddsson and De Luca, 2004).
The feet also feed the brain constant information about where the centre of mass sits, which is what drives the postural corrections your client makes before you even say anything.
So where does the centre come in?
Proximal to distal (or centre to periphery, or midline out) is not about the order of alignment. Observing the ribs to hips connection shows yo where the movement starts. The trunk controls position over the pelvis so that force can be produced, transferred and controlled out to the limbs. This is a proximal to distal patterning of force distribution , and it runs through the core stability literature (Kibler, Press and Sciascia, 2006).
How do you use both in one session?
Organise alignment from the feet up first. Then cue the movement to initiate from the centre. A client can need their base sorted before you say a word, and still need the movement originated from their middle (front the powerhouse, box or core depending what lineage you follow when you teach Pilates) . Next time you catch yourself correcting the ribs three times in a row, look at the feet.
Personal spin: I taught for a long time before anyone explained that these two ideas were answering different questions. When I finally understood it I found it much easier to look what I need to align, where the movement comes from than before.
FAQ
Should you cue the feet or the core first in Pilates? Organise alignment from the feet up first, because the base of support shapes everything above it. Then cue movement to initiate from the centre.
What is proximal to distal in movement? It describes where force is generated. The trunk stabilises first so force can transfer out to the limbs.
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