PRI nation, it’s good to be back!  

I returned this week from my first opportunity to visit the great state of Louisiana.  What a fantastic welcome this instructor received!  I had the pleasure of introducing nearly the entire class to the science of Pelvis Restoration thanks to the host and hostess Chris and Karlie McDougall at Renew Physical Therapy. Chris, Karlie and the whole team at Renew were kind and gracious, and provided King Cake, and other local delicacies…and I got the baby, so I’ll be back!  

The course involved great conversation and discussion about the theory, science and specifics of inhibiting, facilitating and integrating alternating function of a pelvis into our neuromechanical system. Thank you to PRC, Kyle Babin for your time and energy serving as the lab assistant during our many lab breakouts, you were excellent! This instructor enjoyed the discussion of how to implement PRI objective tests into a comprehensive triplanar picture of the position and tendency of a pelvis as part of the individual human system we assess. Many thanks to Payton Spell, Shaun Lopez, Jessica Lamothe, Lonnie Arroyo, David Giardina (even in the short time!) and more for your help with lab demonstrations and observation of objective tests and treatment techniques.

This group had an exceptional array of patterned movement strategies that made this an enjoyable cross-section overview of the greater population and a great venue for learning first hand. I did my part to eat Covington out of Gumbo and I very much appreciated being welcomed to enjoy an evening with the McDougall family for my very first Marti Gras parade. What an enjoyable spectacle!

Thank you again, my fine Louisiana friends, for an enjoyable learning experience in The Bayou, my best to each of you!

Pasadena Physical Therapy was the location of last weekend's Cervical Revolution. Locatelli Rao, P.T. hosted this course and it is always a pleasure to share time and knowledge with "Loc" on this PRI journey. I first met Loc two years ago in L.A. when I taught Postural Respiration and the questions he was asking then and now are some of the best. What is really gratifying is when a student can take a complex subject, like Cervical Rev, and break it down into component parts to provide a simple, sequential and detailed description of the concepts of the course. This has been a goal in Cervical Revolution to have students take a course and "get" the primary concepts with motivation to go back into the course manual and absorb more completely the material. Application on Monday morning means just getting the most important concepts, start to practice examinations of the cervical spine/neck, know the basics of what they mean and then experiment and provide PRI techniques! Yes PRI courses make our brains hurt a little as most students will attest while their enthusiasm for more expands with their craniums! One of the most powerful PRI techniques and taught in this course is the Active Left Lateral Pterygoid in Protrusion. After testing a student in lab with bi-lateral positive findings, this technique with just a few breathes demonstrated how powerful inhibiting a Right TMCC can be with a left lateral pterygoid. Not only was the R TMCC inhibited, but so were the BC and AIC chains bilaterally.

Follow up recommendations included Standing Cervical Cranial Repositioning with a Supine Active Sacro-Spheno Flexion which were demonstrated in lab with other students all producing immediate neutrality.  A manual technique was provided on another student in lab called the Frontal Occipital Hold who was also bilaterally positive in testing. After this technique, he was neutral upon testing. That was astounding to all, especially this instructor! This course is really about autonomics and reflexive oscillatory function of a neck that has to be free to turn. Cervical Revolution is so fun to teach because of the power in it's application just like all the courses in PRI. Big Shout Out to Chad Moreau, D.C., CCSP, PRC for being our lab assistant again. Your support and presence always brings a positive force to the room. Thanks again Loc for you support, questions, restates, hosting and always expanding your knowledge. 

This is absolutely one of most gratifying courses I get to give twice a year. I truly could engage into this type of instructional endeavor every week. So much fun. And so gratifying to read the comments after each course and how much it meant to both the attendee that has taken a number of PRI courses prior to attending and those that are starting out on the PRI journey.

For a quick review, I am given techniques that were selected by these attendees; and then I summarize who the techniques were designed for at the time I initially clinically used them and applied them to. Obviously this reasoning of application is limited and incomplete, but it gives those in the room opportunity to learn what I was thinking at the time each selected technique was clinically designed. This explanation allows me the opportunity to engage on how each technique is presently viewed by me and incorporated into my integrative mind set and practice, because of the many years of application and outcome assessment. Some of these techniques I have been using over 30 years. Clinical concepts as they relate to things that the clinician should consider, be mindful of, and cautiously move through for optimal outcome and patient acceptance, appreciation and apprehensive containment, are outlined whenever possible. Much of this discussion is generated by real time through class participation and input. This is the most interactive PRI course available, because of the availability of the founder’s mindset and the time spent on each step and the integrative mindful purpose of each individual step.

Additional considerations that I offer, enhances the existential experience and reasoning. This dialogue not only focuses on the technique’s interdimensional outcome, but allows the room of attendees to watch, listen and experience these relationships first hand. This is what I absolutely enjoy the most. To listen to the feedback the attendee gives, describes and relates to after the processed feedforward sense is felt, cortically incorporated and functionally measured, is so humbling and consistently rewarding for both the avatar on stage, i.e. the person who is performing the technique he or she selected, and the engaged viewers. 

Each of the 13 techniques that were dissected in this manner, offered positional, selection, reference, referent, and respiratory considerations for neuro-cognitive repeatable results. Quite honestly, the time preparing for these two days and its unique material, after Jen gave me each separate techniques that were requested by this particular course’s attendees, was as enjoyable as the actual class time. This time spent on outlining key concepts, application, steps, integrative sense, and desired outcomes, acknowledges my historical perspective and strengthens this Institute’s future application of such needed integrated and desired processing. I look forward to any and all of the future Non-Manual days ahead of me, and hope you will consider the possibilities you personally will experience, if you accept this invitation to participate with me. Thank you!

“This course was mind blowing!”
“This was my third of the basic PRI courses. This really helped to bring all the information together.”
 “Before working on shoulders, I now know I need to retrain the diaphragm and restore rib position.”

Attendees came from far and wide to the most recent Postural Respiration course, held at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA.  Nicholas Clark, PhD, PT, hails from London, where he recently stumbled across the science of PRI on YouTube.  “After trying a couple of the PRI exercises, my arm numbness, that I had been dealing with for many months, resolved.” That experience convinced him he needed to learn more.   

Half of the attendees were brand new to PRI, their eyes opened to a new and different perspective on human movement and behavior.  The clinicians at Body Dynamics (Lisa Clarkson, PT; Jennifer Gamboa, PT; Deborah Gilpin, PT, ATC; Gwynn Hegyi, LMT; Kathryn Sparks, LMT; Ashley Templer, PT; and Jorge Villalobos, PT) hosted Myokinematics a year ago, and they were ready to deepen their PRI knowledge.  Many Myokinematics concepts were presented and reviewed, most importantly the left anterior interior chain of muscles’ influence on pelvic-femoral dynamics and a person’s ability to shift their center of mass fully and effectively to the left.  Once the body’s foundation was established, we moved up to the thorax and assessed its ability to function in three dimensions.  

Discussion began with our body’s normal, typical asymmetries which create lateralization to the right.  Countering this lateralized state begins with establishing a zone of apposition of the left hemi-diaphragm, which allows us to deflate a left chest wall, giving us a sense of weight on the left, and inflate a right chest wall to enable rotation of the thorax.  When people engage in occupations and sports that require repetitive movements (think lawyers, dentists, musicians, runners, and baseball players -- the list goes on), the ZOA becomes compromised, leading to the postural maladies that we clinicians witness every day:  hyperinflation, forward head posture, concave chests, scoliosis, winging scapulas, and thoracic flat backs.

Ample time was spent in lab to experience PRI’s non-manual and manual techniques.  Attendees learned concepts such as sensing rib expansion, biasing air flow patterns, sensing reference centers to re-direct the nervous system to new strategies of movement and perception of stability, and guiding a patient through a logical progression, from supine 90-90 positions to upright, rotational performance called gait.

Our labs were enhanced by our attendee-models:  Grace Ball, Pilates trainer; Scott Birch, PT; Nicholas; Bethany Middleton, PTA; and Keith Zrinyi, DC.  Thank you to all of you!

It was awesome to have Sarah Ratti, PT, PRC, in attendance, who brought her colleagues from Bon Secours in Richmond.  Tom Van Ornum, PT, also introduced his colleagues from M.O.S.T. to the science of PRI.  A huge thank you goes out to Karen Soiles, PT, PRC.  Karen is highly experienced and knowledgeable in the science of PRI, and she provided helpful guidance, clarity, and context throughout the weekend.