On ABR and beyond...

PART 3. The truth About The Walking for Cerebral Palsy -Ground Breaking Biotensegrity Perspective

Biotensegrity: The Legs Are The Weakest Link In Walking. In Cerebral Palsy – Look Upwards To The Torso And Stop Wasting Your Time At "Training" Them.

Well, finally we have reached the crux of "The Truth about the Walking" series.

Video 3: "The Main Paradox of Walking: The Legs Are the Weakest Link" turns your intuitive perception of what walking is "inside out". I encourage you to watch it with full attention. I tried my best to illustrate it well and express the key concepts in as parent-friendly language as possible.

"The Main Paradox of Walking: The Legs Are the Weakest Link" runs for about 37 minutes – hopefully you can watch in one go. If not – you can divide the viewing in 2 parts:

• First 17 minutes illustrate the difference between the intuitive  and simplistic interpretation of walking versus the advanced tensional understanding that stems out of the tensegrity-based approach to the architecture of fascia networks. This comparison is set in the visual context of the tensional "bicycle wheel" vs. hard-spoked cart [artillery]-wheel – so you do not need to cut your way through any formulas. 
• Next 20 min – the framework of tensional "bicycle wheel" vs. hard-spoked cart [artillery]-wheel is translated to the real life examples of the 'buckling legs':
  •  the example of a child with cerebral palsy – showing the way that the legs buckle and withdraw upon the contact with the ground ; and then proceeding to demonstrate how  the 'fake standing' works – the one that the rehabilitation and training are so keen on trying to achieve
  • the example of a young healthy child who is just developing the walking ability; you'd be able to see clearly how the legs are first a liability and it takes the evolution of significant upper body strength to counteract their  primary buckling tendencies.

Frankly, I have high expectations for  getting  strong responses from you after watching – such a response might range from: "Wow!" to "This can't be true" – but the difference between the consistently tensegral understanding of walking and the 'conventional' one is so great – that  if you will have watched the "The Main Paradox of Walking: The Legs Are the Weakest Link" with even minimal attention – you can't possibly stay neutral.

It's a clear call for you to define your position. Because 2 different approaches to the understanding of how the walking works – imply completely the opposite approaches to what has to be done in order to improve and  build the walking.

The word "the opposite" is the key here.

 

Unfortunately, all too often parents of children with Cerebral Palsy tend to try to  "play it safe" and "combine" what they see as 'different therapies' – reasoning that the more is the merrier and that the smart person never puts all the eggs into the same basket . Please -- do not fall for this naive mistake!

Whilst these "safe" philosophies of piling things up might be applicable to the cases where the "therapies" have only cosmetic differences but share essentially the same paradigm – say Doman's crawling mileage, conductive education's  training with blocked pivots within extremities; and Bobath's functionally aligned trainings – let me assure you that with ABR we are talking about THE OPPOSITES.. What happens when you add up the opposites? – They cancel each other, right?

That's why I really encourage you to give these matters a long hard thought, have your due diligence and commit to the chosen 'Cerebral Palsy Therapy' with consistency. Don't fall into the pitfall of trying to add up the opposites – because then you are just wasting your time and money.

Well, that's pretty much it. I encourage you to share this video with your friends – to ask them what they think and how does that influence their view of the way that human body works.

I am obviously open for discussion and clarification of any points – having several other aces up my sleeve.

It's time to change the very fundamentals of the movement science – fascia science discoveries and the tensegral framework are giving us a kick in the butt and absolutely urge and force us to get rid of the primitive and outdated beliefs that has been around for way too long …

 

Truth About Walking_Video 3_Paradigm Shift from ABR Central on Vimeo.

Please follow this link and download this video for your comfortable viewing independent of the online streaming speed.

https://vimeo.com/43357880

The Truth About The Walking_Video 3: Biotensegrity Paradigm Shift

P.S. My huge thanks to the models who made this video possible -- these wonderful kids are helping all of you to become a better 'cerebral palsy pro' parent for your own child...

The truth About The Walking for Parents of Children with Cerebral Palsy PART 2:The Key Dilemmas_

Well, the summer is officially over -- so hopefully you had some nice vacations and developed some cravings for the transformational knowledge.

Today's post is probably one of the most important ones that you'll ever get from me -- I'd dare to say that it should really bring the transformation of your worldview -- of the way that you think about the most specifically human of all human movements -- the walking.

I invite you to challenge one of our most natural and the most intuitively ingrained beliefs -- "achieving better walking requires practicing ... the walking"... It seems so self-evident that even without the instruction from a physical therapist the parents of children with cerebral palsy happily expose their kids to do the "walking" celebrating the contacts that a child has with the ground with cheers. It seems so safe and rewarding...

I invite you to re-think this by first taking it to a bit of an extreme: imagine that you wanted to "teach" your child to fly by throwing him or her out of the window with the enthusiastic advice: "Flap your hands, darling, and you'll soar!" -- Sounds ridiculous, right?

Well, putting a quadriplegic child with cerebral palsy through "walking" is equally ridiculous and in the long run -- more damaging. Why? -- because there is no obvious harm that one would see right away. On opposite -- it feels "right": "Wow, we are making progress; we should do more of this.."

This video is the invitation for you to be smarter than those naive thoughts and actions. Walking is a crowning achievement of the human locomotion -- the pinnacle that requires dozens and dozens of elements to be in place in order for the contact with the ground made via the moving feet to be beneficial virtuous cycle. Otherwise -- you are enthusiastically distorting your child's body being enticed by loud cheers and "expert" advice of physical therapists.

Please, find those 40 minutes of uninterrupted attention and study this video intently. There are 11 points that are discussed --each lasting just a few minutes and they are relatively richly illustrated. So even with my monotonous voice you can surely manage to keep yourself alert.

At the same time this video is an example of the intelligent due diligence approach to whatever actions and therapies you lead your child into. THINK! Even the most intuitive therapies for cerebral palsy and brain injury are loaded with hidden dilemmas that you need to be aware of if you really want to be helping your child. Otherwise you'd be repeating the fate of thousands of other children affected by quadriplegia who ended up having their bodies profoundly distorted by dumb "functional training" and the walking in particular.

I hope that this video will raise your immunity to "intuitive claims" of people who lure and seduce you into the BS of "functional training" by talking about "teaching the brain" or "re-connecting the neural pathways"... This is the complete BS and your kids deserve better than the naive dumbness..

Be smart and be inquisitive -- don't let the 'intuitive' and 'self-evident' fool you.

Truth About Walking_Video 2_Key Dilemmas_YT HD from ABR Central on Vimeo.

I apologise for the use of the language that is stronger than usual -- but whenever I think of all those kids with quadriplegic cerebral palsy who were led into the horrific distortions and suffering by their well-wishing parents -- it is really difficult to keep the neutral tone.

Please leave your comments -- don't hold it. This is a polarizing video -- it's not one of those 'informational' ones where you can just make a little mental note and proceed further. I invite you to get engaged and argumentative. If you feel that my argument is too weak -- say it, articulate your position -- I'll be absolutely happy to push this issue as far as it takes in order to make sure that it "clicks".

Thanks a lot