Coaching practices for Training by Feel
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Training by Feel, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I finish a rep and all I can say is "that felt off" or "that was okay"
- The people I’m training just go through the reps I dictate, checked-out and joyless, and I dictate every detail because I assume that’s my job
- I put in hours alone and just assume I’m getting better, but nobody’s telling me what I’m doing wrong in the moment
- I practice on my own and only ever find out afterward that the whole thing was wrong, with no idea where I went off the rails
- I’ve read every book and watched every tutorial on this and I still can’t actually do it
Practices that may help
- Compare each practice attempt to your mental representation of the target
After every attempt, evaluate it against your internal model — not against how it felt.
Mental Representations: The Expert’s Internal Map - Give performers choice within practice to support autonomy
Offer self-directed options in practice — which drill, how many reps, which cue — to enhance intrinsic motivation and learning.
External Focus of Attention, Made Practical - Get immediate, specific feedback
Shorten the gap between an attempt and knowing exactly what was wrong.
Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice - Coached practice with targeted feedback
Attempt the task yourself while a coach observes and provides immediate, specific feedback on process.
Cognitive Apprenticeship: Learning by Making Thinking Visible - Acquire tacit knowledge through extended immersive practice
To develop know-how you cannot be taught, you must perform it repeatedly in authentic contexts.
Tacit Knowledge: The Skill You Can’t Fully Explain - Trust Self 2 — give the body an image, not instructions
Set the target in vivid sensory terms and then let the body execute without conscious direction.
The Inner Game: Quieting Self 1 - Practice titration with low-stakes material to build the skill
Apply the titration approach to ordinary everyday discomfort — mild frustration, physical tension, minor disappointment — to build the skill before harder material.
Titration in Somatic Practice, Made Practical - High-volume repetition blocks
Log more trials than feels necessary — automaticity is earned through quantity, not complexity.
Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves - Transfer testing with novel instances
Periodically test your perceptual skill on examples you have never seen to verify genuine learning.
Perceptual Learning: Training Your Eye Before Your Mind - Build immediate feedback loops into every repetition
Shorten the gap between action and information about that action to minutes, not days.
Growth-Edge Training: Practicing at the Edge of Your Ability
Related concerns
- Autogenic Training With My Team
Autogenic training (AT), developed by psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in the 1930s, is a structured self-relaxation method that uses repeated, specific phrases — "My arm is heavy," "My arm is warm" — to trigger physiological relaxation through passive concentration. A 2002 meta-analysis found AT effective for anxiety, insomnia, and functional somatic complaints. The warmth and heaviness described in the phrases are real physiological responses (vasodilation and muscle relaxation), not metaphor.
- Skill Coaching Feedback
Attempt the task yourself while a coach observes and provides immediate, specific feedback on process.
Coached practice with targeted feedback
- When External Focus Attention Autonomy Support In Practice
Offer self-directed options in practice — which drill, how many reps, which cue — to enhance intrinsic motivation and learning.
Give performers choice within practice to support autonomy
- Autogenic Fifth Exercise
Autogenic training (AT), developed by psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in the 1930s, is a structured self-relaxation method that uses repeated, specific phrases — "My arm is heavy," "My arm is warm" — to trigger physiological relaxation through passive concentration. A 2002 meta-analysis found AT effective for anxiety, insomnia, and functional somatic complaints. The warmth and heaviness described in the phrases are real physiological responses (vasodilation and muscle relaxation), not metaphor.
- Autogenic Training With Friends
Autogenic training (AT), developed by psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in the 1930s, is a structured self-relaxation method that uses repeated, specific phrases — "My arm is heavy," "My arm is warm" — to trigger physiological relaxation through passive concentration. A 2002 meta-analysis found AT effective for anxiety, insomnia, and functional somatic complaints. The warmth and heaviness described in the phrases are real physiological responses (vasodilation and muscle relaxation), not metaphor.
- Coaching Cues Motor Learning
Audit your coaching language and convert body-focused instructions to effect-focused ones.
Rewrite internal-focus coaching cues as external-focus equivalents
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.