Thank you to Karen Taylor Soiles, PT, PRC, of Collaborative Physical Therapy, who, together with The Teal Center for Therapeutic Bodywork, welcomed 34 clinicians curious about the science and application of Postural Respiration. Karen’s attention to detail, including the wide array of healthy snacks, kept our bodies nourished and brains alert and focused throughout the weekend.

The need to position the left hemi diaphragm was introduced right off the bat to ensure that the right diaphragm autocracy stops ruling our autonomics! Other key concepts included the need to facilitate hamstrings and IOs/TAs to establish a left ZOA followed by reach activities to hold the ZOA and direct air into previously-restricted areas of the rib cage. A series of gait videos enabled us to view firsthand various pelvic and thorax movement strategies. Lack of arm swing on one or both sides were reflected in our PRI tests. They served as a reminder that arm swing is 50% of the gait cycle!

Thank you to Kathryn Bragg, PT, and Laurie Johnson, PT, seasoned clinicians tuned into nuances of performance of PRI non-manual techniques. The take-home from that discussion: So long as the reference centers are sensed by the patient, stated in the instructions as “You should feel…”, the exercise can be quite effective. Ultimately fine-tuning areas that are holding tension and tweaking alignment can help the process.

With Jill Tender, DPT, as our superior T4 model, we succeeded in unearthing a compensatory respiration strategy that responds to additional non-manual and manual techniques beyond what is needed to manage those who have not yet resorted to this compensation. Others who enriched our learning-through-demonstration were: Amelia Franklin, DPT, OCS; Benjamin Fuentes, PT; Tara Pickett, DPT, GCS; Jacqueline Richards, DPT; and Karthik Yadagiri, PT. I really enjoyed my weekend with this wonderful group of clinicians. They gained an appreciation for just how influential alternating, reciprocal rib cage movement is to efficient movement and to the overall health of human physiological systems….and collectively rejoiced in the resolution of wallet-gate.

The title of this artistic illustration reflects how our two lateralized hemi-rib cages operate when their top column of ribs move away from the central axis, or the spine. Bifarious is a botanical name for a structure that has parts arranged in two rows on either side of a central axis.  The Latin definition of ‘bifarious’ is ‘double’. These two representations of the anterior chest wall help clarify the likely degree of lateral flexion or thoracic wall abduction of each row of ribs, with respect to the lung, organ and neurologic asymmetry guidance. It reminds the viewer that they are not looking at one rib cage when you look at the chest or thorax. They are seeing double. Two chest walls that revolve and rotate around a central axis, making all our chest walls bifariously oriented.

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It is always comforting to be teaching PRI regardless of location, but last weekend I was in Detroit, MI. My wife's family are all from just west and south of the Detroit area, so I was in very familiar surroundings. And the host group of Team Rehabilitation was an excellent bunch to host Myokinematic Restoration.

With a full room of nearly 40 health care professionals and movement specialists, and nearly all in attendance having never heard PRI previously, it was an awesome learning environment for everyone. This group was very dynamic and asked great questions. As this course evolves, we end up adding more and more lab time. This past weekend, 1/3 of the course was lab based, so we had ample opportunity to learn from each other.

We started our dive into the difference between normal pelvifemoral mechanics around the normal neuromechanical presentation that is the L AIC pattern. Then we went deeper into normal compensation vs. pathological compensation patterns. We transitioned into muscular ramifications of the inability to get out of the L AIC pattern, which highlighted the importance of having a "good boy band" rather than a "bad boy band."

We had ample time to practice the positional testing as we were able to determine what patterns we all had inside of us. Low and behold, every single one of the attendees proved to be in a PEC pattern. Based on this group of attendees all having the same extended pattern, we had to have the "Batman vs. Bruce Wayne" conversation. I was in a room of "Batmans”, and we all needed to be more like "Bruce Wayne." This necessitated a demonstration of how to get someone out of a PEC pattern and into a L AIC pattern, so the rest of the weekend had an opportunity to resonate with the attendees. With two activities, we were able to take a very strong PEC individual, and turn them into a L AIC pattern. Because underneath the bilateral extended patterns of the PEC lies a L AIC pattern.

The "PEC busting" demonstration helped us proceed into the management of a L AIC pattern. Nearly the entire afternoon on Sunday was lab time, where everyone had the opportunity to find and feel hamstring, IC Adductor, gluteus medius, internal obliques, and gluteus maximus activity. Reports of "feeling different" and "feeling my hips" were common comments after our lab.

My thanks to Team Rehabilitation for their hospitality. They know how to host a course! My thanks to Shelly DeRuiter and Craig Stasio, who were awesome lab assistants. Thank you to Cyril Shuster, Alexandre Vieria, Todd Cummings, and Michele Weis for your excellent questions and re-states. Thank you to Michelle Shrader and David Selak for allowing us to learn from you in our demonstration portions of the class. My hat is off to Alexandre Vieria, as he traveled from Brazil to hear PRI! I greatly appreciate our conversation around tennis players and the necessity to have excellent frontal plane integration. Thanks to everyone for great weekend!