Moving Through Inquiry October 2026

Lessons From Socrates for the Movement Teacher

Watching a client, I see they’ve shifted their weight more to the right side. Honestly, my first instinct is to tell them: shift left.

But I ask instead. “Where do you feel your weight?”

Now they have the opportunity to notice it for themselves.

After years of teaching, that small pause interests me more than the adjustment does. Can they sense what I am seeing? Are my words clear? Do I need to demonstrate instead? What does a student learn when I let them discover it?

That question sits at the heart of Socratic pedagogy.

What Is Socratic Pedagogy?

The Socratic method takes its name from the Greek philosopher Socrates, whose approach to teaching relied heavily on questioning. Instead of doling out information, he used questions to help students notice what they took for granted, think more clearly, see how ideas connect, and come to their own understanding. https://www.bezainstitute.org/blog/socraticmethod

Applied to teaching movement, that idea becomes worth exploring.

I’ve spent decades developing my eye. I see where someone places their weight. I notice how they organize themselves around gravity, where they hold unnecessary tension, how they breathe, and how one part of the body relates to another.

As a young teacher, I thought telling the student everything I saw was the job. I learned otherwise, and I got there the Socratic way: by questioning how I teach. My eye could show me a great deal, but it left one thing out of reach: what is the student thinking? What are they sensing? Those answers can only come through a question.

From Adjustment to Inquiry

That’s the shift I’m describing: telling versus asking.

When I ask instead of tell, sometimes the student notices the difference immediately. Sometimes they miss it. Either way, I get a window into what they’re thinking and sensing.

We’ve both learned something, and from there we can continue with the new insight.

Asking is still teaching. My questions still have a direction. I bring knowledge, experience, observation, and an intention for the lesson. A question becomes another teaching tool, used when it can help the student notice, consider, or understand something on their own terms.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the six foundational elements that shape how I teach https://www.matworkz.com/joseph-pilates-foundational-elements-of-movement-returning-to-the-framework-of-contrology/. Inquiry gives me another way to help a student experience and understand those ideas.

“Where do you feel your weight?”

“What did you notice?”

“Where are you on your tail?”

“How did doing less feel?”

These are simple questions, but each one turns the student’s attention inward facing vs outward. Instead of waiting for my input, they start checking in with themselves.

Awareness First

Here, Socratic pedagogy meets the way I teach Pilates.

Awareness first. Technique follows. Integration is the goal.

I know what an exercise is asking for. The more interesting question is what the student can make out of it for themselves.

If I continually provide every observation, the student can become very skilled at responding to my instructions and dependent on me. It can also make for a very long session from my persepective. I’d rather help them develop their own awareness.

I’ll call myself out here. In my early years of teaching, I could almost paralyze a client’s movement with my own analysis. The information was accurate enough, but so much came from me that nothing was left for them to notice on their own. It cost me too: all that talking and hyper focus pushed me toward burnout.

Talking less never means teaching less. Technique still matters, and you can ask anyone I’ve taught how technical I am. But I’ve found the most lasting results come from within.

Picture a student who can feel where their weight is. Who notices how their breath changes the movement. Who can tell the effort they need from the tension they can let go. That student can feel why the technique matters.

Some of the teachers I train push back here: what if the client just wants a workout? My answer is that a client can have both, a challenging workout and a growing awareness. In fact, each makes the other better. Weaving the two together takes skill on the teacher’s part, and it gives my teaching a depth I love and I am never bored.

Body, Mind, and Spirit

There’s also something about this approach that feels very much at home in Pilates.

Joseph Pilates called his work Contrology and described it as the complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit. The student was meant to participate in all three.

Inquiry gives us another way in.

Rather than movement becoming a series of instructions to remember, the student begins developing a relationship with what they’re doing.

They’re sensing. Comparing. Questioning. Figuring it out.

They’re learning how to pay attention. One of the things I hear often is that a Pilates practice lets people tune out the noise of their day. The noise quiets because their attention has somewhere else to go: their breath, how they move, what their thoughts are doing.

That’s where spirit comes in for me. When attention settles like that, we’re fully present, in the moment with our movement. That presence is the spirit of the work.

When the Questions Become Their Own

Over time, interesting things happen.

In the beginning, I may be the person asking:

“What just changed?”

“Where are you gripping?”

“Can you find that again?”

Eventually, I ask less often.

The student starts to notice before I say anything.

They make an adjustment. They pause. They try something again. They recognize where they’re holding extra tension, or that their weight has shifted. They begin reading their own bodies.

That’s often the moment I say it out loud to them: “Thank you very much.” I mean it as gratitude for their awareness and taking responsibility for their own practice.

And the icing on the cake for me is when they start asking me questions. That’s when the roles start to flip, and they’re the ones leading the inquiry.

I want more for them than skill at following my cues. I think of myself as the training wheels on their bike. Eventually, those wheels come off, and they no longer need me at all.

From the Studio Into Everyday Life

As I’ve stated ad nauseam throughout my writings, I’m interested in what happens beyond the movement lesson.

If someone learns to notice unnecessary effort on the Reformer, can they recognize it while typing at their computer?

If they learn to organize themselves under load in the studio, does that awareness appear when they’re carrying groceries in from the car?

If they start noticing how they hold their breath during an exercise, does some of that awareness follow them when they are in a stressful situation?

This is where inquiry and integration meet.

Each exercise becomes a rehearsal for the attention they’ll carry into the rest of their day.

And gradually, the questions we ask in the studio become the questions they ask themselves, long after they’ve left it.