The New Year for PRI was kicked off with the first Cervical Revolution course hosted by Advance Physical Therapy January 18-19th. This host site is a Postural Restoration Center with some of the most experienced and professional clinicians I have ever met. Their experience and  knowledge of PRI, Schroth Method for Scoliosis, pediatrics and working with dental professionals for occlusal reference is truly interdisciplinary and artful in approach.

Cervical Revolution has  had a lot of "evolution" this past year with a refined, step-by-step description of atlas on occipital bone position that is clear cut and more easy to understand in the Right vs. Left TMCC. This weekend students learned to appreciate and understand what seems to be at first the challenging subtleties of atlas on occipital function. Visualizing how "A" on "O" drives the sphenoid and how the sphenoid positions temporal bones and ultimately the jaw for a tri-planer picture of how the neck, cranium and TMJ complex affects the entire postural system seems daunting to everyone at first. In this course, autonomics is a prime focus as the neck is the neurologic appendage that drives the rest of the body.

This high level PRI group of practitioners was engaged from the first minute on Saturday to the last minute on Sunday actively asking questions, contributing to the professional dialogue and just working really hard to take in the detailed insights of an advanced PRI course. And then, be enthusiastic about how to apply the basic concepts of this course on Monday morning. This weekend there was a strong emphasis on the basics with a straight forward path to application of course principles.

This was a dream course for any faculty member with this kind of energy and participation from students. What made this course rewarding for me was the staff at Advance Physical Therapy. It was such a comfort to be with physical therapists and PRC's Lisa Mangino, Jean Masse, Joe Belding, Susan Henning, Josh Olinick from STEPS for Recovery, Sangini Rane and of course Jennifer Smart in attendance. Jennifer Smart will be presenting at the next Interdisciplinary Symposium in April and her presentation is not to be missed! In addition, this group of veteran PRC's offered clinical discussion and were all lab assistants in one way or another to lighten the load for the entire class and elevate everyone's experience. Shout out to Angela Ellis, DDS who works with Advance Physical Therapy. She is a dentist and was a first time attendee to a PRI course and she could not have been more delightful and engaged! Thank you again Advance Physical Therapy for hosting Cervical Revolution and supporting PRI.

“A Guide To Awareness & Modification Of Habitual Patterns Of Postural Behavior”
We are excited to start of the 2020 calendar year by making progress on one of our newest resources. This patient guide, throughout its 16 pages, will highlight activities in our daily lives which can be modified to restore more appropriate postural behavior. As anyone who has taken a PRI course knows, these positions often turn into patterned dysfunction and compensation. This guide aims to bring awareness to our unilateral lives, and restore alternation while performing our most common daily activities.

Most of these activities can be categorically derived into common PRI positioning. This guide will dive deeper into those positions and the associated behaviors performed within them. For example, walking, talking, sleeping, eating, as well as many other “living” considerations and of course at its core BREATHING! Not only are we excited to be compiling these activities into one patient guide, but we will also be adding several new considerations and recommended activities to the PRI Living section of our website to further build on the concepts within this guide.

This patient guide will be avalible for purchase in various quantities and packaging options later this year! We are hoping that it will help you as a practitioner clearly communicate some of the basic positional considerations of our science with your patients and clients, and it will also include an available marketing opportunity unique to your business on the back cover! Stay up to date with this and other projects, updates and course in reviews on our blog, via our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and our quarterly newsletters throughout the year ahead.

It was a great weekend in New York teaching Pelvis Restoration. We had 48 clinicians attending the course and 13 were attending their first PRI Course….they made it! Pelvis entails positioning of the pelvic inlet and outlet coupled with muscles facilitation and inhibition with respiration. It’s a lot. I felt the class did an amazing job absorbing the material and asking wonderful questions. Edmund, Sebastian, and Romina your thinking and questioning benefiting the entire class, thank you. Frontal plane appreciation with synchronization of the respiratory and pelvic diaphragm were emphasized with demonstration. Nicole is your left ischial condylar adductor still burning? Geri, I hope you appreciated frontal plane of the left inlet and outlet to re-direct airflow into the right apical chest wall and left posterior mediastinum. Physical appreciation of PRI is powerful, thank you both for letting me teach throught you to the class. The weekend went way too fast, I appreciated everyone and their willingness to come and learn. Thank you Dave, Cuyler, and Brendan and Finish Line for hosting. Neal and Sean thank you for lab assisting! I was able to see the Rockettes in their annual Christmas show,  it was specatular!  Bucket List for me since I was young. Thank You again!

In the later part of 2004 I met with Stan Babel through Karen Jiran MPT, PRC and Carrie Langer MPT, ATC, PRC. Stan who owned and managed Physical Medicine Diagnostics Rehabilitation (PD Midway) and wanted to build a pool. At that time I was really interested in hydrodynamics and had countless discussions with my brother who is an engineer regarding pump power, jet nozzles, etc. And more importantly I wanted to design a pool for patterned neuromuscular isolation and inhibition through the use of directional water to maximize specific aquatic afferentation, as well as compensatory push and pull recognized by the autonomic and central nervous systems. My first PRI Sequential Movement (PRISM) pool design was developed and constructed through Stan. All eight of the stations provide neuromuscular isolation and feed forward activation of groups of muscles to resolve postural related dysfunctional autonomic and physiologic behavior through the flow of water. With the arrival of this pool and its science, PDR Midway, became IMPACT Physical Medicine and Aquatic Center.

Presenting course material that is related to the brain’s lateralized hemispheric specialization and the autonomic nervous influence on our central nervous system’s compensatory behavior, fifteen years later, made my amygdala related emotional, sentimental and nostalgic feelings flow uncontrollably. Stan and his wonderful staff over the years has enabled me to continue to move in directions that I patiently outlined, ballooned and flowed with. I feel so indebted and grateful to him and his staffs over the years. Many of those affiliated with this integrated minded center were in this class.

This particular class also made me feel somewhat sentimental, because I have known most, if not all of them, for so many years. They were watched, observed, tested and judged by me. They were my independent, dependent and constant variables for my research effort on knowing when, how and what to deliver to get where we were on November 2nd, 2019. There were 18 Credentialed providers in the room that affectionately tolerated me being somewhat unfiltered regarding autonomic and central nervous systems and their influence on each other and our patterned behavior.  

This course is such a joy for me to teach and resonate around. Just as aquatic flow can re-balance, re-engage, and re-tense us, so can mandibular latero- molar trusive contact, sphenoid (pterygoid) and temporal (temporalis) oscillation, and palatopharyngeus  (diameter of the pharynx) and tensor veli palatine (diameter of the eustacian tube) ANS control. Before Stan, before the pools, before PRI certification, I remember a quote by Socrates that remains with me today. “I cannot teach anybody, I can only make them think” and I am grateful for those who continue to flow and follow thought processes that make them sequentially think.  

The staff at IMPACT are always such wonderful hosts. The morning breakfast, break food and afternoon warm cookies (thank you Stan) are so appreciated. Christie Amundson PT, DPT, HFS,PRC and Mara Brandsoy OTR/L, PRC have a system in place for courses like this. Their and their fellow team-mate’s effort does not go unnoticed.  I also want to thank Amy Pennaz PT and Catherine Shelton PT for their willingness to work with me in demonstrating how to resolve postural related dysfunctional autonomic behavior.