Self Assessments
Why the Assess-Reassess Process Is So Important in Applied Neurology (Especially for Dancers)
In applied neurology, assess-reassess is the process of testing something before and after doing a drill or exercise. It's like asking your brain, "Hey, did you like that?" — and getting an answer right away.
The brain’s #1 job is to keep you alive and safe. To do that, it’s constantly gathering information from your senses (vision, balance, body awareness, etc.) and making incredibly fast decisions about what feels safe or unsafe. These decisions happen almost instantly — faster than you can consciously think — because they’re based on survival.
When you do a drill (like a balance exercise, an eye movement, or a specific physical exercise) and then immediately reassess your movement, balance, or strength, you get real-time feedback from your nervous system.
If your performance improves — you feel stronger, more stable, or have less pain — it means your brain liked that input. It feels safer, and it's giving you permission to move better.
If you feel worse — more wobbly, weak, or uncomfortable — it means your brain didn’t like that input and might be protecting you by limiting your movement.
How Range of Motion Can Instantly Improve with Assess-Reassess
Let's drill down a bit more into why your range of motion can immediately improve, stay the same, or decrease.
Muscle tightness, limited range of motion, and even pain are often protective responses from the nervous system — not always an indicator of actual physical damage. For example, someone with an underperforming vestibular system may carry excess muscular tension simply because their body is working hard to stay upright and balanced."
Your brain can deliberately limit your flexibility or create muscular tension to protect you when a movement feels unclear or potentially threatening. (Which can be for a lot of reasons... remember the threat bucket post?)
If you get a decrease in range of motion or an increase in discomfort you know that isn't the right exercise or drill for your brain and body... at least for now.
When you give your brain input (through a vestibular drill, a visual exercise, or a proprioceptive movement), that it likes, it updates its safety map and realizes, "Oh, we're okay — it's safe to move more!" As a result, it releases some of that protective tension and immediately allows more range of motion.
This is why, during assess-reassess, you might see an instant improvement in how far you can stretch, turn, or move — often within seconds of doing the right drill.
This is powerful because it saves you time and effort.
Instead of guessing or grinding away at drills that might not help (or could even make things worse), the assess-reassess process shows you immediately what's working for your unique brain and body.
For dancers, this can is a game changer.
I worked with a dancer who had discomfort in her hips, more on one side than the other as she was trying hard to improve her turnout. She was foam rolling religiously before class to loosen up the muscles.
We used spinal range of motion as an assessment as well as her demi pliés in first as that's where she was constantly monitoring her efforts. I had her foam roll for about 1 minute and then reassessed. She got worse.
I then gave her an isometric stretch to try (here's a quick clip of it), reassessed her spinal range of motion and demi pliés, and her results significantly improved. I encouraged her to stop foam rolling her hips before class! Is foam rolling bad? NO! But in her case her brain was feeling threatened by it - was she going too hard? Creating pain? I don't know, but what I do know is her demi pliés felt a heck of a lot better after doing the isometric stretch over foam rolling.
Now she doesn't need to spend extra time foam rolling and instead can focus her attention on drills and exercises that are high payoff - for her!
I want to make clear that it is unrealistic to constantly assess and reassess during class. Where this can be super useful is in guiding dancers in their efforts outside of class. (or even before class as demonstrated by the above example) It certainly has been enormously helpful to my own body!
In short:
The brain is constantly making instantaneous decisions about safety. (Prioritizing safety over performance)
Assess-reassess lets you tap into that decision-making.
Trusting and using that feedback can fast-track your progress.
To your success,
Deborah