Embodied Learning: What Maurice Merleau-Ponty Teaches Us About Designing Training That Actually Sticks
Have you ever run a training workshop that follows this pattern?
Learners show up and they engage with your material. They complete a feedback survey that tells you how much they enjoyed the session. It feels like a ground swell of behavioural change is coming and those learners are going to follow through on all the skills you’ve taught them.
A few weeks later, you check in with the people who attended your workshop and find they don’t remember much from the session. There hasn’t been any follow through and they are still locked into the same old habits.
If this has happened to you, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad trainer or that learners are resistant. It might be that you just had an incomplete picture of the people you were training or because of certain cognitive biases.
This is a common pattern that can impact any training programme. A pattern that assumes learning is only intellectual and that if information is transferred then behaviour will follow. This isn’t the case with lived experience. Behavioural change appears through perception, habit, physiology and relational dynamics.
To break this pattern, philosophical training design is helpful. This is a discipline of exploring ideas from different philosophers and schools of thought and applying them to learning and development. For example, the ideas and philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty are useful and we shall explore them in depth here.
Who Was Maurice Merleau-Ponty?
Merleau-Ponty was a 20th century French philosopher whose central concern was lived experience. In his most famous work The Phenomenology of Perception, he said:
“I am a psychological and historical structure. Along with existence, I received a way of existing or a style. All of my actions and thoughts are related to this structure, and even a philosopher’s thought is merely a way of making explicit his hold upon the world, which is all he is. And yet, I am free, not in spite of or beneath these motivations, but rather by their means. For that meaningful life, that particular signification of nature and history that I am, does not restrict my access to the world; it is rather my means of communication with it.”
What he meant here is that the mind and body aren’t separate entities. Since Descartes, much of Western thought had treated the mind as the seat of reason and the body as a mechanical instrument. Within that framework, learning was something that happened ‘in the head’ with concepts being understood, stored and later applied.
Merleau-Ponty rejected this split and that we don’t stand apart from our bodies as operators. We are our bodies. Or as author Sarah Bakewell puts it in her book At The Existential Cafe, “In general, Merleau-Ponty thinks human experience only makes sense if we abandon philosophy’s time-honoured habit of starting with a solitary, capsule-like, immobile adult self, isolated from its body and world, which must then be connected up again - adding each element around it as though adding clothes to a doll.
Instead, for him, we slide from the womb to the birth canal to an equally close and total immersion in the world. That immersion continues as long as we live, although we may also cultivate the art of partially withdrawing from time to time when we want to think or daydream.”
How Does Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy Apply To Learning And Development?
Merleau-Ponty’s ideas have practical implications for L&D. If we’re fundamentally embodied beings, then learning can’t be reduced to mental acquisition. It has to involve a reorganisation of lived experience and herein lies the core disconnect of effective training not being able to exist if only the mind is trained and the body is ignored.
Think about it. Most training programmes are designed with explanation in mind with either a model being introduced or learners discussing and reflecting. The assumption is that any clarity that learners gain will lead to competence in a new role or help them apply a skill more effectively.
But when a leader enters a difficult conversation, they don’t calmly consult a conceptual checklist. They may experience a tightening in the chest or a subtle urge to defend themselves. When a salesperson hears resistance to a pitch, they don’t consciously retrieve a framework. What happens is that they register opportunity or uncertainty through the tone and posture of the person they are selling to.
These embodied reactions shape perceptions before conscious reasoning kicks in. If training doesn’t address this phenomenon, it becomes harder to reliably change behaviour. Insight and data might increase, but performance will remain ruled by old habits.
Let’s look at some of the core principles of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and be more specific.
The Lived Body
Merleau-Ponty introduced the concept of the lived body i.e. the body as experienced from within. The body that leans forward with interest, recoils in discomfort, straightens with confidence or contracts under scrutiny.
From this perspective, skills are embodied patterns and not just stored knowledge. Confidence is a coordinated pattern of posture, breath, tone and orientation and not simply a belief. Resilience is the capacity to stay psychologically regulated under pressure and an awareness of the physical sensations that are working against the desire to be resilient.
Training that focuses exclusively on concepts stops these embodied feelings from being used to their fullest. Learners may be able to describe what strong leadership looks like, but they won’t feel what it’s like. Their body will revert to familiar habits under pressure because of years of repetition shaping how they speak and how they present themselves with their posture.
Perception As Active Engagement
We often assume that perception is passive, as if the world presents itself all we do is absorb it. Merleau-Ponty argued the opposite in that perception is active and structured by our embodied orientation - we see-as, we don’t see. We interpret and emphasise certain things while ignoring others.
Another aspect of perception Merleau-Ponty spoke about was proprioception. This is a weird sense that tells us if our arms are folded or if our head is tilted. It’s a complex sensation that he goes into detail with in this example:
“If I stand in front of my desk and lean on it with both hands, only my hands are accentuated and my whole body trails behind them like a comet’s tail. I am not unaware of the location of my shoulders or my waist; rather, this awareness is enveloped in my awareness of my hands and my entire stance is read, so to speak, in how my hands lean upon the desk.
If I am standing and if I hold my pipe in a closed hand, the position of my hand is not determined discursively by the angle that it makes with my forearm, my forearm is with my arm, my arm with my torso, and finally, my torso with the ground. I have an absolute knowledge of where my pipe is and from this I know where my hand is and where my body is.”
All of this explains in professional contexts why two people experience the same meeting differently. One may perceive challenge as a threat and the other perceives it as an opportunity. Behaviour flows from these perceptual cues and so training has to shift not only what learners know but what they notice.
Designing for true behavioural change means creating situations where learners see their own filters. Through roleplaying scenarios and guided reflection, learners can observe how they habitually perceive tone, posture, silence and disagreement. Once visible, these patterns can be questioned and reshaped.
The Intentionality Of Paying Attention
Merleau-Ponty emphasised that consciousness is always directed towards something because we are orientated beings. Our attention can’t simply be a mental focus but something we must give every part of ourselves too, exactly like a child does when they are learning about the world.
He believed life becomes a lot simpler and easier when we think of ourselves as overgrown babies collectively seeking each other for a true sense of belonging. As Bakewell writes Merleau-Ponty saw that “we grow up with people playing with us, pointing things out, talking, listening, and getting us used to reading emotions and movements; this is how we become capable, reflective, smoothly integrated beings. Merleau-Ponty was especially interested in the way babies imitate those around them. If you playfully pretend to bite the fingers of a fifteen-month old baby…its response is to make its own biting movements, mirroring yours.”
Effective learning design should therefore structure engagement deliberately with immersive exercises. This should be in place of extended lectures that produce passive observation. The difference is clear in that the former invites intentional attention while the latter creates distance.
Now that you understand the ideas of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, here’s how you could apply them practically with the concept of embodied learning design.
Start With Action-First Training
The starting point is to go against a theory-first training style. Action-first training might be putting learners in a live situation e.g. a timed objection-handling drill in sales training or a difficult feedback roleplay in leadership development. The goal of the exercise is that learners are asked to respond using their current habits and really examine the sensations of their body.
Another example is that you might pair learners together in a sales negotiation workshop with one of them being a difficult prospect. They interrupt, they question price and they apply time pressure. Without any instruction, the other participant has to respond immediately. After the exercise, debrief the learners by asking questions like “What did you notice in your body?” “When did your voice change?” “Where do you think you lost composure?”
In this scenario, learners are operating within their lived body and experience and can take the time to reflect on their reactions.
Design For A Change Of Perception
What will learners understand by the end of a session? This is a common question and outcome used for training framed for gathering knowledge. An embodied learning approach reframes the question to what will learners notice differently?
Perception is a driver of behaviour. If a leader perceives disagreement as disrespect, they may respond defensively. If they perceive it as engagement, they may respond with curiosity. So, the same external stimulus creates different behaviour depending on how it’s perceived.
Designing for a change in perception means structuring exercises that expose blind spots in attention and interpretation. For example, in communication training, you might film short roleplays and replay them in slow motion. You then ask learners to observe micro-expressions like the tightening of a jaw or a break in eye contact. This invites learners to see what cues they missed in the moment.
In sales training, you might track not what is being said but how it’s said. Over time, learners become aware of hesitation, the pacing of their words and the cadence of their voice. The goal here is to alter what feels salient in the moment because once perception changes, behaviour tends to follow if a situation has been experienced differently.
Build In Relational Dynamics
Being naturally talented and skilled can correlate with being good at a job. However, professional and personal development may be stunted when working alone. Leadership, sales, negotiation, coaching and teamwork all happen when interacting with other people. Embodied learning introduces relationship tension and dynamics for this purpose.
As an example, you might bring together a trio of learners to create an immediate feedback loop. One participant delivers constructive criticism, another receives it and the third observes verbal and non-verbal dynamics. The observer notes down moments of defensiveness or signs of people pleasing.
In this example, habits are exposed that are difficult to see in solo reflection. The participant who received the feedback may believe they are calm under pressure, but the observer noticed defensive body language.
The key is to create enough friction without overwhelming participants and doing so in an authentic way where learners feel comfortable feeding back on reactions after the exercise is done.
Repetition Through Variation
Embodied learning encourages the repetition of new skills and behaviours in a non-rigid structure. The repetition is done in different ways so a learner can continue to explore the sensations within their body and reinforce habits.
In a leadership training programme, learners might practise giving difficult feedback to a cooperative colleague. Once they stabilise the skill in that context, the situation changes: the colleague becomes uncooperative. Then, another change happens with the feedback needing to be given publicly.
Through repeated exposure to different conditions, the nervous system can become more adaptable. The ultimate result is for learners to get to a place where they aren’t consciously applying a new mode of thinking or perception step by step. The mind and body are working in harmony unconsciously.
Why Does Embodied Learning Matter?
We’re living in an age of information overload with AI being able to present information to us instantly. This information isn’t always correct and if taken at face value, it destroys critical thinking. Online platforms host thousands of courses on leadership, persuasion, resilience and myriad other topics that can paralyse a learner’s ability to make a decision.
Cognitive overload has become the background condition for modern professional life. Leaders move from meeting to meeting with minimal recovery time, while managers navigate hybrid teams and absorb a constant stream of notifications. Attention is fragmented and learning fatigue sets in.
Under these conditions, pure intellectual training is becoming increasingly fragile. Learners may understand the material during a session, but when they return to the environments characterised by urgency and distraction, the nervous system defaults to what feels familiar and efficient.
Embodied learning cuts through this fragility because it doesn’t rely solely on the recall of information. When learners speak, move, respond and feel their physiological reactions in real time, learning becomes a visceral experience. The body remembers.
Embodied learning also counters the passivity encouraged by digital consumption. A lot of contemporary learning happens in spectator mode, whether that be through watching videos or listening to podcasts. While useful for exposure, this mode doesn’t demand full attention. Embodied learning and training reintroduces vulnerability, accountability and immediacy.
The Final Word
Of course, it’s important to acknowledge the limits of applying philosophy directly to corporate training. Merleau-Ponty wasn’t a learning and development consultant and his work doesn’t offer readily made workshop templates or step by step frameworks.
Also, embodiment shouldn’t be positioned as a rejection of clear learning outcomes, well-defined competencies and measurable evaluation systems. Learners need language to organise their experience and without theoretical scaffolding, experiential exercises can feel interesting but incoherent.
There are also domains in which deep somatic engagement may not be necessary. Technical procedures and regulatory compliance training related to specific systems may genuinely rely more heavily on cognitive processing. Not every learning objective needs a roleplay.
However, whenever the goal is behavioural change, emotional regulation, leadership or identity development, ignoring embodied learning weakens impact. The point isn’t to throw away structured thinking or clear models.
Embodied learning takes an idea and puts it into a learner’s nervous system. It turns “I understand this” into “I can actually do this when it counts.”