We recently interviewed Skip George,DC, CSCS, CCSP, PRC. Skip will be teaching courses for us in 2016. To read the full interview click HERE.

A big thank you to Ken Crenshaw of the Diamondbacks and the amazing minor league and major league staff for being such great hosts once again at the beautiful Salt River Fields. Ken, you and Ryan really made me feel special when you showed up in your Larry Legend socks and then presented me with the Celtics shooting shirt. You didn't have to do that, (but I'm glad you did). Hand on the heart for the '86 C's. I always feel like a first class guest when you bring us in and we at PRI are honored to be a part of the performance equation in your organization.

Grateful to have Skip George and Kentaro Ishii in attendance as Skip finalizes his preparations to take the lead as an instructor for this course in 2016 and as Kentaro translates the Postural Respiration manual into Japanese for further expansion of PRI into Japan. You two are first class professionals, capable peers and will be fantastic instructors for this institute. It was a pleasure to have you both there.

As a class, we explored the space across the back of the thoracic cavity and discussed the autonomic nervous system response as related to rib cage position and airflow. We talked about moving the ribs into a full state of internal rotation with the lower ribs moving down, moving in and retracting back into a state called Zone of Apposition. 

We talked about the spinal, pelvic, rib cage, airflow and abdominal requirements for good diaphragmatic breathing and also the common compensations seen when these requirements are not met. A lot of time was spent visualizing the tri-planar motion of the rib cage "egg" as related to the abdominal/pelvic "egg" and vise-versa. This allowed us to see the diaphragm as a prime mover for alternating reciprocal gait and tri-planar human performance. What a great weekend with a room full of great professionals. 

Betsy Baker-Bold, Zach Hawthorne, Amie Holbrook, Kari Koos, Melissa Parsons, Janine Peacock, Erin Rajca, Deb Scheibe, Jamie Ablutz, Mark Bouma, Erin Coomer,  Trish Gallant are the best hosts a speaker could have. I truely enjoyed teaching at Olympic Physical Therapy. This organization has been a leader in promoting PRI over the last few years and taking a course at their sites is a wonderful experience in itself.  It was a perfect environment to present Cevical Revolution. The supportive experience will be a memorable one for me becasue of the multi-disciplinary involvement and in depth inquisitive interaction. I also love when course attendees dress in violet.

Elizabeth Caughey, Susan Grote, Andra DeVoght, Kim Eckhardt

Kristen Neisler, PT, ATC and the staff at Novacare were great hosts for a great weekend in Chicago. Sue Walsh, DN, Med, ATC, EMT, PRT from DePaul University joined me in presenting PRI’s flagship course, the one and only Postural Respiration. Sue’s experience incorporating PRI into athletic performance and sports medicine made her a valuable resource to the course attendees working in similar environments.
As a group, we worked to keep our focus on two or three key themes throughout the weekend. First, it was made clear that balanced rib movement in all three planes is the key to unlocking the power of the respiration system. Second, we discussed the role the respiratory system played in unlocking the obviously powerful and always relevant nervous system. And then we discussed the relationship between diaphragm posture and core lumbar spine alignment and the value of keeping the diaphragm properly positioned as the rib cage above the diaphragm counter-rotated in the other direction for rotational performance.
Thank you Josh Hostetler, HKC, BS for coming all the way from Cincinnati to help “keep it real”. Your description of left Zone of Apposition and left posterior mediastinal expansion while attempting right trunk rotation was about as straight forward and good as it gets. “Just dive down and in on the left below the diaphragm (with good breathing) as you bring the cage around to the right above the diaphragm”. Love the simplicity. And thank you Avis Leung, PT for helping us all see human scoliosis when we looked closely at the Left AIC/Right BC pattern. You were a great addition to a very interesting and fun group of professionals. It has been fun to watch the growing enthusiasm for PRI in and around Chicago over the last 3-5 years.