Advanced Assessment Skills 2

The Advanced Assessment Skills series helps movement teachers learn and apply necessary intake, assessment and reasoning skills to maximize outcome and increase professionalism in practice.

Part 2 will cover:

1. Advanced Assessment of the Lower and Upper Extremities
2. Qualitative Movement Analysis

This workshop will provide the teacher with basic skills in a static and dynamic postural assessment. The focus will be structural alignment in functional activities (e.g. squatting, walking, rolling, and reaching). Emphasis will be placed on how Pilates exercises can influence asymmetries of the upper and lower extremities. It will include Polestars Postural Assessment, identifying key anatomical landmarks to improve the teachers eye in assessing symmetries and asymmetries that are common to many clients. Alignment being a key principle in Pilates work, it is essential to develop a keen eye and a deeper understanding to assess which postural variances will produce the greatest change in clients performance and overall outcome.

This workshop will also facilitate the practitioners discovery of what really makes a Pilates teacher unique. Pilates principles provide a unique way to measure quality of movement. Qualitative assessment skills using these principles and video observation will allow the student to gain an enhanced eye for assessing not only Pilates movement but all movement. Learning this technique of critical thinking enables teachers to apply their knowledge of exercise design to maximize the benefit to their clients.

Objectives. Students will:

1. Use the Polestar Postural Assessment to identify basic asymmetries as they pertain to alignment of the head, neck, trunk and pelvis, and upper and lower extremities
2. Identify how asymmetries in alignment can affect movement efficiency in daily activities
3. Apply Pilates exercises to improve alignment as it pertains to functional activities
4. Understand the evolution of Pilates principles
5. Be able to practice observation skills of principles in functional and Pilates movement sequences
6. Be able to identify corrections to facilitate improved quality, efficiency and balance of movement sequences
7. Learn to assess correct Pilates exercises within scope of professional practice

Duration: 24 hours
Prerequisites: Completion of Advanced Assessment Skills 1