Real People. Real Breakthroughs.

This participants’ reason for joining us was that they’d received Prolia injections for concerns of osteoporosis. They’d had some serious adverse reactions to the treatment, some of which pointed to a trip to the ER (that didn’t happen and thankfully the drug interactions didn’t go so far), but the drug did end up creating massive bone pain that was affecting sleep and a knee that simply wouldn’t bend an inch, making them a fall risk amongst other things. I showed the group the diaphragm activation first, and they’d reported little change in their system as a result (though others in the class had quite a different experience!). Moving on to activating the psoas, however, brought forth something really quite unexpected. The participant was just learning self applied touch therapy for the first time, really, and also getting an anatomy lesson, so needless to say there’s plenty more opportunity for even more improvement! As we’re going around sharing the changes we feel with the activation they shock us all and show that they can bend their knee about 20 degrees now, enough to walk somewhat normally, without pain. To me, this shows the power of these tools are not limited to professionals who do this all day every day, but learning and applying yourself with no amount of skill can still create amazing new possibilities and changes in your system. This is why I teach them. I’m not in the business to create recurring revenue from a small group of people. I’m in the business to help people tackle big challenges and put them in the driver seat, to help as many people as possible with this amazing work. We finished up the class session by activating our glutes, and sending the participants home with the assigned work of doing the activation sequence at least once but preferably twice a day. Any of my teachers growing up would’ve scolded me for this, but I celebrated it: they came back the next week to go deeper into the sequence, learn and explore more, and they’d said they deliberately ignored the homework. They wanted to test and see if the changes would stick. Lo, and behold! They stuck. A week later, all the ups and downs of their life with that, and their system decided they were safer with the knee functioning. I still encourage daily or even more often use of the tools, but sometimes that’s what we need, just a one and done, clear up the issue and move on. Of course, if that situation ever arises again, they’ve now got the tool they know they pull out of the belt, dust off the email and re-watch the technique and deal with it, no waiting.

We progressed with the agreement that we were going to continue to try to sort out what’s going on with the knees as we go, and find the piece of the story that added up. Through the first two activations nothing major showed up just a lot of relaxation and better breathing. Then we got to the glute testing. This is done prone on the table with the knee bent beyond 90 degrees to reduce the hamstrings ability to do hip extension. The only problem was, we couldn’t get the knee beyond 90 degrees flexion. Their quads were so tight that it was impossible to do the test as I normally do. I asked for a bit more information and it turns out every day for the last so many years they spend about 2 hours sitting in the same chair reading the news, and don’t do any sort of stretching or work to counter an inactive lifestyle. For quite a long time the knee simply had not bent further than sitting in their favorite chair, and the body was now quite comfortable with that range. We agreed to make note of that and do not only the glutes but hamstrings and quads within that session to give the foundation of the glutes but also get the hamstrings and quads out of the way to make sure the glutes could do their work. A note on this, sometimes there are things way down the chain that are holding back our Zone 1. This is a perfect example. We could do wonderful work activating the glutes but if Zone 2 (quads and hamstrings) can’t open up to get out of the way then we’ll actually not get the results we’re looking for. It’s a weird situation where we’re doing further work to allow the previous activations to have their effect. So anyway, we continued with the work going straight into Zone 2 and it wasn’t until we did so that her entire system opened up. It appeared to me the client grew about 2 or 3 inches from the previous time they were standing, and they felt very light on their feet, the knees not bothering them at all. I believe we even joked about going for a run in the grass outside! We had a discussion about the work, gave them some homework and I sent them on their way, only to miss the most amazing part of the session. They’d sent me a text after they got home in disbelief: “John, if you had looked out the window to watch me walk down the stairs from your office this afternoon, you would have seen something that I have not experienced in YEARS. I walked down the stairs like a ‘normal’ person! Not like a toddler and not backwards.” Working with elders is something I really enjoy because there’s tremendous joy and positivity when they reclaim something they valued and they haven’t been doing thanks to the steady march of time. Another instance of this is a participant in a free class I’d done that had stopped everything to say “holy smokes look at my feet!”, and they were pointing at their toes curled up on the floor, which startled me, thinking they were having a bad cramp or something. It turned out this was how they sat when they were a young student in school and it was a position of deep comfort that they haven’t been able to do for years due to ongoing pain. What if we don’t have to give up, not only, the safety of strong and stable movement, but the activities we cherish that give us a sense of ourselves? Too often I hear people say “well, I just won’t do it again because I’m getting older”. What if you had not only the capability for that which you cherish but MORE of it? Whether it’s a toe curl while you sit and enjoy your coffee or white water rafting or anything else?

They sought physical therapy and were told since the injury is still currently “hot” they should just take it easy until it calms down, then they can begin working on improving the situation. Within the confines of a safe environment, with a client on board to try to see if we can open things up I think there’s no better opportunity to see if we can directly impact function and therefore allow more healing to take place faster. I skipped a lot of my normal testing, and we simply got a baseline on their walk, noting gait as well as perception of discomfort. The only on-table testing I did was checking passive hamstring range of motion. With an acute injury we definitely move slower, but we don’t shy away from seeing what’s going on with the body and where it’s at. Making sure not to provoke or worsen the injury we found that the hamstring was severely limited in range (duh), right about 45 degrees off the table to start, as well as it was quite heavy and had a hard stop. Beautifully, we worked through the Zone 1 work, allowing the system plenty of time to settle and adjust to the changes, bringing in really great breath between each activation and the result we achieved was quite awesome. Over the course of the session the leg just felt lighter and lighter, and the range increased, reaching a full 90 degrees (the benchmark for a hamstring in order to have safety for the low back in bending) without aggravation or feeling unsafe with the stretch in the hamstring at that point. Once off the table we noticed a much faster walk with nearly no perceptible pain with the injury. The paradox of injury and pain is that when we have something traumatic like this it creates constriction or tension. Then we have the mental stance around pain of “I’m not supposed to feel this, I don’t like this” or generally, refusal. Believe it or not, this adds to the stress and tension in the system which only furthers the guarding. The guarding of the system actually gets in the way of healing. A 10-15% muscle contraction reduces blood flow through that tissue by something like 30-50%. If we have an injury with inhibition causing a 50% reduction in range of motion how much less blood is that tissue getting? What if we can decrease the recovery time by settling the system down, restoring some function and more importantly improving total fluid flow to and from the tissue that’s affected? What if we tack on better sleep with a settled system as well, where the real healing is happening? The follow up appointment on this session was quite amazing as the hamstring was much less bound up at the start and we were able to achieve 100 degrees range of motion off the table, going beyond the benchmark, all while feeling safe and comfortable with the level of stretch in the tissue without aggravation. This then allowed their physical therapy work so much more room to work and to drive even more blood in and bring in even more healing and just make so much improvement so quickly.

In testing their hip's internal rotation we found not great range on the left hip but very nearly totally locked on the right. I asked them for more information on this, were they aware of anything going on and the response was "oh that's the hip the doctor said is going to need to be replaced, it's just too far gone". Something didn't quite feel exactly right, it was a strange almost neural blocking, there wasn't any major pain associated with the end range which would make me think there's an actual bone issue since I would expect that would be painful. But we continued with the work anyway. The other testing associated with the activation we were going to do involves the resting tone of the arms as well as a strength test. This activation is actually digging in some specific points in between the ribs, as well as some work with the mid back, nothing actually with the hips or arms. While the retest on the arms didn't show much change the hips had quite a massive change. The (alright) left hip was now really quite good, improving range by something like 20 degrees, and the locked right hip was now suddenly moving freely, nearly matching the left. There's many times I'm shocked by what my clients are able to do with the activations, this was one of those times. Both of us almost couldn't believe the testing. Being cheeky I of course asked "are you still sure about that replacement?" I'm of course not trying to advise my client one way or the other, or put down the other professional who offered their opinion. Based on what they see within the confines of their tool kit and understanding and past experience with other patients they may have seen something that looked exactly like a previous replacement candidate. As I've said above, I've made wrong initial judgements based on previous experience as well. That's why I try to maintain an open mind and wide open eyes with this work because I truly don't know. The fact remained that in this case the client was able to achieve something that the original doc may have thought was impossible (as well as the client). Will the hip need replacing in the future? Who knows? Perhaps it still will. But until then, this client now has a tool they could use to open the hip and move it well to lubricate and create space to perhaps even just stave off the replacement longer.

So, I approached this case with that curiosity, if not even a bit of timidity because I've never had experience with it. We found that the clients pattern is a bilateral 3,3,3 leg. This means that their strategy for hip flexion is the calf and shin shorten, tighten and drive up to lift the legs, and the abdominals tighten down A LOT to stabilize the pelvis against the long level of the leg. Perhaps the calves and shins having to do the hip, shortening and tightening so much was choking the fluid supply to that part of their body, effectively killing the nerves over a long enough time? Maybe. All I know is if that's their pattern then the breathing and the hips are doing their job properly so we worked on that first as usual. The outcome of just the Zone 1 work was really amazing, as once we finished and they were walking around they said the tingling, pins and needles were greatly reduced, and they could feel more through their feet on the carpet. I'd love to say that through continued work it just got less and less until they had restored function but that's not where the journey went. The neuropathy improved to the point of ceasing to be the focus of our sessions, so I simply stopped talking about it with them because we were striving to create improvement elsewhere. It's left me with the question of "what's really possible with reduced or elimination of nerve function?" Douglas Heel (founder of Be Activated) has done some work with Ryan Bachik of Bachik Methods in Addison Texas with multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries and other severe neurological cases and has seen some stunning results, so a dream of mine is to see if I can help people dealing with those issues as well. It's possible to improve, but how much, and how much can I facilitate for the people that find me is the question. But only if that's the work the client is also looking to focus on as well.

So today’s goal was to help the foot because it was inhibiting walking and really uncomfortable. They’d previously had surgeries and falls that have added considerably to the story of the foot in question. Before getting on the table I’d asked if they tried doing their activations yet this day to which they responded that they hadn’t. So I took the opportunity to teach and empower them a bit by having them establish their own baseline, with some air squats and walking around the table to get a sense of how it was affecting them currently at that time. They gave a X/10 rating on the discomfort and a sense of how it was affecting them, so we proceeded to do the Zone 1 work together, I mirrored them and we spent maybe only 5 minutes going through those activations, just inviting the system to take a step down and see if that’s what the foot needed because it was only recently it returned as a problem to be focused on. The client lingered on a few more sticky, sore spots and found a great breath before retesting. I saw immediately a huge change in the squat, then as they walked there was a noticeable shift in the evenness of their walk, balanced between both feet without any sign of a limp. I asked what they’re feeling and the answer was “it’s great, feels totally better.” I offered to end the session there as we’d hit the goal for the day and we could take the win and run with it. Often times we can get so wrapped up in the hum drum of our lives that we forget we literally have the answer at the tip of our fingers. This of course is only true if you know you have the tool you need. But if you have that tool then the question is, why hesitate to see if it’ll work? And if that tool has worked across several different issues, why not try it yourself on something new? That’s the empowering side of this work, it allows us to take our healing into our own hands. We may not need to reach for the ibuprofen or Advil or CBD or whatever, we can simply reach inside ourselves, reconnect the system and often that’s enough to deal with a dragon that’s only returning to rear it’s head. For the younger readers that’s like repeating a boss battle in a video game. You know the strategy, you’ve already done it, you just have to do the buttons in the right order, at the right time and you’re on to the next level. For the older readers I liken that to an oil change, or a flat tire. You’ve dealt with the problems before, so when they happen you know where your tools are and how to use them to get the car back on the road.

No gen pop which kind of shocked me, but makes sense because those that went in to teaching most likely did so because they wanted to learn more and they’re exploring through the practices rather than just wanting to receive dictation from the teacher. I found it a little intimidating to start because every other time I was in that room I was the student, but I got to share what I know well within the confines of their world which is where a lot of magic happens. I brought up a participant to show the 1,2,3 pattern testing to explain how this pattern is the water we swim in when we’re doing yoga, all the poses depend on this strategy. I’d never had such a visually clear and satisfying test before, and for that I’m thankful to the volunteer. The word is “hold” and most people fight with me, but they simply tried to hold, and for the observers the pattern was totally clear once we’d allowed them to use their strategy. We went through Zone 1, nothing, Zone 2, nothing, Zone 3 leg, nothing, we added the right arm in and BOOM, their system was SUPER strong. I can’t actually remember what the right hip was, but they’d brought up some significant challenges with their SI joint when discussing the typical risks we see with arm driving, which includes SI joint and lateral disc bulges. Fantastic, so we both knew now what was causing the issue, the next step was to get Zone 1 working and see if that changed things, and boy did it ever. I had the students do a short flow of poses to get themselves acquainted with what they were feeling, then we did very brief activations and some breathing then went back through the flows to see what was different. For this participant Warrior 1 was something they’d felt they shouldn’t have had a problem with since they’d done so much yoga and were even a teacher themselves. Following the psoas work they moved through the flow then stopped at warrior 1 and just sat. They couldn’t believe the difference, zero pain or discomfort. The pose felt locked in and it looked the same to me as I watched from the front. I feel a critical part of this particular story was the testing and explanation we’d done beforehand. When the arm is driving the hip it’s coming from the opposite side so you’ve not only got compression from the entire leg and opposite arm driving in to the hip but you add an angle to the force coming down as well that can push around all sorts of things off the midline like the discs out to the side or SI joint. Being well connected to their body through yoga and then layering on top the understanding of what the secret cheat pattern is that drives the whole practice opened up a whole new world within yoga to them. With the SI joint no longer a factor in their practice they felt so much safer going into more challenging poses because there wasn’t any hesitation around incurring pain or “really feeling it” after a class.

A lot of times some simple stretching can relieve sciatica, or at least calm it down, but this client had tried the stretches and the pain was only slightly less while doing the stretch and then it was no better once they’d stopped. We went through the Zone 1 work finding some really positive results but once the client stood up off the table things just didn’t seem to stick right, and sure enough retesting back on the table showed that it didn’t take much for their system to revert. It was something in the stand-up, so I’d asked for more information, previous challenges, traumas etc. and they’d realized they forgot to report incontinence as one of their challenges. This is of course totally excusable, not many people like to discuss incontinence because they perceive it as embarrassing, which it’s totally not. It’s simply an adaptation your body is using to meet it’s priorities. In this case the client had several children with zero rehabilitation to the pelvic floor following any of the vaginal births and they’d been incontinent more or less since then. The reason this is important is because when there’s an issue with the pelvic floor sometimes the body will tuck the tail and utilize the glutes to function as the pelvic floor instead to prevent the internal organs from prolapsing (which had happened as well apparently, but the story comes in layers often as we discuss and find new things). So what this meant to me was we got the glutes firing fine which helped free up the pressure on the sciatic nerve on the table but once they stood up their body said “uh oh we almost lost our guts!” And tucked the tail right away. With the new information it made sense that we’d continue on with the session down the chain until we got to the pelvic work. I’ll say this here: the pelvic floor work is nothing internal, we’re using activation points elsewhere on the body and simply having the client squeeze and relax their pelvic floor to figure out which of the activation points are most impactful. They’d had this tremendous sigh once we finished with the activations and once they stood up it was absolutely clear so much had shifted once we found the right piece. It looked as though they’d grown 3 inches, they said their back hurt way less (which wasn’t the target for this session) and the sciatica was completely gone. Watching them walk around the table integrating this into their system was quite beautiful to see, because it wasn’t just an alleviation of discomfort but an unburdening of something they’d been carrying for many, many years since the birth of their last child.

A distraught mother reached out to me about her pre-teens anxiety around school. Apparently things had gotten so bad that the child was not attending school due to panic attacks and breakdowns, as well as needing to remove themselves from class periodically if they did make it to school. Not wanting to put her child on drugs, she found me and said "let's give it a try". What followed was one of the more unusual sessions I've done. The moment they walked in I could feel the tension in the child's system; I wasn't super confident because it almost felt as though they were only coming along because Mom was dragging them to "another doctor's appointment". It's tricky to work with someone who doesn't want to make a change or improve something. I reminded myself of when I struggled with anxiety, skipping classes (though I was in college, not middle school), vomiting in ordinary social situations and even having to skip on activities I truly enjoyed, it was awful. Deep down they wanted to be done with the anxiety too. I spent maybe 20 minutes interviewing both mom and child, since when they first entered the child was struggling to speak with me. After getting the story, some school stuff and some family stuff was going on, it appeared to me that the child was getting stuck in mental loops and dwelling on things out of their control as well as not their responsibility.

We started with the "point-of-focus" drill which I had to modify because the second the child turned away from me to begin the testing I felt a HUGE "I'm not safe" from their system. I stopped right away and said "you don't like not being able to see me right?", they agreed so we altered the test so they could see mom and me, and just use one arm instead of both. Going through the test seemed helpful to not only illustrate the effects of their focus on their body but also gave them a bit of power in their choice on what to focus on. We'll come back to this style of testing for some really interesting stuff. Moving on I'd explained why her system was shutting down, how stress affects us and why we're going to do what we're going to do. They followed along with the explanation and seemed ready to move on. I asked "are you ready to get on the table?" "No." "What would you need to feel safe doing so?" "Maybe mom could get on with me?" So we had them lay down and Mom stood at their side holding their hand. We did a baseline hamstring test to assess total body tension, then when I explained the activation and where I would place my hands they tensed up. I asked, "are you okay with me working on those areas?" "No." "Is there a way we could modify things so you're safe?" "touching is weird". That was all I needed to hear. I said "cool, we'll make this even better for you because you're going to do all the work on yourself so you can own the results".

They hopped off the table and we went through some self applied activation measured with a sit to stand out of my chair in the office. They seemed to be making and feeling marked improvement with each activation, they were more engaging and open as the session progressed which was really quite awesome. We discussed more about what they were experiencing, why it was working, and I coached them to make a decision about when and how they can use the activations to help maintain a sense of peace when going to school. We still had some time and I wanted to poke deeper into the family issues to see if we could help this child maintain some equanimity despite what the adults were choosing to do. This is where the session, for me, got even more interesting.

We decided to have mom berate/scold/admonish them about clothing choices, not getting out of bed on time, not cleaning their room etc. and run the point of focus drill again, seeing the effects of the scolding on their system, which of course was implosion, weakening, overwhelm, and shutdown. It appeared to me mom got emotional realizing she was contributing to her child's overwhelm by the way she was communicating with them. So, now that all 3 of us were clear that these communications and other family circumstances were having a serious effect (despite already having activated to a pretty good place), we had mom continue to scold/admonish/remind the child while they went through the activations we had just done and retest once they were done WITH mom continuing with an onslaught. The result stunned me. They weren't phased even though mom was heaping it on. I immediately had to put on my parent hat and remind them "even though you now have a technique to not get shutdown by being remind to clean your room you still have to help your mother and do it, right?" "Right. (With a sly smile)". A little bit more discussion about how to use what they'd learned and encouragement to empower them and they were off, I'd hear back after Monday's school day about how it went.

I sent videos to remind them the techniques and encouraged mom to do the activation with them to practice before the school day. So I waited, and waited. Wednesday evening rolled around and I hadn't heard anything, so I reached out with bated breath to see how it went. The text I got back gave me goosebumps. "Yes I meant to text you! They're doing great!!! No crying or complaining before school or after. Every time (they do it) they look at me and say teletubby haha". It's funny because the teletubby point is my big one too, and it's quite funny visually. But if we can laugh about it and still reap the benefits that's even better. Let's normalize finding ourselves, centering and showing up with equanimous presence, no matter the technique that gets us there.

I spent probably 1/2 the session building rapport and understanding to even begin the work and when it came to it they had to do it all themselves. Now they've got the tools and the power to work with their system to face bigger and bigger challenges, and that's quite the exciting prospect for me. As I reflect on this story I find myself half wishing someone had taught me this when I was their age, but I suppose if someone had then I wouldn't be in the position I am now to be bringing this work to way more people than just myself, and for that reason my past pain is a blessing.