Walk for Life™
| NCBTMB-approved CEs for Massage Therapists and Bodyworkers |
The Walk for Life program includes experiential indoor movement lessons taught online to convey simple yet potent movement strategies that effect beneficial long-term change in strength, posture, flexibility and sense of well-being. It also incorporates walking in nature with the use of Walking Poles as "homework", leading you to adopt natural walking for health and pleasure in your daily life.
This Integrated Teacher Certification program consists of learning the 90 Walk for Life processes, the Didactic Teacher Training, study groups and self-study.
Walk for Life can be taken for personal education, continuing education credits, and teacher training.
Outlines of the course are provided plus recordings of the sessions.
The purpose of the Didactic is to encourage you as a graduate of the Walk for Life program to move into teaching, by upgrading your self-confidence, and to acknowledge what you know and be ready to share it with others.
Poles are used not only to secure equilibrium, but also to revive the arms primal function of the quadrupeds' front legs. In transmitting the rebounding force, generated from stepping on
The poles empower the ballistic factor of propulsion. Being an extension of the arms, they reach to interact with the ground, and by economic investment the poles produce an impact of more mobilization potency than what a Bi-Pedal human leg can generate by themselves alone.
The Indoor Self Laboratory Movement Intelligence Themes:
Ankles:
Cultivating springiness of ankles to restore a missing cultural key for a lively walk.
Toes:
Recovering original potential skill of moving by modeling amphibian wave of locomotion.
Knees:
Aligning the knees with the feet, hip joints and spine for easy and disturbance-free walking.
Hip Joints:
Adjusting the hip joints in real time and safe walking.
Lumbar Spine:
Weaning the vulnerable lower back from its compulsive over reaction to the impact of walking. Decompressing the 5 lumbar vertebrae for a safe transmission of the mobilizing force from the ground.
Rib Cage:
Reminding forgotten options of ribs / spine interaction, balancing the load on the back's curves, as well as increasing volume of the chest dependent lungs for fuller revitalizing of oxygen exchange.
Upper Back:
Confronting the primary stiff factor of the collapsed posture.
Shoulder Blades:
Re-activating shoulder blades through the use of poles, simulating the winning evolutionary pattern of quadruped’s walking on all fours.
Neck:
Sparing tension in the neck and restoring the smooth gyroscopic function of the neck in its service to equilibrium and sensing.
Coordination:
Committing to harmonious cooperation between all body parts in a Feldenkrais® integrative perspective, which is the most characteristic principle in all organic life. Searching for coordination works to awaken the native Movement Intelligence, which is the leading compass to efficient self correction.
Propulsion:
Using the alternating shift of weight from one side to the other in walking, undulating a rhythmical multi-dimensional wave for generating the ballistic momentum of each step forward.
Impact:
Accentuating the outsmarting of gravity in auto-mobilization by striking the pole onto the ground, in a way that loads the body with a rebounding elastic force upward.
Alignment:
Training the skeleton to spontaneously organize itself in a streamlined trajectory for the two way transmission of the mobilizing force -- the body mass bearing down,
as well as the springy rebounding upward -- reaching from end to end, without loss, deviation, or compression, in a domino-effect quality.
Poles:
Being an extension of the arms, as in four legged walking, enable the shoulders and shoulder blades to take on some of the upper body weight,
which frees the lower back and the hip joints from their constant load, avoiding their risk of compression.
Posture: There is no pill for posture. Posture is reflecting the skill, the variety and attitude of the individual's quality of moving.
To improve your posture you have to improve your movement habits.
Rhythm:
Practicing different rhythms of breathing to secure generous intake of oxygen and empower vitality,
within the ecological environment of walking in fresh air, as well as increasing tolerance for walking duration.
Independent Walking
The essential activity of walking in and out of doors in the program, shared in a social context with pleasure and excitement,
works to program the individual to continue walking with poles in their everday life.
The bodily joy of existence
The Biological Optimism that is inspired by the profound experience of well organized walking, is convincing beyond any need to have reasons to walk.
Research
In 2011, the Walk for Life program was studied by the University of New Hampshire’s Department of Kinesiology. Their research results demonstrated that after only 5 days of an intensive program:
“Walk for Life participants improved their walking speed, step length, and time spent on each leg during walking. They also experienced an improvement in their overall balance confidence.”
- Erik E Swartz, PhD, ATC, FNATA
Associate Professor, Clinical Coordinator, Athletic Training Education Program, University of New Hampshire ABSTRACT
"Walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose."
- Charles Dickens
FMI Teacher Certification
The Program is offered in 2 parts.
Each part is 45 hours class time which
includes learning the full program of 90 processes
and the Didactic Teacher training.
Each participant will also be required to attend study groups.
And watch the recordings of the class sessions, and practice teach a minimum of 20 hours outisde of class times.
Non Bones for Life® and Chairs Teachers and Solutions Mentors will need to also log 20 hours of Practice Teaching.
For those who have no prior Movement Intelligence™ (MI) experience, 20 hours of Bones for Life® or other MI program (other than WFL) is also required. I will offer this training during or after the Walk for Life training.
What you do today will be easier to do tomorrow.
What you don't do today will be more difficult tomorrow.
Everyone knows that Walking equals Health.
Quality walking is both a measure and indication of fitness and longevity. To find quality walking, we go beyond popular suggestions, fashions and opinions and look for the model of objective criteria in nature itself. The exclusive contribution of the Walk for Life program is in its strategies to engage the organic subconscious to correct itself.
Co-ordination: how to achieve harmonious cooperation between all body parts with an integrative perspective, awakening your organic intelligence of spontaneous self-correction.
Propulsion: how to use the alternating shifting of weight from one leg to the other with the undulating rhythmical wave for generating the propulsion into space for walking.
Impact: how to outsmart gravity by stepping in a way that loads the body with the rebounding force from the ground using the impact of upward elastic forces.