When I studied piano my teacher, Sr. Ann, HHM, would take out a beautiful scarf every so often and place it over my hands so I could not see my fingers.
I suspect we all have been taught in different ways to negotiate the pedals. What's your experience and hindsight?
My experience includes training during formal study and continual use beyond university of Harold Gleason's Method of Organ Playing., ed. Catharine Crozier Gleason (Prentice Hall).
For earliest beginning exercises, one's ankles are carefully and loosely laced together to assist in a "physical memory" which keeps ankles/heels side by side.
Begin with knees together (loosely laced together just below the knees), ankles/heels together and loosely laced together just above the ankles. This reinforces a physical / mental memory which does not allow separation of knees and/or ankles for these first exercises).
Note: this process moves along and becomes "second nature" as quickly as the student's level of discipline to this regimen permits.
More precisely - (print this and place it on the music rack and try it IF you're not already familiar with the process).
Imagine playing (or actually play) middle C on the pedalboard with the toe of the left foot for the value of a slow half or quarter note following by a perfectly legato release of middle C and playing of D-natural with the toe of the right foot.
So forth, this manner:
Knees together & Heels/ankles together:
Left foot (toes only) C-natural then play (legato) Right foot toe (toes only) D-natural Left foot C-natural Right foot E-natural - at this point the toes only of each foot have moved apart Left foot C-natural but the ankles and heels remain together Right foot F-natural Left foot C-natural Right foot G-natural - at this point you have reached the limit of the amount of space you should expect yourself to "allow" while still keeping your ankles and heels touching. (You feet visually represent a "V" (left foot hovering above pedalboard middle C, right foot hovering above pedalboard G-natural, 5 notes/tone higher than "C").
Once this regimen is second nature the student/musician is able, through continual, careful and perfectly controlled and repetitive practice/rehearsal playing intervals of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and a 5th (i.e., C to G) alternating left foot / right foot, to be able to locate those intervals (WITHOUT LOOKING), beginning on any chosen first (left foot) note, i.e., E-natural up to B-natural.
Continuing - beyond the interval of a fifth -
The knees remain TOGETHER as the left and right feet continue to move apart to play the interval of a 6th, 7th and an 8th (octave).
Solid pedal technique is achieved as pure and chromatic intervals are consistently perfectly played WITHOUT the need to ever LOOK at the feet.
More advanced pedal technique is achieved as a student's work includes consistently perfectly played intervals beyond the octave (heel/ankles and knees are, naturally, separated).
This method provides WONDERFUL freedom, allowing confident and assertive (when appropriate) playing of the repertoire, congregational accompaniment and other aspects of fine service playing.
Gleason, Harold: METHOD OF ORGAN PLAYING, 8th Edition (first edition appeared in 1937), publisher = Prentice Hall (Catharine Crozier Gleason, editor).
