How I Approach This Work
I can also skip the more traditional commands such as, “lift your left hand”, “Move your toes”, that address the left-brain which can make the action of walking into a disjointed series of actions with an over riding terror of falling down. I involve the right brain and work towards seeking a sensory goal such as, “touch my eyelid”, and let the body’s own goal fulfillment systems kick in to figure out the mechanics involved. Think about early childhood experiences, your body knew what to reach for before you knew words to reach the things that interested you. As a former professional ballet dancer, I am more familiar with the finer points of balance than the average trainer and so I am able to teach refined balancing techniques to people who are just learning to move from a wheelchair and find their balance onto their feet again. As a dancer and a mime, I myself learned fine motor control techniques that come from applied resistance to my own movement. Have you ever watched a mime walking in slow motion? To achieve this effect, we resist against our own movement. Learning to employ the muscles that resist movement right along with the ones that cause movement can dramatically improve the control you have over your movements. I have helped people to make handwriting dramatically better by teaching them to resist the movements of the fingers as they write. Proprioceptive means relating to stimuli that are produced and perceived within an organism, esp. those connected with the position and movement of the body. I do a lot of work reprogramming the sensory part of the brain, because the proprioceptive aspect of movement is the body’s perception of where your body is in space and relative to gravity. This means the body must know when the balance is beginning to go or the body will not correct in time to prevent a fall.
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I
approach the body as a perfect machine that needs proper direction
to achieve an intended movement and not a lot of individual commands,
lift leg, advance foot lower foot…etc. The muscles can be
individually reconnected and strengthened but ultimately it is the
cohesive intent of the mind that must direct the body toward results
based upon desire to achieve a goal. Fluid balanced movement is
an act greater than the sum of the individual muscles being asked
to move.