What Can We Learn Without Words?

The first phase of my Rolfing training was called auditing. For a couple of months, we weren't allowed to work on anyone. We sat and watched: the teacher, the students on the table, and how their bodies changed from one session to the next.

My teacher and mentor was Emmett Hutchins. Ida Rolf trained him, and he was one of the first instructors of her method. When the class started, Emmett mentioned that we might notice changes in our own bodies just from watching. I took it as a "be patient" message, and I didn't believe him. But toward the end of those months, I noticed shifts in my own movement patterns that had come from watching.

It was some of the most valuable learning I've ever had. And it's the reason I'm teaching a qigong class where I don't say a word for the whole hour.

That sounds like a gimmick. It isn't. There's a solid body of research on how people learn movement by watching, and on what happens when we load them up with instructions instead. Some of it surprised me.

Most classes talk over the watching

Think about the last movement class you took. Lift the arms. Soften the knees. Drop the shoulders. Breathe into the ribs. Tuck the tailbone, no, not that much.

Every one of those cues is well meant. But each one asks you to turn your attention inward, translate a sentence into a body part, and check whether you got it right. Meanwhile the teacher is already moving on, and the thing you came to learn, the whole movement, is happening in front of you while you're busy listening.

What the research says

1. Watching engages the parts of you that move

In a 2005 study in Neuron, people watched a video of someone else learning to make a reaching movement against an unfamiliar force. When they tried it themselves, they performed better than people who had watched similar movements with no learning in them. People who watched someone adapt to the opposite force did worse. What they picked up was specific to the movement they saw. The authors found the benefit didn't come from a conscious strategy. It depended on the systems the brain uses to plan and control movement.

This fits with the broader research on the mirror mechanism: watching an action engages some of the same motor areas used to perform it. In humans that evidence comes mostly from brain imaging rather than single cells, so it's best held loosely. But the practical picture is consistent. A 2022 systematic review found strong evidence that observational learning improves motor skill compared with not observing at all.

The closest study I found to what I'm doing is a 2022 study from the University of Haifa. Forty beginners learned Tai Chi–inspired movement sequences by following a trained teacher through a glass partition. In one group, both could see each other. In the other, a one-way mirror let the learner see the teacher, but the teacher couldn't see the learner. Both groups remembered the same number of movements. The learners whose teacher could see them moved more smoothly.

Learning by following worked either way. It worked better when the teacher was watching back. In the silent class I'm in the middle of the circle, turning as I move. I can see the room, and the room can see me.

2. Fewer rules can mean a sturdier skill

Rich Masters' research on golf putting is a good example. In a 1992 study, people who learned with a small pool of explicit rules held up better under pressure than people who learned with many. A longer follow-up study over 3,000 putts led the authors to argue against excessive verbal instruction during learning: it may be unnecessary and may hurt performance under stress.

The same pattern showed up in a study of novice surgeons learning to tie surgical knots. Those who learned by observation alone improved as much as those who were given instructions while they watched, and they held their performance when asked to do two things at once. The instructed group slowed down.

In other words, a skill learned without a running commentary may be less dependent on the commentary.

3. Words about body parts pull attention inward

Most movement cues name a body part: the shoulder, the knee, the ribs. Research on attentional focus suggests that's often not the most effective place for attention. A 2021 meta-analysis of 73 studies found that focusing on the effect of a movement, rather than on the body parts producing it, improved both performance and learning, across ages and skill levels. In one basketball study, an outward focus also came with lower muscle activity in the arm for the same shot.

That last part matters for qigong. I want people to stay soft but engaged, at the edge of their range without pushing past it. Fewer instructions about individual body parts may make that easier, not harder.

4. Watch, try, watch again

The order you watch and practice in matters too. In a 2022 study, people learning to tie nautical knots improved most when they alternated between watching and doing, more than with practice alone or watching alone. An earlier study found that seeing a movement several times before practice, and several more times early in practice, produced the best form. And a 2026 study of beginners learning Tai Chi found that people who practiced the movements while watching performed better than people who only watched.

That's the structure of the silent class. I repeat each form slowly for 5 to 15 minutes. You watch, try it, lose it, stop and watch again, and pick it back up. Nobody is waiting for you to get it right on the first try. The repetition does the teaching.

What about the breath?

If you've worked with me, you know how much I talk about breath. In this class I won't coach it at all.

My only request, before the class, is this: breathe softly and naturally, at your body's own rhythm, and don't pay much attention to it. Your attention goes to the movements.

That's how I teach any new form: learn the movements first, then add the breath. Coordinating a new shape, a new sequence and a breathing pattern all at once is a lot to ask of anyone on the first day. Once the movement is familiar, the breath has something to settle into.

Where silence has limits

Silence isn't better for everything. In a soccer passing study, the group that got a video model plus visual and verbal cues did best of all. The 2022 review above found the evidence on adding verbal cues to observation was conflicting. Some details, like exactly how to grip something, genuinely need words.

So this isn't an argument against ever explaining anything. I explain a lot in my other classes and in my clinical work. It's an argument that watching is underused, and that a room full of instructions can crowd out one of the oldest ways people learn. That's why questions in the silent class come afterward: the day after, I email everyone to ask what they noticed and what puzzled them.

What the pilot is for

Here is what the research doesn't tell me. No study I found compared a qigong class taught without words to the same class taught with them. So I'm not going to promise that silence will make you calmer, more aware of your body, or quicker to learn.

What I can say is that watching, following and repeating are well-supported ways to learn movement, and that a class built around them gives people something most classes don't: an uninterrupted hour to watch, move, repeat and notice. The possible mechanism here is simple. Without a stream of words to process, your attention has fewer places to go besides the movement in front of you and the movement in your own body.

Whether that feels freeing, absorbing, confusing, or some mix of all three is exactly what the pilot is for. I want to know whether the forms get easier to follow as they repeat, and what people notice when nobody is telling them what to notice.

If you're in Santa Barbara

Silent Qigong is a one-hour pilot class: meditative music, four basic qigong forms in a sequence I've put together, and no talking from the moment you walk in. In person, limited to 20 people, standing in a circle. The date gets set once at least 10 people are in. Add your name for the pilot.

— Isaac

Research

1. Mattar AAG, Gribble PL. Motor learning by observing. Neuron. 2005;46(1):153–160. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.02.009
2. Rizzolatti G. The mirror neuron system and its function in humans. Anatomy and Embryology. 2005;210(5–6):419–421. doi:10.1007/s00429-005-0039-z
3. Han YK, Syed Ali SKB, Ji L. Use of observational learning to promote motor skill learning in physical education: a systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022;19(16):10109. doi:10.3390/ijerph191610109
4. Nahardiya G, Markus A, Bennet R, Shamay-Tsoory SG. The benefits of learning movement sequences in social interactions. Frontiers in Psychology. 2022;13:901900. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.901900
5. Masters RSW. Knowledge, knerves and know-how: the role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology. 1992;83(3):343–358. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02446.x
6. Maxwell JP, Masters RSW, Eves FF. From novice to no know-how: a longitudinal study of implicit motor learning. Journal of Sports Sciences. 2000;18(2):111–120. doi:10.1080/026404100365180
7. Masters RSW, Lo CY, Maxwell JP, Patil NG. Implicit motor learning in surgery: implications for multi-tasking. Surgery. 2008;143(1):140–145. doi:10.1016/j.surg.2007.06.018
8. Chua LK, Jimenez-Diaz J, Lewthwaite R, Kim T, Wulf G. Superiority of external attentional focus for motor performance and learning: systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin. 2021;147(6):618–645. doi:10.1037/bul0000335
9. Zachry T, Wulf G, Mercer J, Bezodis N. Increased movement accuracy and reduced EMG activity as the result of adopting an external focus of attention. Brain Research Bulletin. 2005;67(4):304–309. doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2005.06.035
10. Bazzini MC, Nuara A, Scalona E, et al. The proactive synergy between action observation and execution in the acquisition of new motor skills. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2022;16:793849. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.793849
11. Weeks DL, Anderson LP. The interaction of observational learning with overt practice: effects on motor skill learning. Acta Psychologica. 2000;104(2):259–271. doi:10.1016/s0001-6918(00)00039-1
12. Guo C, Long YL, et al. Concurrent observation and physical practice facilitates early closed motor skill learning: evidence from EEG source functional connectivity and behavioral performance. Frontiers in Psychology. 2026. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1865823
13. Janelle CM, Champenoy JD, Coombes SA, Mousseau MB. Mechanisms of attentional cueing during observational learning to facilitate motor skill acquisition. Journal of Sports Sciences. 2003;21(10):825–838. doi:10.1080/0264041031000140310
14. Be big, inhabit your space: the legacy of Emmett Hutchins. Structure, Function, Integration (SFI Journal). sfijournal.org