The Thinking Practitioner Podcast:

Episode 153 TBD

Whitney Lowe  

Welcome to the Thinking Practitioner podcast

 

Til Luchau  

a podcast where we dig into the fascinating issues, conditions and quandaries in the massage and manual therapy world today. 

 

Whitney Lowe  

I'm Whitney Lowe 

 

Til Luchau  

and I'm Til Luchau

 

Whitney Lowe  

Welcome to the Thinking Practitioner

 

Til Luchau  

Books of Discovery has been part of massage therapy education for over 20 years, 1000s of schools around the world teach with their textbooks, e textbooks and digital resources, books of discovery, likes to say, "Learning adventures start here". They see that same spirit here on the Thinking Practitioner podcast, and they're proud to support our work, knowing we share the mission to bring massage and body work community and live in content that advances our profession. Check out their collection of e-textbooks and digital learning resources for pathology, kinesiology, anatomy, physiology at booksofdiscovery.com where Thinking Practitioner listeners like you save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout. Thanks, Books of Discovery. 

 

Til Luchau  

Robert Schleip, I'm glad we got this moment here at the Fascial Research Congress to check in and hear how it's going. How's it been for you so far?

 

Robert Schleip  

I love it. I'm very surprised. I expected very difficult conference at the worst place at the wrong time, 

 

Til Luchau  

and it hasn't been like that, 

 

Robert Schleip  

yeah, it's wonderful. So the whole atmosphere is about sharing. We have 560 people. It's bubbling from all over the world.

 

Til Luchau  

Here's the map of where people are from all over the world, yeah? Lots of conversations, lots of collaborations, people connecting,

 

Robert Schleip  

and a beautiful spirit. It's really nice, the questions and the learning and laughter and meeting old friends and new people coming up to me and sharing questions and insights.

 

Til Luchau  

That's always one of the best things about these is the connections and the social network that gets formed, and you've always been a hub for that. I mean, look at that. That's kind of Robert in this field we are. But you also give some kind of credit, I don't know how serious you are to the nature of connective tissue itself. 

 

Robert Schleip  

So I often say, so if you want to learn about fascia, you try to become a little bit like fascia yourself in your social behavior, in your mental structure, that you're not in terms of isolation and not protection of mental property, and this is my idea, and not yours. It's about sharing and making rich connections, and this is a perfect place for it.

 

Til Luchau  

Well, people that weren't able to join us in person for this connection, what would you want them to think about or take away or learn from this experience that we're having here?

 

Robert Schleip  

 Everybody gets new things. For me. Keith Baar was one of the highlights yesterday. He has new ways how to increase collagen synthesis in tendons. And I'm now working together with other people how we can use that with hyper mobile people. It's low weight exercises, but more health for 10 seconds, for 30 seconds,

 

Til Luchau  

he's looking for the optimal low the optimal amount of time. 

 

Robert Schleip  

Very, very good, and it's more isometric positions. It's not my happy jumping that I had been teaching. I will still be doing it, but there is a quicker way to increase collagen synthesis if you want to increase collagen 

 

Til Luchau  

And it sounds like less than we expected, yeah. Lester, yeah.

 

Robert Schleip  

So it's but you can do it twice a day for 10 minutes at a time. You can rest for two minutes in between. So it's an easy protocol, and much more powerful than the protocols that we have been using before.

Til Luchau  

We have a date to have him on the podcast to talk about that. . Anything else, anybody else you'd like to highlight for us?

 

Robert Schleip  

Well, the ultrasound has been a big topic today, and that's really advancing, not only based on AI, but also that we look for different structures in subcutaneous connective tissue. And a very nice story our friend Gil Hadley, he was apparently the one who gave the hint to Carla Stecco about funding available from the lip0demia group, and now Carlos got a lot of funding to research on lipodemia, and she presented some some brand new data.  So which layers are changed in these people, and how there is an inflammation associated with it. So these are really nice things, but a lot of that is only possible because of ultrasound imaging getting to a new frontier. So I think a lot of people who go out here, they are now looking at which portable ultrasound device. Do I want to wait another year, or do I want to get one? And who teaches me how to use it?

 

Til Luchau  

At the other end of maybe the technical spectrum is Steven Porges, who's speaking

 

Robert Schleip  

him up late, later today, and that will be the big topic tomorrow, and how you how the vagus will be, and Gil Hadley will be there, and I was there at the dissection course, and Gil showed us how the mechanical strength of the vagus nerve is much I thought it's a very thin thing. Now it's a whole strong cable, and how intimately it's connected with a lot of fascia.

 

Til Luchau  

He'll give us a physical tour of it, Steven Porges will talk about his ideas of the function different

 

Robert Schleip  

and then Robert Schleip did a lecture on the first day on the autonomic nervous system and how fascia and the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system are interacting with the immune system. And now a lot of attention is on the macrofages and mast cells. They are immune cells, but they direct a lot of the fascia fibrosis and the inflammation in the connective tissue. So for me, an eye opener, and I shared that on my lecture talk, was this new research published in Nature half a year ago that the nucleus of the solitary tract that was always mentioned by Stephen Porges, just one of four or five ways how the vagus nerves informs the whole immune system is very profound. And if the vagus stimulates that small nucleus in your brain stem, then your body wide inflammation is sedated, you know. So body-wide inflammation, not only in lipodemia, in aging, or now I'm 71 year old. So, so, so it is a very important topic. And then this stimulation from the vagus to this nucleus of the solid eye track is kind of a body wide. Keep it, Robert, you're no reason to be excited.

 

Til Luchau  

So new understanding, new levers into this whole picture of inflammation and the nervous system, which you've been helping us articulate, and as always, understand how to work it.

 

Robert Schleip  

What one thing is here, the whole conference is organized by powerful women, not one man involved in the whole thing, and they are into collaboration more than even we did when we taught together at the Rolf Institute and we sticked our brains together. But the three, four women who have been doing that, they have been emailing and talking with each other probably 24 hours a day to prepare the conference. And you can see how they do their announcements.

 

Til Luchau  

We should mention their names, Tina Wang, Jo Phee

 

Robert Schleip  

Kyra De Coninck and Fabiana Silva, yeah, yeah. So they have been doing and it shows. they make mistakes and they go forward,

 

Til Luchau  

and it's an amazing thing they put together. It's a long list of presenters, and it's going really, really well. 

 

Robert Schleip  

You wanted to do it better than the old guys like my friend Tom Finley and me and Eric Jacobson. Yes, we did it all ourselves, but we were about being right and science first, and clinicians second. And these women say, No, the clinicians and science. So I think they have it as the title of the conference, so that we share on an eye level. And if you look at the program, we have much more components in the program where which are hands on and which are clinicians on the stage and scientists sitting there and listening to them, and that is new, and it works very well.

 

Til Luchau  

And there's a lot of hunger for that. We just had a discussion group about what we're taking away nice. And there's so much hunger for Okay, so now, how do I use it? And we're having a chance to have those conversations explore that.

 

Robert Schleip  

I have people there on stage, and they said, Robert, I thank you. 10 years ago, you inspired me to and I go, Holy cow. You know, they are running a research lab. They are presenting a study there, and they tell me things that I know that little about it.

 

Til Luchau  

So, Robert, thank you for me from 10 or more years ago, for the inspiration and the directions and the ways you bring things together. So thanks. You've been a big influence on me, and by extension, so many people,

 

Robert Schleip  

yeah, so we also need to thank Tom Findley and Leon Tatum and many other they have started something, and now it's rolling, and we cannot stop it

 

Til Luchau  

anymore. Yeah, anything you're looking ahead towards

 

Robert Schleip  

more things like that. Yeah, just people learning and and more personal meetings. It's so nice to have people coming in and saying, Robert, nice to see you. So this is very nice.

 

Til Luchau  

Thanks for taking the moment to talk with me about this. Appreciate that. Yeah, here we are at the Fascial Research Congress, and I'm with. Cathy Ryan, hey, Cathy,

Cathy Ryan  

and I'm with Til.

 

Til Luchau  

What's it been like so far?

 

Cathy Ryan  

You know, I love this conference. Yeah, I think the the most exciting thing for me about this conference, aside from all the incredible information we're getting, is the opportunity to have conversations with other people and just, you know that exchange that's happening certainly the opportunity for someone like myself, who, I'm not a researcher, I'm a massage therapist. RMT are the only initials that I have after my name, but sitting down having conversation with researchers who, interestingly, has the book that I wrote and said that what we do helps to inform them. Because I was gushing over the researcher saying, what you do helps to inform

 

Til Luchau  

Tell us the name of the book.

 

Cathy Ryan  

Traumatic Scar Tissue Management. I had to think of it a moment.

 

Cathy Ryan  

Yeah, I'm so excited about this opportunity to have these conversations with the researchers, because really that for me has been the most transformative thing you know, for my practice, is understanding better what I'm feeling, what the potential that my hands have and and possibly how we're getting there.

 

Til Luchau  

So it helps what you're what you're finding Here are ways that help inform that for you, helps inform your hands. What are the you are finding ways to do that

 

Cathy Ryan  

absolutely, absolutely. You know, I'm a process person, right? So it's like, if we understand what's going on in here, then we have a better opportunity to figure out what it is that needs to shift or change based upon whatever the patient's goals are, and then for me to figure out how best use my hands. So is it something that might we need to move some fluid? So the way that I would have used my hands to move fluid be very different than the way I might use my hands to mobilize tissue or calm the nervous system, or sometimes there's a combination of those things, because our bodies are really amazing and do a bunch of things all at one time, because there's no one agent and one outcome, a lot happening In concert. So yeah, absolutely. This conference has been a huge, a huge catalyst for me.

 

Til Luchau  

So people will be listening to this after the Congress. Do you have one thing you want to send out to them? You get to time travel a little bit into the future and give them a gift from here, or some advice or a tip from what you've experienced here so

 

Cathy Ryan  

far, wow, don't be afraid of science.

 

Til Luchau  

Nice. Don't let it scare you. Great. And you have some great courses and different things like that, where people can go find out about your take on silence and you can help us be less afraid. Do you want to say anything about how people can find you?

 

Cathy Ryan  

Probably the best way to find me is to go on to the heal well website in the US. I teach courses through Healwell. So healwell.org That's where you'll find where I'm teaching in the US, and they also have, like my bio on there, so that's a great way to find out where

 

Til Luchau  

you have one course on Advanced-Trainings.com your Scar Tissue

 

Cathy Ryan  

that too! And now that you remind me I also Nancy and I, Nancy Keaney Smith and I, who I co wrote the book with, we have a three part scar tissue series,

 

Speaker 1  

ABMP, the ABMP library. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Cathy, my pleasure. my friend.

 

Til Luchau  

Okay, I'm here at the Fascial Research Congress with Gavin Ruiz, hi, and this is your first time at a conference. Yes. What do you think? What's it like for you? So far,

 

Gavin Ruiz  

it's incredibly overwhelming. I went into this not thinking I would know anything that these people were talking about, but I'm really glad that I did, because I know a lot more than I thought I did, which is really nice. I just got out of school, like massage school, so I was like, I have bare minimum knowledge, but I was very well prepared, so I'm very proud of myself.

 

Til Luchau  

So yeah, so you are finding things here that you want to try to remember.

 

Gavin Ruiz  

Yes, I've been taking notes on, like, everything. I don't remember anything right now, but I

 

Til Luchau  

will, if you had, if the fairy godmother came to him said, you can remember just one thing from the conference?

 

Gavin Ruiz  

Oh, probably, oh, what was his name? The he was talking about how your tendon strength. I was only like, good for like, five minutes or something. Keith Baar, yes, like, you're in. He was like, the the G Stim thing that's involved in all that, that's, like, responsible for rebuilding the tendon. Yeah, I really need to go back in that, because I thought that was so interesting. And I want to apply that to, like, just like biomechanics for what I'm doing. So like, how long should I actually

 

Til Luchau  

be holding my body that there's an optimal amount of time and it's a lot less? Than we think

 

Gavin Ruiz  

exactly. So I like, I want to make sure I'm holding myself right, because I'm only 20, and I refuse to not do this.

 

Til Luchau  

And then last night, we had a discussion in a group about how we're going to apply what we're learning here. And you had some interesting advice for us all. Do you remember what that was?

 

Gavin Ruiz  

Wing it. If you know your stuff. Just figure it out. I mean, you gotta because the I would say, clinicians don't know what like us as practitioners do individually, so it's kind of a for us to take their information and be like, Okay, how do I personally apply that to whatever client I get? Because they don't know what you do and they don't know who your clients are. So it's important to me to, like, take this and put it, sift it through the lens of me a massage therapist as a person, and then my therapeutic relationship with my clients.

 

Til Luchau  

Cool. Thanks, Gavin, you're welcome. 

 

Til Luchau  

Eric Franklin, thanks for taking a moment. You're the developer of the Franklin Method. Anything more you'd like people to know about you and what you do?

 

Eric Franklin  

Well, what is the most complex machine in the universe? It's most likely the brain. So I would say it's a go to tool to learn how to use, and one of the things you can do is mental imagery. And there's a lot of research on mental imagery. We know that it's very useful in rehab, very useful to improve performance. And what's great about using your mind mental imagery embodiment techniques is that it's free, always available, and can be adapted to any kind of issue you might have.

 

Til Luchau  

So you've been very kind with me over the years to let me use a couple of your images in my book, of course, and then the courses gladly, and they're all they always communicate so much that we could spend a long time explaining or we can show Eric Franklin's image and give people a sense of that, and then talk them through an experience of that in the body. Is that the basis of either work with people, would you say

 

Eric Franklin  

not necessarily, because, especially if they're metaphors, they're very personal. So I can suggest a metaphor like, imagine your shoulders to be slippery bars of soap, but if you're not into soap, that's not going to work for you, you know. So I think that in the end, I help people discover what works best for them. That's my job as a teacher, not to tell them what to do. They hear that enough, but help them, you know, to find what makes them feel better, move better, or get, you know, eliminate their problem. So it's more of an empowerment technique, and one of the tools is metaphorical imagery, but we also do anatomical imagery, which requires a little bit of an introduction. So most people don't know where their hip joint is, and of course, then lot of issues are going to rise from that, because you won't do a squat correctly or pelvic floor exercise correctly. So anatomical imagery, and related to that, is body schema, in other words, improving the clarity you have of your locations and relationships in your body, and we have research that shows if you improve body schema, you improve movement. We even did a paper on people who had Parkinson's, which are notoriously challenged with their body image, and we were able to improve body image, and through that, also improve movement. Image schema, body schema, or I like it called body schema. Body schema is your is your visual, proprioceptive body concept, locations, relationships. And so, for example, in the Parkinson study, they have a very crooked, strange picture of their pelvis, and we taught them the pelvis and the shapes and where things move and and after that, they move better. So we usually think, oh, to move better, we need to do this exercise or that exercise. You also move better if you see your body more clearly as it is.

 

Til Luchau  

And very you're describing it in visual terms, seeing the body

 

Eric Franklin  

and feeling, of course, and that's the other thing. You know. Imagery comes in many modalities. So the most common, of course, is visual, kinesthetic and auditory for most people. But you can also use gustatory, olfactory imagery or rhythm as an image. So yeah, we teach people how to use all the different modalities. And in imagery is something called vividness. So the more clearly you can see the image, the more effective it is. And so that's another thing that we can learn about. And then, of course, there's two big categories, so using mental imagery with movement or without movement. So why would you want to use imagery without movement? Well, let's say you have an injury, and we just had a lecture here. We saw how fast collagen production goes down and but you can still keep your strength, maintain your strength if you do mental imagery exercises. So people don't realize that if I do imaginary bench presses or squats, you are still gaining strength, because a lot of strength gain is actually neurological and not changes in the muscle. So this conference mostly focused on changes in the muscle to create flexibility or strength, but it's also, of course, changes in the nervous system. Yeah, you've

 

Til Luchau  

been talking about movement as a way to access or work with those imagery. Anything to say about the role of touch? I know a lot of I'm a manual therapist. I know that I'll just do through manual therapy.

 

Eric Franklin  

The role of touch is so. Were important. I mean, you know, in somatics, movement, imagery, touch, however, since covid especially, I've been using a lot of self touch techniques so that people you know who are worried still or don't like to touch you can always touch yourself to improve embodiment, movement or freight changes in your fascia. So I have, like, for example, this exercise shoulder sponging. You put your hand on the shoulder, you squeeze the shoulder, and you imagine you're squeezing water out of a sponge. Right then you can roll your shoulder and squeeze, and you imagine you're squeezing water out of a sponge. And of course, the sponge is similar to the structure of fascia, but the other function of that is to keep people with the program. You see, we give people an exercise, and then they start daydreaming, and they look at the lamps, and you know, it's just much less effective because they're not with it. They're not there with the exercise. And we also know that if you focus on an area body, you immediately up regulate the tone in that area, so the image helps them to understand what they're supposed to do, keeps them with the exercise, and also creates more activation in the area.

 

Til Luchau  

Very clear, and you've been so creative over the years in giving us ways to work with that and holding that point of view for us. So thanks for your influence in the work. Thank you so much. Yeah, how can people find out more about what you do? 

 

Eric Franklin  

Well, franklinmethod.com We have a website. We have lots of courses, live courses, online courses. I have a free neurofascia webinar coming up so and, yeah, lots of stuff online.

 

Eric Franklin  

Franklinmethod.com Thanks very much, Eric, thank you. 

 

Til Luchau  

Thank you. Sneha Krishna, you're here at Hi. We're at the Fascial Research Congress. I'm just meeting you, but I've known about your teaching for some time. Can you tell us something about what you do?

 

Sneha Krishna  

Yes, I'm a started off as a Pilates educator, and I think Gil had least three week dissection program completely changed my life, and I couldn't stop seeing how manual work makes a huge difference. So I went ahead became a manual therapist right after that. So I practiced both manual and movement therapy to work with people now.

 

Til Luchau  

 where are you based? 

 

Sneha Krishna  

I'm in India, Bangalore,

 

Til Luchau  

 And you presented here. You offered us something. Can you tell us what that was?

 

Sneha Krishna  

 Sure I've been fascinated about. You know, when I hear all of these major jargons and concepts, I have a biochemistry background, and it felt like I could kind of dig a little deeper and understand these concepts much better. Because when I started off listening to Dr Stecco's, both the Stecco's and all of these major presenters, you know, it kind of struck me that it was becoming a lot more difficult to comprehend what they were saying. And then, you know, when I looked back, I had to go back into the basics of fundamentals of school physics and, you know, chemistry. And then once I cracked that, I realized that that seems to be the major concern for a lot of people to comprehend.

 

Til Luchau  

It's hard for us to understand the research without those basic concepts in physics and material science on that

 

Sneha Krishna  

yes, so I kind of wanted to make that a lot easier, because I know that I came through that journey. So the idea was to hope that with that presentation, it will make make a lot of people's lives easier. So I think today's same presentation with Dr Stecco, Antonio Stecco presented, I think hopefully that a lot of people enjoyed understanding that a lot better from my yesterday's presentation.

 

Til Luchau  

Can you give us one thing here that will help our listeners understand some of what you want to offer

 

Sneha Krishna  

in terms of what I offer personally. Oh, fantastic. I teach a bunch of courses. I think one of my major courses that I really enjoy teaching as of now is about fossa, like all of us here. So I have a three part

series course that I offer, which is six hours each. Everything's online. I teach the fundamentals of fascia anatomy and the biomechanics of fascia, so that we go into the nitty gritties of it easy to answer questions and, you know, no no stress of 10 minute conversations. So, and that's the first part, and the second part would be dealing with the understanding the continuity between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor, and the last part would be the thoracolumbar fascia and the rectus sheath. So that gives the all three kind of come together to form the myofascial core, in terms of being able to understand the new possibility. Where do people find that? It's on my website, available on my website, that's your website.

 

Til Luchau  

Transcendfit.co  Okay, so one fascial fact, would you like us to know? If you leave some people with something you'd like them to know about fascia what would that be?

 

Sneha Krishna  

I think it's so beautiful. All that. It kind of connects all of us, brings all of us together. I've been listening to so many people from different areas of that they're working that I think we're all trying to feel that we're not deviants in some way or the other, right in our own lines of work. And I enjoy the fact that this is a place exactly like connective tissue. We're finding that space where we can all connect and, you know, take away a little bit of each other's work and take those best practices home and see, like multiple tools in the toolbox and see what works for whom you know. So I think that's, apart from all the science that outs there, I think that's the biggest thing that I feel like fascia and the FRC has to offer. Thank you. Stay on. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

 

Til Luchau  

Hi. I'm here at the Fascial Research Congress with Miriam and Heike.

 

Miriam Wessels  

Hello, hi, hi. Nice being here.

 

Til Luchau  

Tell us something about what you do. 

 

Miriam Wessels  

Well, we're almost everything. So I'm a sports scientist, I'm an osteopath, I'm a fascia treatment person. We have a big practice in Hamburg, Germany. We're authors. We wrote 13 books. The last one was about the fascia code. You say we the two of you, yeah, we're together team, yeah, for 25 years, I think, yeah. Something about you?

 

Heike Oellerich  

Heike, I'm an educator for dynamic fascia training.

 

Til Luchau  

Dynamic fascia training. What are you offering here at the conference?

 

Miriam Wessels  

Well, one thing is the fascia code, that we're Vikings and elves, the Vikings are stiff and the elves are very lax. And we talked about that, that if you do exercise, then the Vikings need more exercises to be more flexible, more movable, and the elves need more stability, and that we can use the same exercise, but that one is then, well, 

Miriam Wessels  

yeah, one's training more flexibility and one is training more stability at the same time.

 

Til Luchau  

And this is a body type, or connective tissue type, that we tend to have, and so that determines our needs in that way is that? 

 

Miriam Wessels  

Well, research leads to it that. And we are born with the the elves, the ones with less, less fibroblasts, and the Vikings with more. So they built more fibers and more connective tissue, blah, blah, and we do less. So then you being everybody, everybody. So everybody has different amounts of fire, fiber blasts. And then we as elves, we as elves, elves, and she as Viking, or fibers, fiber blast and everything, yeah.

 

Heike Oellerich  

So our types are very perfect til the location where we were grown up, not where we grown up, where the humans before us grown ups.

 

Til Luchau  

Our ancestors seem to be a part of that are in the Arctic field, either tropical or artic,

 

Heike Oellerich  

yeah, yeah. And now we live here, and we have rooms, and we have heat and so on. And we don't need our speciality, yeah, we don't have to be specialized, yeah, yeah, and yeah. So I need warm climate, and she needs cold climate. I need to eat all the time. She needs one meal a day. So because that was in many 1000s years ago, that was important, but

 

Miriam Wessels  

training and treatment is only for one type of person, so, and that's, I think that's not the right way to heal both types. So we may have met to make a difference.

 

Heike Oellerich  

Yeah, we make we have to individualize it, and it's not that ever. Then there's one group of elves and one group of Vikings. We everybody is everything. Not every one type is 100% that or 100% that. We're all a mixture of it.

 

Miriam Wessels  

But most of the people are not 5050, so they have attendance, yeah, yeah, and a tendency to to one, pull, pull,

 

Miriam Wessels  

yeah, so. And then when we think about treatment, exercise, surgery, wound healing, because they have more fibroblasts, the wound healing is faster. They the Vikings. That one is a Viking, yeah. Wound healing is faster. In that case, yeah, and more chaotic, and wound healing is much slower in my body, much slower. And yeah,

 

Til Luchau  

so you, you said you're an osteopath. Our audience are largely touch therapists, manual therapists, how? What are some thoughts that you can offer them to apply this idea in our practices?

 

Miriam Wessels  

Yeah. Yeah. Well, when we think of anseverity, then it is that elves have spots which are stiff because they need anchors. And Vikings are stiff overall.

 

Heike Oellerich  

If you do pressure to me, my whole body give pressure back back. And for the elves, you need a lot of pressure to go inside, because they're so relaxed. So it's very different. And she's normal, sensitive, yeah, normally, when you're a therapist and you are one of the type, you treat as this type, or you train as a trainer as this

 

Miriam Wessels  

time. So, yeah, what you're more comfortable with? You do? You know, if you're a Viking, you take your elbow and more like a Rolfing thing, you know,

 

Heike Oellerich  

the outside. So first we breath, inhale, exhale,

 

Miriam Wessels  

that's the alpha perch, yeah, yeah. And we make fun of each other because it's so funny that we worked together for a long time, and we wrote a lot of books and with a lot of exercises, and we were arguing, arguing about what this exercise does for the person who will read it. And then we, Robert, years ago, came up with this idea, and we said, Ah, that's why and that

 

Til Luchau  

so, yeah, he calls them Vikings and temple dancers,

 

Heike Oellerich  

yeah. But in Europe, nobody knows what is a temple dance.

 

Til Luchau  

Nobody in America either. So okay, elves

 

Miriam Wessels  

are, yeah, yeah. So yeah, elves are the ones with the with, um,

 

Til Luchau  

nice. That's

 

Miriam Wessels  

great. Yeah, things, yeah, they have,

 

Til Luchau  

okay, so for manual therapies, maybe stiff all over. You're describing stiff spots with things less stiff. In both cases you described where there's tension or stiffness. Is there a role for manual therapy with a hypermobility that doesn't have to do with stiffness?

 

Miriam Wessels  

Yeah, well, and it's important that you don't get rid of the stiffness of an elf, because then this whole system will fall apart. And I, as a therapist, I would suggest that you try to get, bring together the lacks card, so, so, and then when you have give them, and then again, you can work on those people, butthey have to work on themselves. They have to do stabilizing exercises. The best therapist is the trainer.

 

Heike Oellerich  

If you if you touch me and I'm so strong, they say, Oh, you're so stiff. But the stiffness is in my DNA, and it's not an unhealthy stiffness. Maybe it could be my strength, yeah, yeah.

 

Miriam Wessels  

And then also, I have my point back, and that is, I think it's important that you have a trainer who looks really holistic, which means emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically. Because when I worked of my inner strength, I work on it so that I'm more stabilized if I have an emotional input. And that is important, not that I look better than not that I stand, but it's good, maybe for my my physical health, but for me more important and being an osteopath and being I'm also a psychotherapist. So anyhow, you know, I have all over. It is important for me that I use the body to stabilize my mental health and my emotional health, and then come to my spiritual how you say that, bestie monk, you know, purpose? Yeah, no,

 

Heike Oellerich  

the emotional aspect, I think it's so important, because if you have, if you know where you are, who you are, who you are, then you can love yourself. So it's if I see Miriam and Miriam do such things, and I think, okay, oh, and I'm not, not so good as she but that's wrong. I'm very good, but not in this way. I'm very good another way. And when I accept this, I can say, Oh, I love it. And now I'm a happy Viking, and not a sad not elf,

 

Miriam Wessels  

sad, not elf, beautiful, right there. So. And then the other work we do, because we do two things, is we do put pelvic floor work, and it is, well, Structural Integration world, thing, stuff, you know, it's not the pelvic floor, it's just one part of the whole net, and this is how we approach it, and that it's not, you don't do, we Don't do exercises only for this region. We it's always a trans force. It's trans transmitting the force to every parliament and secretary, yeah, no,

 

Til Luchau  

tell us something about your experience at the conference. What's something that you're taking away, that you're appreciating, that you're gaining?

 

Miriam Wessels  

Well, most of all, I think. A very good atmosphere, absolutely, very welcoming. And it's like a very Yeah, gentle network, like the fascia should be and like the world should be. I think it is good that we're here from really all over the world, and we connect very well. They're very friendly with each other, and I think that is a good way to bring more harmony and peace to the earth.

 

Heike Oellerich  

There are a lot of happy people. It's a lot of giggling, and it's very good that the people like me, I'm not a scientist in this way. I feel yet welcome and be I feel like a part of it, and not a distance to the Wow, scientist, professor, doctor and so on. And me, there they come to me and say, Hey, welcome that you're here and you make a big, very important part of it, yeah, that's my

 

Miriam Wessels  

feeling, yeah. And it's also and so what we do, and especially her, Well, we do everything together, but we have, like, part we can't cover everything together, and it's bringing the science to the normal

people, yeah, to, to bring it into exercise, to to apply it to no normal life, so that people can take it, and this is one of her specialties, and and we can't, can have so much research, but if we don't use it for the for the people, then for what do we do it?

 

Til Luchau  

Miriam and Heike, how do people find out more about you if they want to know more?

 

Miriam Wessels  

Well, we have our website. It's fascio.com so F, A, Z, I O, I O, I O,

 

Til Luchau  

F, A, S, Z, I O, for the Americans, yeah, okay,

 

Miriam Wessels  

yeah, yeah. And then.com is IT English? So, yeah, it's translated. And then I have a website MiriamWessels.de and there's also you can flip it into English, so if you want to know more about it, thank

 

Til Luchau  

you both. Thanks for your contributions and the fun that you're bringing here as well.

 

Heike Oellerich  

Appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

 

Til Luchau  

I'm here with one of my favorite people,

 

Gil Hedley  

Gil Headley. I'm here with one of my favorite people Til Luchau.

 

Til Luchau  

What a mutual fan club. This is what do you like about being here?

 

Gil Hedley  

Oh, the people. So this is a great people adventure. I love people and and I've met so many new people, so many wonderful people, so many dedicated people. So this is a like, a gathering of folks who are committed to service, and I just love them. That's my squeeze.

 

Til Luchau  

And it's a lot. It's like a fire hose and an ocean and all these analogies of it being so much, yeah, and then you're like, such a recognizable face that I see people coming up to you all the time.

 

Gil Hedley  

It's true. Where are they now? No, no, yeah, I'm comfortable with that. I know that the stuff that I've shared has touched people and brought joy, and so the chance to share that giant person is really sweet.

 

Til Luchau  

I'm just thinking this might be a useful metaphor for life, maybe. How do we keep our hearts over? How do we keep our hearts open in the face of almost? How do we keep our hearts overwhelmed? How do we keep our hearts open in the face of

 

Gil Hedley  

like so much? Yeah. I mean, if, if bringing heaven to earth is any anything within someone's intentional sphere, then that's kind of the job, right? So if we just, I mean, certain things work better here than others, like loving works better than hating, I've always found or or forgiving works better than blaming, and so I feel like those kind of things just keep cranking your heart open, and it's kind of a bottomless pit in here. Amazing.

 

Til Luchau  

I feel it. That's great. Thank you for that hit. What do you imagine unfolding into next?

 

Gil Hedley  

Well, believe it or not, I got more projects to do, and at the moment, I'm working on a beautiful donor form, especially focusing on pelvis and heart relationship. So I think in our culture, we're sort of a little bit split, maybe a lot bit split. So we have our religious communities. They're pointing us up and out. And we have our porn world pointing us down and down and way down. And I'm just thinking that they're actually, they've created each other, that split, that split has created each other, and that actually, if you look at the anatomy of the human form, you see a continuity of the whole. You don't see any line or division that says something is good or something is bad, something is spiritual. On something as worldly, that kind of dualism that is inherent in our philosophical approach of our body isn't inherent in the biology of the body. It doesn't speak to that. So I feel like if we took some lessons from the body, we might find an opportunity to have connection in our, say, sexuality and spirituality. So I'm trying to maybe demonstrate that in the anatomy these days and say, hey, look, no line, no border, no nothing. It's just continuous, continuous love path

 

Til Luchau  

beautiful because you've found ways to make the anatomy of great path and a great lesson, a great metaphor for so many things that I'm really I'm looking forward to seeing

 

Gil Hedley  

what you do here, me too. I can't wait. Maybe it'll tell me something else. Maybe, like Gil, You're a naughty boy, but I don't think so. I think I might learn something no matter what. That's, right, we'll learn something no matter what some boundaries are for real, but you don't know until you cross them.

 

Til Luchau  

So okay, your website's just about to get like, all kinds of traffic.

 

Gil Hedley  

Tell us how people can find out about you. Gilhedley.com, is where everything is. I have free membership on my site so you can access my content in a nice, safe, protected environment for some of the images, which are strong, but also heart opening and life opening, and also good for your practice too. Because many, many, many, many, many people tell me that they look at the stuff and it changes their touch. They look at the stuff, it changes the way they feel embodied. So that's really valuable to me. I also have a paid site, and I have over 340 hours of continuing ed on it right now, and another 60 of just audio stuff. So about

 

Til Luchau  

400 hours of stuff, so much stuff, so many ways to engage with

 

Gil Hedley 

Yeah, you could go for years. I mean, it's kind of encyclopedic. And my idea is that I created a professional resource that would be good for for, you know, people who are involved in touch and that they could tap into that throughout their work life. 

 

Til Luchau  

Thanks as always, for the inspiration. Nice to talk to you. Thank you,

 

Til Luchau  

I want to thank our sponsors, Associated Bodywork and Massage professionals. They proudly support us, and they are the premier association for dedicated massage and bodywork practitioners like you. When you join ABMP, you're not just getting industry leading liability insurance, you're gaining practical resources designed to support your career, from free top tier continue indication and quick reference apps like pocket pathology and five minute muscles. ABMP equips you with the tools you need to succeed and grow your practice.

 

Whitney Lowe  

And ABMP is committed to elevating the profession with expert voices, fresh perspectives and invaluable insights through CE courses, the ABMP podcast and their massage and body work magazine, featuring industry leaders like my co host til and myself Thinking Practitioner listeners like you can get exclusive savings on ABMP membership at abmp.com/thinking. So join the best and expect more from your professional association. Thanks again to all of our listeners. Thanks for hanging out with us today and to our sponsors. You can stop by our sites for the video, show notes, transcripts and any extras. You can find that on my site at Academyofclinicalmassage.com, Til where can they find that with you?

 

Til Luchau  

Advanced-trainings.com. We want to hear from you with your ideas or input about the show. Just email us at info, at the thinking practitioner.com or look for us on social media and YouTube. I am at Til Luchau.  Whitney, where can people find you?

 

Whitney Lowe  

also on the channels under my name, Whitney Lowe. Thanks very much. People can find me over there, and we would really appreciate it if you would rate us on Spotify or Apple podcast, wherever you happen to be listening to the show. It really does help other people find the show and helped us keep it going here. So please take a few seconds, if you can, to do that, and thanks always for sharing the word and tell a friend, share the word as well, and we'll see you again next time.

 

Til Luchau  

I'll look forward to that with it. Thanks for today. Okay, thank you.