Landing in Munich is like coming home for me. I have family here and I was afforded the opportunity to see my cousins and connect. My mother’s side comes from Munich and Bavaria and our roots are deep here. My sister wrote of my father’s meeting with my mother in WWII in a series of novels the first of which is called: The Reason of Fools by Dodie Cantrell Bickley (see the youtube trailer). After arriving in Munich we settled-in and then had an opportunity to see the city and acclimate to Germany and the time zone change. When I met with Daniel Mueller Osteopath and Eduard “Eddie” Erdeljac MD, DO1, I was greeted with warm smiles and Bavarian hospitality. Lindebergs Academy is like nothing you’ve seen and promises to be a hot bed of PRI in the coming years. This Saturday I started with Myokinematic Restoration and by the time we finished on Sunday, the class was full of excitement and gratitude for learning a new science and a new way to manage clients. Betsy Baker-Bold was a fantastic addition as a lab assistant and her input was incredibly valuable. I am always amazed as I travel around the world disseminating the PRI news along with my interpretation of Ron Hruska’s vision, how friendly and caring the souls are that I meet. We may be from varying backgrounds and walks of life but we are no different at all really. I’m grateful to be here and I will keep you posted on next weekend’s adventures with Postural Respiration!

We wrapped up the year for PRI Integration for Fitness and Movement courses outside of Philadelphia at Maplezone Sports Institute/The Training Room Physical Therapy in Garnet Valley, PA. We had a very awesome group that digested the principles of Breathing, Thoracic Posture, and Sensing Position and the Ground quite well. It really was a fun group to end the year with, so thank you to all that attended! And special thank you to The Training Room Physical Therapy staff and Rob Rabena at MSI for hosting!

 This PRI course heavily teaches components of breathing, pillar strength and axial frame mobility and their three dimensional relationship for cueing and coaching thoracic posture with proper pelvic position. A good coach can value learning how to coach and cue the core differently based off the position the athlete or client is in, i.e. with a unilateral asymmetrical loaded movement pattern and a symmetrical loaded movement pattern and we look to highlight those relationships in this course.

This year we emphasized the parable of “parachutes and pancakes”. Teaching this parable throughout the year we’ve learned a few things on how people train and see (or don’t see) the diaphragm as an important core muscle. Our emphasis in teaching this parable is on helping attendees appreciate how training oblique abdominals and hamstrings to optimize respiratory postural balance is a key ingredient that should be incorporated in fitness and movement exercises. We know that when the ribs and thoracic cage are too stiff and rigid with ribs in external rotation, hyperextension, and hyperactivity the respiratory diaphragm can become tonic, flattened and underused, we could risk training the core in a compromised position and the “pancakes will become crepes” as the spinal mechanics becomes stressed which could further limit triplanar performance and lock up functional movement patterns, inhibiting gluts and other powerful muscles. On the flip side with people that might misuse abdominals or overdo flexion without unlocking the thoracic rings, we could create a different faulty pattern of forced thoracic folding when proper rib IR and thoracic retraction are not coordinated with a neutral pelvis. This could be a problem and would “fold pancakes into a pseudo folded parachute” which will bring about a different set of issues. Confusing?…. well maybe, but bottom line here, if you followed that, you get the parable!

The core was designed to be mobile and dynamic. If you learn to value rib movement and recognize key axial structure landmarks you can tell when you are training pancakes verse parachutes. The more we can train parachutes in various positions, the more we can help our clients be resilient and durable. #trainparachutesnotpancakes

I’m looking forward to teaching this course in 2019. This year was such a blessing to learn from the attendees and help fill the gaps with new material as well as streamline how to teach the material. We’ve listened to feedback and continued to improve the course to share with the diverse crowds and specialty professionals working in various Fitness and Movement settings. A special thank you to James Anderson, our Affiliate course director, for all his hard work and dedication to make these affiliate courses a success. Hope to see many of you next year!