Dyverse had the opportunity to see the bridging of Brain Gym and Blomberg Rhythmic Movement Training with Carol Ann Erickson with her Movement Exploration series I. The pre-requisite for this course is Brain Gym 101.

It was a 4 days course following the Brain Gym 5 steps in balancing (1.PACE, 2. Set a goal. 3. Do pre-activity and pre-check. 4. Do education menu. 5. Do post-activity, post-check and celebrate.) And we also had a 1-day overview of Movement Exploration Series workshop. Hono Family Education sponsored these course and workshop, which took place in Hong Kong from December 28, 2012 to January 1st, 2013.

Carol Ann has 44 years of teaching experience from kindergarten to college. She has 21 years of experience in coaching world-class Olympic athletes. She is also a part of the International Faculty member and instructor of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation also known as Brain Gym International and co creator of Movement Exploration Series 1 to 4 and Brain Gym for Movement, Dance and Sports Performance.  What makes her even more specialize; she is also an instructor of Blomberg RMT. And with her Movement Exploration Series she also talked about Blomberg RMT and why her series bridge the gap from those two worlds.

It was 20 years ago that her center started to coach university level athletes and with all the work she was doing she found Brain Gym and started incorporating it into her consultation. She mentioned that after 5 years down the road with using Brain Gym, she started getting requested besides her usual consultation it was request from parents for “the other thing” you do which was Brain Gym to help children with ADHD and ADD.

Her studying with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Sally Goddard and Gabrell Carroll opened up the other side of the coin for her in helping special needs. Carol Ann realized what the missing link was about movement, which led to the knowledge of primitive reflexes.  Her definition of primitive reflexes are the involuntary / automatic movements that has a limited time of teaching the brain and the body which is part of a complex system to integrate by tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular input. Those reflexes are reactions to when there is a sensory stimulant.

In other words reflexes are the letters that form words known as development patterns, then to sentence structures or movement abilities and create stories or journeys that the body will embark. It is a metaphor of life.

By 9 months of age a human baby should be fully integrated and from then to the age of 21, development patterns are repeated or rehearsed in transition, negotiating with gravity. A two-year-old running verse a six-year-old running to an 18-year-old running becomes the differentiation of ease of movements.