Heidi Tillotson, COTA/L come to just two days of RMT last month; at the third day of training this month, she told us this story.  I’ve distilled the official version into a laymen’s story, and am including the therapist’s version for those of you who speak therapist-language.

The laymen’s version:  My student has always been interested in not just treating symptoms, but addressing causes of difficulties, and was delighted to see how quickly RMT is able to transform lives.  She has a year-old child in her caseload, born at 26 weeks gestation, who obviously spent quite awhile in NICU.  At one year old, she really wasn’t sitting well or going on hands-and-knees well either. She couldn’t stay up on hands-and-knees, and communicated only by crying during therapy.

After THREE sessions, she saw that the little girl not only LIKED these movements, but also could stay on hands-and-knees for FOUR MINUTES — and was even beginning that pre-crawling rocking motion.  She’s now tolerating therapy for an hour, and is communicating happily.  She’s now not just sitting, but sitting while being moved and tilted.  Therapists are quite enthused.  My student says that she thinks the girl will catch up soon, with RMT.  I can only imagine how happy mom might be, seeing her daughter grow, and look forward to her actually catching up to age-mates.

Heidi Tillotson’s version, in therapist-language:

Thank you so much for hosting the second level of this wonderful class. I truly am carrying so much away from it.

After I took RMT 1, I could not wait to go home and integrate it into my sessions. I have always been concerned about root issues and assisting a child’s body to reach important stages that will assist them to participate in age appropriate play effectively and in a smooth and coordinated manner. Through RMT, I learned that these issues can be addressed in children of any age or stage of their life. As I taught and performed these movements with the children, I noted all of them to benefit and demonstrate gains in short periods of time.

One of the examples is of a little girl who was born at 26 weeks gestation and placed in the NICU for some time. When she arrived at the clinic at around 1 year of age, she could barely sit up, roll, or maintain a quad position. When I came back from the RMT class, I immediately incorporated these movements into her weekly sessions. I did all the passives on her as well as the STNR rocking in quad with hips. I noted these movements to calm her when she was distressed and relax her tone. In one of the treatments following the introduction of these movements, I noticed that her strength increased and she was able to improve in the area of righting reactions. The following week, I had to perform testing on her. When I placed her in the quad position, she was able to maintain it for 4 minutes without collapse and even started to rock herself at the hips in this position. This little girl transitioned from one half-hour session with co-treat between PT/OT to a full hour with PT and OT taking their turns. The last session I saw her, I noticed even more gains. She was making facial expressions and communicating in response to therapist whereas before she would cry and complain with the various positioning. Static sitting became too easy and we transitioned to dynamic surfaces for quad and sitting positions. The gains were amazing and my fellow PT commented on this. I know RMT has made a big different in the neurodevelopment of this girl, and with the gains we have seen, will soon experience the locomotion that is typical for her age.

Anxiety in preschoolers and in teens/young adults seems to be as contagious as the flu these days.

Living in unstable homes or unsafe neighborhoods understandably leads to some of the cases of anxiety. However, toddlers as well as adolescents experience “free floating anxiety,” where a person can’t pinpoint WHY he feels the way he does. Absent a cause, the brain will fill in with the blanks – boogie monsters for our youngest ones, things like social anxiety and health fears for our older ones.  It happens even in – especially in? – stable, loving and affluent families.

A look at our earliest reflexes gives a hint to what might be going on. Less sensory input can lead to increasing anxiety, and our modern and affluent lifestyle:
·       Expectant moms are more sedentary, sitting at computers rather than doing physical housework of our grandmothers
·       C-section rates are still rising – look how much less sensory input happens there!
·       Babies are super-pillowed, infant-seated, put in walkers way before they’d otherwise be walking, etc. rather than being put on his abdomen to learn to crawl
·       Babies are looking at two-dimensional surfaces way more than they should, especially
Adults who substitute treadmills for walking outside experience even such tiny differences as stepping on and off curbs, breezes, changes in sunshine, etc., that make a difference in both caloric intake and sensory input.

All these interfere with the maturing of the nervous system.  Brain Gym® and Rhythmic Movement Training are the quickest, easiest-learned, methods that I’ve found, to help mature the nervous system. Their specific sensory input increases connections within your brain.

It’s not just anxiety that responds to increased connections within the nervous system.  The ways we cope with anxiety also get help: insomnia, explosive tempers, controlling and addictive behaviors decrease as stress from trying to manage an undeveloped nervous system melts away.  Also, things like dyslexia, attention and focus, poor social skills, kids who can’t break out of a dreamy state, people with sensory processing, all benefit greatly.

Therapists of all kinds learn as much as teachers and parents in these classes; it’s a very cost-effective way to become incredibly helpful to anybody – babies to the elderly, from struggling with life to those who would just like to optimize life.

Here’s a class picture of my last RMT class — TWO physicians, a myofacial therapist, an occupational therapy doctoral student … and one Boy Scout leader who wanted tools to use when he encounters boys who need help.

The physicians aren’t just doctors, they’re super-achiever doctors.  They’re sisters, Nahla (plaid shirt)) and Musheera (smiling lady with glasses) are.  Nahla has not only an MD (she’s a neonatologist!) but also a slew of other degrees, in hospital administration and I forget what else. She was traveling from Egypt to visit family here, and — typical for them — they thought they’d catch a class or two while she was here.  Musheera’s just as over-achieving as her sister: she’s got an MD (child psychiatry) and a PhD (she’s a professor of Child Development in South Dakota) and they’ve been everywhere and done everything.  It blew my mind — not only doing all this in a second language, but with a different alphabet and writing from left to right rather than the other way ’round.

And THEY — and Pat, the myofacial therapist — were stunned at what doing exercises to stimulate two parts of the brain had done for their vision.  “Look what I can see!”  “That is so different!  The painting of the girl over there — she has a FACE!  Why didn’t I see that before?”  They were stunned at how much more they were able to take in without being overwhelmed, seeing details and more.  I smiled to myself, knowing that while they were noticing their vision, much more was happening in their posture, their eye contact with each other and me, and way more than that.  The myofacial therapist, a ground-breaker in her own field who lectures nationally, was just as taken with all she experienced and how it could change the lives of people she meets.

And indeed, these super-achievers went on to rock the class — all of them, seeing such huge changes in themselves and I know they’ll put this all to good use in their lives.

Do YOU want to get YOUR mind blown?

Oh my heavens, what a story!

Sean came for a session this week.  He’s 22 and would like to sketch more (and presumably, do video games perhaps a little less).  Brain Gym has you role-playing your goal, then doing some in-depth tests, some exercises, then testing and role-playing.

So, Sean chose to sketch on my iPad.  You know how hard it is to do anything with your finger on these screens: ever try to scrawl your signature for a credit card?  Never looks like MY signature, anyhow.  Look at his before and after pictures! Sean noted that while I undoubtedly saw a stick figure, this was a representation of the body he would have drawn, had he had time.  He did note he’d made the arms (with elbows!) longer than he intended.

After 15-20 minutes of Brain Gym exercises, LOOK AT WHAT SEAN DID! I’m stunned and in awe of the changes — and I don’t think it took him any longer than the first sketch! Just LOOKING at this guy makes me happy — greeting the world with a “hi”! (Now he can SEE there’s a world to interact with!) Wide-open eyes, a smile, sooo much more.

The COOL part of all of this is — the growth that Sean got by doing these Brain Gym exercises will, in the coming days and weeks (it can take up to 6 weeks for a balance to fully mature) help him to do OTHER things better in some way.  Whether he finds himself happier, as he was immediately after the balance, or more effective, or with more initiative or involvement or success, his life is now different.

I saw 10-year-old John yesterday for the first time. He had two homes before going to his adoptive family 8 years ago, and has more than the usual level of difficulties. He seemed brighter and happier when he left, and his mom, Julie, was very receptive to the therapy and home plan. Six hours later, I received this email (bolded text, mine throughout):

Dear Ruth,
John has seemed “terrific” today after his session with you.  (His word).  He is calmer, better able to understand jokes, and just generally happier and more loving.  The latter is pretty giant, in his case.  I am smiling, smiling, smiling as I write.  He was kind of blabbering like a baby (loosely speaking) in the car, and I remember wishing I had a recording so I could share with you.  It was very cute and innocent.  I don’t see that much with him.

I asked for permission to share this publicly, and received the following in reply:

Dear Ruth,
I/we would be honored to be in your newsletter.
Here is a little more good news:  we just had the BEST night together as a family in some time. At dinner, my husband was asking about our session.  I started to respond with, “Ruth Murray is…” and John quickly inserted, “an amazing woman”.  Ummmm…I am pretty sure I have never heard my child use those words in combination. Wow! Then later, all this information spontaneously started flowing out of John.  He showed dad his “favorite part” of the session:  the rocking you did (I would have thought it was the helmet).  He told his dad how His bio mom’s grandma came up in session (had a hard time explaining how exactly…but was very focused on the relationship and how it impacted him.  His eyes were lit up when I said that this issue was released.). And then he tried to show my husband how to muscle test.  (My husband, the doctor, was totally perplexed!).
He just continued to become more animated all evening. Now he is in bed.  We will see what happens after some sleep.
Thanks so much!
God Bless You,
Julie

I’m having a hard time envisioning the ultra-quiet, slow-to-verbally respond child that I saw this morning, interrupting and finishing his mom’s sentence. What a gift!  This morning, Mom writes:

Good Morning! Just wanted to let you know that 1) John slept like rock last night…giant improvement (too scared to sleep well thru night usually) and 2) hives appeared this morning…assume it is his body detoxing.  I think these are great signs.
God Bless!!!!!

She’s right: he’s no doubt throwing off toxins from his tissues as fast as his dear little body can manage it.  Yea for living with fewer toxins, as well!  This level of response is unusual, but what a wonderful lesson!

Attachment and Bonding — not JUST for adoptive children
Difficulties with attachment/bonding issues are particularly prominent when I deal with children who’ve been adopted. Emotional trauma frequently combines with physical and/or neglect. My heart goes out to them, their parents and siblings.
I’m starting to see a number of new clients with adoptive-related issues. Here’s what one set of parents said about their children, who had been coming to about 3 months when Tom (dad) wrote:
Since Robert and Victoria have begun their motion training, we have seen great improvement in their awareness of their surroundings.  
They are more confident in their abilities in schoolwork and an increase in being able to socialize better with their peers.
Both Robert and Victoria have become more grounded in life, to do chores around the house as part of growing up to prepare themselves for life.

From their mom, Kris:
I would like to encourage anyone who is seeking to find hope and healing for his or her children to consider going to Ruth Murray at Movement Solutions for assistance.  She has a wealth of experience and a toolbox full of techniques.  My two youngest children are adopted and have had challenges in their early years, and have been struggling with attachment issues as a result.
I have noticed significant improvements in both of my children, especially in Robert who has more noticeable sensory issues and who therapists have shared concerns about his propriocentric and vestibular senses.  However, despite having gone to many different types of specialists, there have not been any effective processes for helping to overcome his difficulties.
Ruth’s therapies have been helping to integrate reflexes and dispel the effects of trauma.  She has helped to accept and love them as they are, while also removing the obstacles and not just teaching strategies to cope with their issues.  She is helping them to heal and move through challenges.  By celebrating each success and respecting their growth and limits, she is gently moving them to be prepared for the future and grounding them (literally with an earthing mat 😉 in the world.