Coordination You Can Trust

By Andrew Gibbons

Most people think strength is what saves them.
But it’s trust that keeps you from falling apart.

Every client I’ve worked with—executives, dancers, weekend warriors—succeeds the same way: they start perceiving and integrating better information in their coordination. In exchange for their attention, they earn one of the most valuable human experiences: trust.

Not blind faith. Not positive thinking. Trust as a felt sense—the grounded confidence that your body will do what it’s supposed to. It’s what lets you move without bracing. What lets you land without fearing injury. What makes you feel, quite literally, safe in your own skin.

We’ve Been Sold a Lie

We’ve been sold a lie: that effort is evidence of our character or value.  At least that’s what Nike wants you to think: “just do it”.  Catchy. Iconic. Three one-syllable words. Don Draper would be proud.

And yet how many injured clients have describe the last movement they made before the pain as, “Well, I guess I just did it.”?

If you are the kind of person who tends to try too hard, or holds too much tension, I ask you: how do you interpret effort?

Here’s something to consider:

Effort Is Information

Effort is how your nervous system perceives and predicts difficulty. This perception invokes your muscles, your emotions and your intentions. In other words: it reveals whether you trust yourself.

People with a clear self-image use just enough effort—never more. They move efficiently. Elegantly. They’re integrators. At the highest levels, their coordination is so seamless, it’s hard to see where they even make an effort. They listen more and so strain less.

They’re in the virtuous cycle.

But people who are injured, insecure, or simply untrained?
They overdo.
Their effort is often chaotic and contorted.
They concentrate effort in one place and leak it everywhere else.
They brace their jaws to roll over.
Tense their abs to rotate their spines.

This isn’t weakness.
It’s distorted perception.
Their body doesn’t trust itself—so it panics.

When you can’t sense, you compensate (your brain is too smart not to).
When you compensate, you contort.
That’s the vicious cycle.

Coordination Is a Forecast

For your brain every movement is both a perception and prediction: Will this go well? If the answer’s unclear, coordination suffers.

That’s why strong people hesitate.
Why flexible people collapse.
Why fit people fall apart in transitions.

What’s missing?
Trust.
Not as a vibe. As a neuromuscular skill.
The body’s deep yes.

Want to Move Well for the Rest of Your Life?

Build trust into your coordination.
Train clarity, not chaos.

Want to move towards trust?
Let’s talk.
I’ll teach you how to refine your coordination—one clear, coordinated step at a time.