It seems that over the years the courses that I’ve taught for the Postural Restoration Institute kind of run together. So many times I’ve almost forgotten in which city I’ve been! I know that Ron and James have had the same experience. We’ve chatted about it before. This past weekend I was in St. Louis and I taught Postural Respiration at Complete Fitness Results and Nancy Hammond PT, PRC & Lesley Callaham PT, PRC were my wonderful hosts and were unforgettable. They took good care of me and made sure the class went well. Nancy owns Integrate 360 and she and Lesley really have a great operation! Their skills are obvious and they have a true patient following. When I think about Postural Respiration I wish that I could take 3 days and teach it. The concepts are challenging in this class for sure. I see a lot of folks again and again when I teach it. I don’t blame them either. It took me forever to wrap my mind around the details! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at PRI because we really are here to help you. We WANT you to succeed! Nobody gets it all in one weekend and the application of the science to your patients can be challenging for sure. So reach out! Email us! Call us! Send a smoke signal. Let us help and good luck!

Regardless if you are a patient, a course attendee, a guest lecturer, or going there for consultation, when you enter the doors of The Cantrell Center for Physical Therapy, Sports Medicine and Wellness, you are family. The entire staff were engaging and enlightening.  All of the course attendees accommodated my needs to embed the center of our orientation, the orientation for autonomics, and the conduit of zones, i.e.  the foramen  magnum and the vertebral foramen of the atlas, in organized tri-planar revolving movement. They helped me teach future attendees that will appreciate the needs to embrace laterality, asymmetry and sensory integration for cervical function. The content of this course reflected the attendees willingness to consider the reasoning for the neck to revolve, as well as the reasoning to restore appropriate universal tension provided or placed on the neck and its contents. There was a wonderful example of a left Side Bend positioned cranium in class that was so willing to allow me to demonstrate re-positioning and re-patterning techniques with it. Courtney Stearn DPT owns this cranium and she and her cranium, cervical spine and cortex were anatomical gifts to all of us.  Her personality and behavior made the first day a complete day of enjoyment and learning. Thank you Courtney! Sitting to the right of Courtney was Amy Brown DPT who owned a cranium and neck that reflected right torsion through the sphenoid. She also contributed so much to the second day by allowing me to discuss her testing outcomes and her technique demonstration.  She could not have been in a better place or in a better time for this presenter.  Thank you Amy, we are all grateful for your attendance and willingness to share your head and neck.   

Course participation, by everyone, and I mean everyone, was awesome.  So thank you for making this weekend a very special one for me.   I can still see and hear Tassie Cantrell PT putting out strawberries and blueberries, putting furniture away afterwards, smiling ALL the time and answering questions on when she and her facility will be putting on another PRI course, and asking questions about O on A and A on O.

Lola Rosenbaum DPT thank you for being my “sphenoid” and Leah Whipple DPT thank you for being my “shift”.  And finally, Skip George DC, PRC, thanks for being there, and mentoring me, and guiding me, and listening to me, and assisting me, and putting up with my metaphoric satire, and for loving me.  

I had a great time last weekend teaching Pelvis Restoration in Newton, MA. I had not taught a class since last year! It was great being able to spend more time with my daughter Madison before we sent her off to college. Yes, the rumors are all true, she is a Freshman at the University of Vermont! My alma mater! I guess you can take the girl out of VT, but she can always go back! So now it was time for me to get back to #PRINation and share my "pearls" of PRI wisdom. The class was a nice mix of new clinicians to PRI and some that were looking to refine their PRI interventions and concepts. Pelvis Restoration is one of the three intro courses that allows a more integrated discussion of respiration as it relates to the Pelvis and frontal plane control. This course is so much fun to teach! Pelvis allows the clinician to explore how a "Laga Gaga" Born this Way chain can cause our "inner Beyonce" to come out as we learn to stabilize left stance. Thanks so much to Donna Behr for being an amazing host and Anita Furbush, PRC for coming to help me during lab. Since then, I have been busy getting ready for the impending Hurricane. Please pray for the Carolinas as we prepare for Hurricane Florence to hit our sweet states.

Providence, RI, one of the oldest cities in the U.S., is home to University Orthopedics. This PT clinic is GOAT, with large windows and water views on three sides, providing a parasympathetic balance to the focused attention on the impact of human asymmetry. It was wonderful to have professionals from different backgrounds (PT, PTA, ATC, CSCS, LMT) and skill sets come together to consider the profound impact of the diaphragm and rib cage on our movement. Following the discussion on the differences between optimal and sub-optimal breathing patterns, one attendee revealed that this was the first time in her life that she was able to inflate a balloon😊. The smaller-than-typical group size allowed for more one-on-one time in lab, ensuring attendees’ proficiency at carrying out objective tests and non-manual and manual techniques. Thank you to our models (Daniel Anthony, ATC; Kerri-Lynn Francis, LMT; Landa Pappas, PTA; Damion Perry, BS, CSCS; Joseph Robinson, ATC; and Maurice Sicard, ATC) and our reader, Stacey Brennan, MT, PTA – you greatly enhanced our understanding of course concepts. A huge thank you to our hosts at University Orthopedics (Dan Bien, PT, OCS, CSCS; Stacy Faiola, PT, CSCS; Kevin Mahoney, DPT, ATC; Dave Pezzullo, MS, PT, SCS, ATC; and Ed Wojciechowski, PT) for all of the work you put forth to provide a fantastic learning environment!