Level 1: Introduction Certification

HODA-A (Hands-On Data Acquisition & Analysis) is the world’s first scientifically validated system that turns your hands into a reliable measurement instrument.
For decades, manual therapy has been criticised as “unreliable” and “subjective.” HODA-A changes that. By teaching you how to calibrate yourself as the tool, this course transforms your touch into a precise, evidence-aligned diagnostic method.

This Level 1 Introduction is your gateway to the full HODA-A pathway. It’s 100% online, interactive, and designed to give you the confidence that your hands can collect valid, reproducible data—just like the most advanced technology.

By the end of this course, you will:
✔ Understand why traditional palpation has failed modern healthcare.
✔ Learn the 8 Measurement Theories of the Hands.
✔ Practice calibration methods to remove bias, improve interoception, and sharpen tactile accuracy.
✔ Apply reflective tools to measure your own reliability.
✔ Discover how to integrate science and art into your manual practice.

• Calibration Skills: Reset interoception, discharge bias, and enhance empathy before every assessment.

• Sensory Mastery: Train your mechanoreceptors and reduce visual distortion to gather accurate data.

• Integration & Reflection: Combine calibration steps into a repeatable process you can use with every patient.

• Clinical Confidence: Move from subjective “feeling” to objective measurement.

• Physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors, massage therapists.

• Clinicians who want scientific credibility behind their hands-on work.

• Educators and mentors in MSK healthcare seeking evidence-based methods.

• Anyone frustrated by the label “unreliable” when it comes to manual assessment.

• 6 hours of interactive online learning (can be taken in 1 day or 2 half-days).

• Downloadable Course Manual, Clinic Poster, Quick Reference Cards, and Reflection Journal.

• Digital Certificate & Badge on completion (CPD accredited).

• Lifetime access to recordings and materials.

• Optional community access + calibration challenges to keep skills sharp.

Unlike any other manual therapy training, HODA-A is:

• ✅ Research-Led: Developed from PhD-level research validating hands-on data collection.

• ✅ Scientifically Rigorous: The only framework that eliminates bias and improves reliability of touch.

• ✅ Evidence + Experience: Blends neurophysiology, biomechanics, and decades of clinical expertise.

• ✅ Fully Online: Accessible anywhere in the world—no travel, no clinics, no wasted time.

• ✅ Transformational: You’ll leave not just inspired, but calibrated with tools you can use immediately.

👉 Start your journey into the future of manual therapy.
Be part of the first cohort of clinicians worldwide certified in HODA-A.

[ Enrol Now – Limited Places Available ]

The HODA-A Level 1 Introduction Certification is designed as the entry point into the Hands-On Data Acquisition & Analysis (HODA-A) pathway. HODA-A is a scientifically-backed system that bridges the “hands-on art” of manual musculoskeletal (MSK) assessment with rigorous measurement science (1). Its core goal is to turn clinicians’ touch into a valid, reliable measurement instrument, so that “your hands are just as reliable as high-tech scans” in assessing patients (2). Level 1 introduces the fundamental principles and techniques that underpin HODA-A, laying a foundation for more advanced skills in subsequent levels (Level 2 Foundation, Level 3 Practitioner, Level 4 Advanced Practitioner, Level 5 Expert/Mentor) and for maintaining skills via annual calibration days.

Because learners entering Level 1 have already attended an introductory lecture and a practical webinar, the curriculum is structured to build on that prior exposure without unnecessary repetition. The webinars would have familiarised participants with what HODA-A is and why it’s needed – for example, the limitations of current manual therapy training (biases, inconsistent outcomes) and the concept of the clinician’s unique “HODA-A signature” (their personal interaction style) (3). Therefore, Level 1 can briefly recap key concepts but primarily focuses on hands-on application and deeper understanding of HODA-A’s core measurement constructs. The intent is to ensure participants leave Level 1 with a solid grounding in HODA-A’s approach – not only knowing the theory but having practiced the fundamental skills that make their touch assessments accurate and reproducible. This strong foundation will enable them to progress confidently into Level 2 and beyond.

Below is a breakdown of each module in the Level 1 curriculum, with an explanation of how it supports the participant’s understanding and application of HODA-A’s core principles. The modules follow a logical progression: first calibrating the clinician as an instrument (addressing internal factors like posture, biases, and mindset), then calibrating the senses and techniques used in HODA-A, and finally integrating these into a coherent assessment process. This sequence addresses known sources of error in manual assessments and mirrors the findings from the HODA-A research, which showed that controlling these factors can significantly improve reliability (4, 5). By structuring Level 1 in this way, the course avoids re-teaching basic definitions from the webinar and instead reinforces and extends them through practice. Each module is therefore a crucial stepping stone toward the “gold-standard accuracy” promised by HODA-A (6).

Purpose: To ground learners in why HODA-A is needed and how it works, without duplicating the full webinar lecture. This opening module provides a concise overview of HODA-A’s concept and evidence-base, ensuring all participants share a common understanding of the terminology and goals before diving into practical skills.

Content: The module revisits the key points from the introduction webinar – for instance, how traditional manual therapy training often relies on subjective techniques prone to bias, and how both evidence-based researchers and veteran practitioners have “failed” to fully trust hands-on assessment due to issues like sampling bias, confirmation bias, and a replication crisis in findings (7). HODA-A is introduced as the solution: a structured method to eliminate those biases and unite the “Science and Art” of manual therapy into a reliable approach (1).

Learners review the “eight different measurement theories and tools within your hands” that HODA-A employs (6). Rather than a dry lecture, this is done interactively – for example, through a quick discussion or quiz recalling the 8 measurement constructs from the webinar. This ensures no unnecessary repetition: since attendees have heard these ideas before, the focus is on active recall and clarification of any misunderstandings, rather than re-reading slides. The concept of each clinician’s unique HODA-A fingerprint is emphasised as well (3). Participants are encouraged to reflect on their own current assessment style and biases, priming them for the self-calibration work to come.

Support for Core Principles: This module reinforces HODA-A’s core philosophy that the clinician is an instrument which must be calibrated. By highlighting the scientific rationale (e.g. referencing research that manual assessments lacked validity until HODA-A development addressed it (8, 9)), it motivates learners to fully engage in the upcoming hands-on modules. It also sets a forward-looking mindset, linking Level 1 to the bigger picture: participants learn that by mastering the fundamentals now, they will eventually be able to produce assessments so reliable that clinical outcomes and research evidence align (ending the “garbage in = garbage out” problem of unreliable measures (10)). In summary, this orientation ensures everyone starts Level 1 on the same page, confident in HODA-A’s purpose and ready to practice its techniques.

Purpose: To introduce Measurement Theory Construct 1: Interoception, teaching participants how to calibrate their own body as the zero-reference point for any assessment. This module addresses the foundational principle that “if the 0–0 datum is skewed… every data point that follows is false” (11). In other words, a clinician’s internal state – their posture, balance, and physiological calm – must be normalized before attempting to gather data from a patient. This is the starting point of truthful measure of reality in HODA-A.

Content: This module introduces interoception—the internal sense of one’s body condition—and why it is the critical starting point in HODA-A. Learners explore how a misaligned or tense clinician can inadvertently create false perceptions, for example projecting their own back or hip imbalance onto the patient or misjudging what they feel. The Calibration Toolkit – Step 1: The Interoception Axis Reset, trainees are guided to check stance, centre weight, release unnecessary tension, and use a short breathing or mindfulness drill to clear the nervous system. This effectively resets the “axis of perception” to neutral (11). The lecture slides reinforce that structural imbalance in the tester biases all subsequent data, so this step is non-negotiable (12).  This provides a neutral baseline to the web of determinants that may otherwise skew the 0–0 datum, ensuring that every piece of data gathered is valid. Unlike the webinar, which explains the principle, this module goes further by targeting one of your personal glitches—such as past concussion, pain, fatigue, or stress—that can distort interoception, and guiding you to calibrate it out of your system.

As a practical exercise, participants might rate their internal state (physical tension, stress level, clarity, etc.) on a 0–10 scale before and after performing an interoception reset (13, 14). The webinar’s live lab introduced this concept, so here it is practiced more deliberately: each learner notes improvements in their own “baseline readings” post-calibration. They are, in essence, tuning their instrument (their body). If the group has completed this exercise in the webinar already, the course ensures it adds new depth – for instance, discussing the “tester structure, emotions, chemicals” checklist that HODA-A uses to account for internal factors (e.g. posture, mood, caffeine level) (15). This highlights that HODA-A takes a complex-systems view of the clinician’s state.

Support for Core Principles: this module instills the practice of self-calibration as the first core skill of HODA-A. This directly supports the principle that accuracy begins with the clinician – a theme found throughout the thesis research. By learning to achieve a consistent neutral starting state, participants lay the groundwork for reliability. They also experience the benefit (often feeling more focused and “in tune” after the reset). This habit will carry through all levels: even at Level 5 Expert, practitioners are expected to continually recalibrate themselves. Thus, Module 1’s lessons form a cornerstone for everything to come. It ensures that by the end of Level 1, every participant appreciates that any hands-on assessment must start with “calibrating the baseline axis of perception” (11), making this module a vital foundation for HODA-A’s evidence-based approach.

Purpose: To tackle Measurement Theory Construct 2: Sensorimotor Memory Stimulation (SMS), which is all about releasing inductive bias from the clinician’s memory (16). This module teaches participants to recognise and neutralise the subtle biases and assumptions their prior training or habits might impose on their touch. The core idea is that without this reset, “the therapist is not measuring the patient at all — they are merely reaffirming their own sensorimotor memory” (16). In other words, past experiences can cause your hands to “feel what they expect to feel” rather than what’s truly there – a major obstacle HODA-A seeks to overcome.

Content: The session likely starts with examples of inductive bias: for instance, a clinician trained to always check a certain spinal level may habitually “find” it stiff in every patient because they expect it. HODA-A research identified this as a source of error and developed a “bias discharge” routine to counteract it (17, 4). In practice, Calibration Toolkit – Step 2: Sensorimotor Bias Reset. There are many fun but illuminating exercises in this session, done in the webinar briefly, is expanded here with reflection. Participants journal about “what in my training, culture, or story influenced that guess?” (20), discussing how their prior knowledge shaped their expectations.

By explicitly drawing out these personal biases, the module helps clinicians become aware of their own “auto-pilot” reactions. The instructor then guides them through a sensorimotor memory stimulation technique – for example, a short ritual of touching a known reference object with fresh curiosity or using non-dominant hand palpation – to reset the touch-memory. The goal is to enter patient assessment with a “clean slate” in terms of expectations. HODA-A provides this structured approach so that manual assessment moves from subjective impression to objective measurement (16).

Support for Core Principles: This module reinforces the HODA-A principle of objectivity in touch. It directly addresses a key finding from the thesis: uncalibrated palpation is prone to confirmation bias, whereas introducing a conscious reset can improve inter-tester reliability (4, 5). By practicing how to flush out preconceived notions, participants learn to “measure the patient, not their memory.” This skill will be critical in Level 2 and 3, when they start applying HODA-A to real clinical screens – at those stages, they must be able to approach each new assessment without the bias of the last. This module ensures that after Level 1, learners know how to purge inductive biases and approach each palpation task with fresh eyes (and hands). It eliminates unnecessary repetition from the webinar by delving deeper: whereas the webinar might have only demonstrated bias with one quick game, the Level 1 Certification fully explores it and gives participants a repeatable method (the Sensorimotor Bias Discharge ritual) to use in practice (21). This strengthens the foundation for unbiased, evidence-aligned hands-on data collection as they progress onward.

Purpose: To develop Measurement Theory Construct 3: Care Ethicist Attunement, which focuses on the clinician’s emotional and empathetic calibration. The principle here is that the quality of care and emotional resonance a practitioner brings will influence their touch and perception. HODA-A includes this construct to ensure the clinician moves from basic care to true attunement and resonance with the patient (22). This module teaches participants how to tune their emotional state deliberately, so that their empathy sharpens their assessment rather than introducing noise or inconsistency.

Content: The session often begins with the idea that caring for a patient, while positive, is not the same as being attuned to them. A clinician might “care” but still be distracted, anxious, or not fully present – which can lead to missed cues or an inconsistent touch pressure. HODA-A’s approach, as informed by the thesis, recognises lack of attunement or emotional discordance as factors that can degrade hands-on measurement (23, 24). Calibration Toolkit – Step 3: Care Attunement Practice. Learners engage in guided exercises to heighten emotional awareness and empathy before touching the patient. For example, an “inner softening” visualisation is practiced: clinicians close their eyes and imagine the patient’s story and pain, adjusting their breathing and intention as if they are “holding the patient’s pain” (22, 25). This was hinted at in the practical webinar; in Level 1 it becomes a structured practice.

In this module, learners take part in a series of simple, interactive exercises designed to reveal how their own emotional state directly influences the quality of their touch and the accuracy of their perception. Even in an online format, these activities create surprising shifts that highlight the difference between neutral and empathetically attuned hands. The session is engaging, reflective, and even fun — blending light-hearted experimentation with serious insight. Participants will not only feel these changes in themselves but will also have the chance to reflect with peers, making the learning deeply personal and memorable. By the end, they understand that empathy isn’t just an attitude — it’s a measurable determinant that must be calibrated for reliable manual assessment (26, 27).  Essentially, participants learn that their emotional calibration is as important as their physical calibration.

Support for Core Principles: This module supports the holistic nature of HODA-A’s core principles – recognising that a clinician’s emotional state can bias or enhance their sensory data. By learning embodied empathy, clinicians can reduce factors like carelessness or inattentiveness (which the slides call “carelessness, inattunement, lack of resonance” in the web of determinants (23, 24)). Research and expert input have suggested that a caring therapeutic alliance can even heighten a clinician’s sensitivity to patient issues, improving outcomes. This module ensures Level 1 participants internalise that concept and have a practical way to achieve it (for example, a quick attunement ritual before assessments). It distinguishes itself from any webinar content by providing a hands-on, reflective experience rather than theory alone. By the end of this module, learners realise that their mindset is a tool: HODA-A’s third tool in their hands is essentially their heart and focus. Mastering this will prepare them for more advanced patient interactions in Level 2 and 3, where maintaining empathy under time pressure or complex cases will be challenging. Thus, this module deeply reinforces HODA-A’s commitment to uniting the “art” of caring touch with the “science” of measurement (1), completing the calibration of the clinician’s internal environment (physical and emotional) before moving on to sense-based techniques.

Purpose: To address Measurement Theory Construct 4: Cross-Modal Sensory Calibration, which helps clinicians minimise the biases introduced by vision and preconceived visual cues when performing hands-on assessment. Manual therapists often rely on what they see (posture, movement) alongside what they feel. However, vision can mislead touch – angles, parallax (viewing angle), and our brain’s tendency to trust eyes over touch can all introduce error. This module teaches participants to decouple their tactile judgments from visual bias, ensuring they gather more accurate data by touch (28).

Content: In this module’s exercise, participants explore how vision and expectation interact in shaping perception, using a Bayesian inference approach to sensory calibration. They examine how prior beliefs (priors) and current sensory input (likelihood) combine to form an interpreted perception (posterior), and experience firsthand how the brain updates these interpretations when expectations don’t match reality. By deliberately introducing a mismatch between what participants expect to feel and what they actually perceive (a prediction error), the exercise illustrates how the nervous system recalibrates its sensory judgments with new evidence. This approach reinforces HODA-A’s cross-modal cleansing principle by training clinicians to decouple their sense of touch from visual bias – ultimately helping learners reduce visual dominance and perspective errors when using touch.

By doing this, participants experience how much their eyes can trick them. They also learn strategies to avoid these errors: for instance, consciously pausing to focus on tactile input over visual, or physically repositioning themselves (to avoid parallax distortion) during a real patient exam (28). The slide text explicitly mentions reducing “parallax, perspective error, and vision-dominance” as the purpose of this module (28). Participants practice switching “eyes-off” to trust their calibrated hands. Another exercise to simulate how things can look different than they feel (31) – reinforcing not to over-rely on visual inspection.

Support for Core Principles: This module upholds the HODA-A principle that multisensory integration must be managed for accuracy. By training clinicians to be aware of the biases of sight, it ensures that their “data acquisition” by hand remains objective. This directly supports better measurement: as noted in HODA-A’s development, much of the previous variability in manual assessment came from inconsistent observation as well as touch. The curriculum’s inclusion of a cross-modal calibration shows comprehensiveness – it’s not just about touch in isolation, but about how touch and vision work together. The participants, by the end of this module, have gained the ability to check themselves: “Am I feeling this, or simply seeing and assuming it?” Such self-questioning echoes the reflective practice encouraged in HODA-A (often referred to as the “clinician-as-instrument ethos” (32)). Eliminating visual bias at Level 1 prepares them for Level 2 where they will conduct actual movement screens – they’ll be less prone to common mistakes like being fooled by optical illusions of alignment. Importantly, this content is not redundant with the webinar; it is new or significantly expanded, since the webinars mainly introduced HODA-A conceptually. Here, learners get a novel hands-on insight into sensory biases, which strengthens the curriculum’s effectiveness. By including cross-modal training, Level 1 ensures a comprehensive start, covering another critical facet of accurate hands-on assessment identified in HODA-A’s evidence base.

Purpose: To develop Measurement Theory Construct 5: Mechanoreceptor Stimulation, essentially “waking up” and calibrating the clinician’s sense of touch. Even a well-intentioned, unbiased clinician needs finely tuned hardware – their skin, nerves, and mechanoreceptors – to detect subtle changes reliably. This module focuses on physically preparing the hands as precise sensors, ensuring participants can feel more accurately and consistently. It addresses issues like desensitisation (cold hands, fatigue) and improper technique (using only fingertips when the whole hand can gather data) (33).

Content: This is one of the most tactile modules. Calibration Toolkit – Step 5: Mechanoreceptor Activation Sequence. Dr Jo Abbott will guide learners through exercises to stimulate all types of touch receptors. For example, they begin with a hand warm-up – rubbing hands together or using warm water – because warm, perfused hands have better sensation (versus “cold hands” which can dull sensitivity) (34, 35). Then a series of tactile drills is conducted: participants use various textured objects and forces to engage different mechanoreceptors. We will be using spongy, smooth, rough, and vibrating objects, and exploring them with different parts of the hand (fingertips for light touch, palms for pressure, the side of the hand, etc.) (33, 36). This ensures Meissner’s corpuscles, Merkel cells, Pacinian corpuscles, Ruffini endings – all the cutaneous receptors – are activated and the clinician becomes aware of which part of the hand senses what best (1).  They also learn an important HODA-A concept: “offloading-onloading”, i.e., the difference between actively pressing versus receiving information through the hand.

Support for Core Principles: This module directly supports the HODA-A principle of treating the clinician’s body as a calibrated instrument – here focusing on the sensors. It is highly practical and comprehensive: by systematically covering all four types of mechanoreceptors and even proprioceptors (33), the curriculum ensures no aspect of touch sensing is neglected. This aligns with the promise that HODA-A will teach all the measurement tools in one’s hands (6). Effectively, this module increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the clinician’s touch data. In the thesis and HODA-A development, lack of tactile precision was a likely contributor to inter-tester variability, so this training is evidence-informed. It distinguishes itself from earlier modules (no overlap with webinar content here – this is hands-on new training). By the end of this module, participants often notice an immediate improvement – they report feeling details in texture or tissue they wouldn’t have before, and they understand how to keep their touch receptors “online.” This will strongly benefit them in Level 2 Foundation, where they will start applying touch to real anatomical assessments (e.g., palpating landmarks or asymmetries): thanks to this module, they will do so with calibrated, sensitive hands rather than a dull or inconsistent touch. Along with the prior modules, this content ensures Level 1 is an effective starting point – participants have now calibrated their internal state, cognitive biases, emotional tone, and sensory apparatus, which collectively form a robust foundation for advanced HODA-A practice.

Purpose: This module introduces the concept of Measurement Theory Construct 6: Intuition in the HODA-A framework, training participants to let an overall “construct” or impression emerge from touch in a calibrated way. The goal is to cultivate an evidence-based intuitive sense – the ability to gather all tactile information and form a preliminary diagnosis purely from what is felt, rather than from bias or guesswork. This lays the groundwork for integrating all previous calibration skills into a cohesive initial assessment.

Content: Learners are guided through Calibration Toolkit – Step 6: Intuitive Construct Emergence. After a quick self-recalibration using Steps 1–5, participants engage in a simple hands-on screen and allow a calibrated construct to arise from touch. The emphasis is on capturing this impression immediately – by journaling or verbalising – to ensure it reflects pure sensory synthesis rather than cognitive bias. The facilitator highlights the distinction between random “gut feeling” and a calibrated intuitive construct: the former is unreliable, the latter is a powerful product of disciplined sensing.

Support for Core Principles: The focus of this module is on reliability and integration. Learners come to understand how crucial it is to integrate their sensory perceptions with steady technique and concentration. They learn that even subtle changes in their body or environment can influence what they feel, and thus they must practice maintaining calibration in less-than-perfect conditions. This module cultivates the habit of self-auditing one’s consistency: practitioners learn to routinely ask, “Am I feeling the patient or is my body’s state altering the perception?” By facing a controlled distraction or imbalance, they develop resilience – an ability to preserve the accuracy of their touch data despite external or internal fluctuations. Ultimately, this module reinforces that a key to HODA-A’s scientific approach is integration: only when all factors (sensory input, motor stability, focused attention, prior calibration steps) work together can findings be trusted. This insight prepares learners to be more mindful and stable in real clinical settings, where distractions and physical stresses are often present.

Purpose: This module focuses on Measurement Theory Construct 7: Sensorimotor Integration, challenging participants to maintain a consistent assessment finding even as their sensory or motor conditions change. The purpose is to ensure that the intuitive construct identified through touch is not a fragile fluke but a stable perception – one that holds true when slight distractions or alterations are introduced. In essence, this module trains learners to integrate sensory input with bodily control and environmental factors, honing their ability to gather reliable data under real-world conditions. This supports the core HODA-A principle of integration: combining all calibrated elements (sensation, focus, posture, etc.) so that assessments remain dependable and repeatable.

Content: Learners engage in Calibration Toolkit – Step 7: Integration Resilience Drill. By walking through specific steps, participants directly experience the effects of sensorimotor factors on their assessment reliability. The facilitator then guides a reflection on what happened: Could the clinician separate what was truly felt from their own internal noise or distraction? Was the interpretation stable, or did it shift when the participant’s state changed? If a participant’s finding “drifted” under the different condition, it indicates that some aspect of their integration needs strengthening – perhaps they lost focus, their altered stance affected the pressure of touch, or cooling their hands reduced sensation. On the other hand, if the finding remained consistent, it demonstrates robust integration of their sensing and calibration skills.

Support for Core Principles: The focus of this module is on reliability and integration. Learners come to understand how crucial it is to integrate their sensory perceptions with steady technique and concentration. They learn that even subtle changes in their body or environment can influence what they feel, and thus they must practice maintaining calibration in less-than-perfect conditions. This module cultivates the habit of self-auditing one’s consistency: practitioners learn to routinely ask, “Am I feeling the patient or is my body’s state altering the perception?” By facing a controlled distraction or imbalance, they develop resilience – an ability to preserve the accuracy of their touch data despite external or internal fluctuations. Ultimately, Module 8 reinforces that a key to HODA-A’s scientific approach is integration: only when all factors (sensory input, motor stability, focused attention, prior calibration steps) work together can findings be trusted. This insight prepares learners to be more mindful and stable in real clinical settings, where distractions and physical stresses are often present.

Purpose: This Module is the capstone of Level 1, centered on Somatosensory Interpretation. Its purpose is to teach participants how to consciously interpret and solidify the meaning of the sensory data they have collected, and to verify that their resulting conclusions remain consistent and evidence-based. In this final module, learners practice taking the calibrated and  integrated findings, and forming a defensible clinical impression or diagnosis from them. It simulates performing a complete mini HODA-A assessment – from initial touch to final interpretation – with all calibration tools in place. By the end, participants should be able to integrate all their skills into a repeatable assessment method and be keenly aware of any remaining tendencies to drift or err. This prepares them for real-world application of HODA-A and for advancing to Level 2.

Content: This module typically runs as a practical circuit or case simulation that brings together everything learned so far. After having gathered an intuitive construct and tested its stability, participants now focus on interpreting and reflecting on that outcome in a structured way. Participants complete Calibration Toolkit – Step 8: Construct Verification Loop. They revisit their intuitive finding, check for consistency under the integration challenge, and now move into formal interpretation. This involves articulating their construct clearly, cross-checking it against observable cues, and reflecting on stability: Did my interpretation remain the same? What internal variables interfered? The module closes with reflective journaling and group discussion, reinforcing that interpretation must be grounded in calibrated sensation and constant self-audit.

Finally, this module wraps up with an emphasis on forward progress and maintaining calibration. Participants are introduced to the idea of ongoing skill tracking – for example, using a “Construct Drift Log” or personal scorecard to record their assessments and any discrepancies over time. They are advised to continue these calibration practices regularly (e.g. quick self-recalibration and mini-assessments on a weekly basis) to keep their skills sharp. Instructors often mention the upcoming annual calibration days or Level 2 training, where clinicians reconvene to further refine these fundamental skills and learn more advanced applications. The tone is encouraging: even though Level 1 graduates are not experts yet, they now possess a systematic, scientific approach to manual assessment and a heightened awareness of their own instrument (their hands and nervous system). This final module celebrates the strong foundation they’ve built and prepares them to apply it in practice.

Support for Core Principles: The learning focus of Module 8 is on integration and interpretation in practice. Learners concentrate on how to bring all the pieces together into one coherent method and ensure the outcome of their assessment is valid. Key focal points include:

• Consistent Interpretation

• Evidence-Based Reasoning

• Self-Monitoring

• Big-Picture Integration

In summary, this module solidifies everything the participants have learned in Level 1. By practicing a full mini-assessment and reflecting on it, they see firsthand how the calibrated approach of HODA-A leads to a consistent and credible clinical finding. This not only boosts their confidence in using HODA-A in real patient scenarios, but also underscores the value of ongoing practice and calibration. Graduates of Level 1 come away with a repeatable method for hands-on data acquisition and analysis, well-prepared for real-world application and excited to advance to Level 2 with a strong, evidence-based foundation.

• Abbott, J. (2023). Thesis: Can any information gained through a manual MSK assessment using HODA-A be used to inform best practices in MSK healthcare? (University of Chichester).

• Abbott, J. (2023). HODA-A Lecture Webinar Slides. “What is HODA-A” (slide text)

• Abbott, J. (2023). HODA-A Practical Webinar Slides. Construct 1: Interoception (slide text); Construct 2: Sensorimotor Memory; Construct 3: Care Ethicist Attunement; Construct 4: Cross-Modal Calibration; Construct 5: Mechanoreceptor Activation; Integration Circuit (MT6–MT8)