External vs Internal Cueing — and why deliberate self‑observation is the teacher’s work

Teachers live in language. The words we choose to cue a pose or movement change where a student puts their attention, and that shift changes how the body organizes itself. In motor‑learning research the distinction between “external” and “internal” cueing is now a fundamental principle—and it was a woman, researcher Gabriele Wulf, whose work beginning in the late 1990s helped define and popularize this idea. Her experiments and reviews showed repeatedly that directing learners’ attention to the effect of a movement (external focus) often produces better performance and learning than directing attention to body parts or muscle actions (internal focus). (frontiersin.org)

What the two cue types mean

• Internal cues: direct attention to the body (e.g., “straighten your knee,” “squeeze your glutes,” “lift your ribs”). These cues encourage conscious control of body parts.
• External cues: direct attention to the movement effect or an outcome in the environment (e.g., “push the mat away,” “reach the crown of the head toward the wall,” “press the big toe into the floor and imagine pushing the earth back”). These cues encourage automatic, outcome‑oriented control. (frontiersin.org)

What the evidence says (brief)

• Laboratory and applied studies have found consistent benefits for external focus: greater accuracy, efficiency, and automaticity; often less muscle co‑contraction and fewer conscious control penalties. These findings span sports, posture/balance tasks, and clinical motor skills. (frontiersin.org)
• Benefits extend into professional skills: recent randomized work shows external focus can speed and improve learning for medical procedures (ultrasound‑guided cannulation), illustrating that these principles transfer beyond “sport.” (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Important nuance for teachers: neither cue type is “evil” or a silver bullet

• External focus tends to support skill acquisition, fluidity, and performance under pressure.
• Internal focus can be useful for early familiarization, safety cues, injury rehab, or when you need to isolate a very specific muscle action that the student cannot feel at all. The key is intention: what do you want the learner to experience and learn in this moment?

Why deliberate self‑observation matters
You can’t reliably predict how a cue will land in another person’s nervous system. That’s why pragmatic, deliberate observation and testing—by the teacher and the student—is essential.

A practical, repeatable process for teachers

1. Be explicit about your objective. Are you teaching a safety alignment, a movement outcome, or the feel of a muscle contraction?
2. Choose one variable to test (one cue) so you can see its effect. Less is more—3 clear instructions per pose is a good ceiling. (ashtanga.tech)
3. Use paired comparisons in class: give one group (or one side of a student’s body) an internal cue and the other an equivalent external cue. Watch for changes in breath, ease, muscular tension, balance, range, and the student’s reported experience.
4. Use objective and subjective probes: quick balance tests, a simple performance measure (how long they hold, range of motion), and a one‑line student report (“more space,” “less effort,” “more wobbly”). Video or mirror feedback is useful.
5. Record findings and iterate. Keep a short teacher’s log: which cue produced safer alignment, which produced better flow, which improved retention across practice days?
6. Teach students to self‑observe: offer them 1–2 cues and give them time to notice the difference. Encourage journaling or quick post‑class notes. Over time they’ll learn which cues reliably help their body.

Example (Utthita Trikonasana / Extended Triangle)

• Internal cue: “Turn your front thigh out; engage the quadriceps.” This can help someone who hyperflexes the hip or collapses the front leg.
• External cue: “Press your front big toe into the mat and reach your top fingertips to the back wall.” This often produces more stable grounding and an externally oriented lift/length without clenching.
  Test both, observe breath, torque at the knee, hip alignment, and whether the student feels more stable or crowded. Use whichever cue meets your objective for that student in that moment.

Practical rules of thumb

• Start external whenever your goal is automaticity, balance, or efficiency.
• Use internal strategically: brief, specific, and paired with an external outcome. For example: “Lightly engage the quads (internal) so you can push the mat away and float into the lift (external).”
• Watch for undesirable side effects: some popular internal cues produce bracing or hyperextension; some external cues can hide compensations if you don’t look closely. That’s why observation and simple tests matter. (yoganomy.com)

Language, culture, and identity matter
Cues are not culturally neutral—imagery, metaphors, and body language land differently for different students. Some people respond well to poetic imagery; others prefer biomechanical clarity. Always ask, and pay attention.

Where to learn more (reading & resources)

• Ashtanga Tech — an overview on choosing cues and the difficulty of cueing (practical approaches and lesson contexts). (ashtanga.tech)
• Gabriele Wulf’s work and reviews on attentional focus (foundational studies and summaries of external vs internal focus research). (frontiersin.org)
• Recent applied work showing benefits of external focus in medical procedural learning. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Closing thought
Words redirect attention; attention reorganizes movement. The teacher’s craft is not picking one “best” style and reciting it without care. It’s a continuous practice of hypothesis → cue → observe → record → refine. Over time, deliberate self‑observation—by you and your students—creates a shared map of which words produce balance, breath, efficiency, and learning. That map will be different room to room, student to student. The research shows a general advantage for external focus, but the art of teaching is in the careful, curious use of both.