In this episode I am talking with John Sharkey who is a Clinical Anatomist, Exercise Physiologist, and European Neuromuscular Therapist. He has developed the worlds only Masters Degree in Neuromuscular Therapy which is Accredited by the University of Chester, he is on the editorial board for the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, the International Journal of Osteopathy, and the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork.. He is also a member of the Olympic Councils medical Team and a founding member of the B.I.G, otherwise known as the Biotensegrity Interest Group). He has also authored several books including the 3rd edition of The Concise Book of Muscles which we talk about in the interview.

John and I are talking here in great depth about the old paradigm of anatomy and biomechanics and what the new paradigm holds. This is critical stuff here. We are on the brink of a new understanding of the living human body and it’s time to look at the old models, look at where they come from, and to look at why they are outdated. So if you’re interested in living tissue vs. cadavers, biotensegrity vs. biomechanics, continuity of form vs. origin insertion, and how individual human anatomy is and what that changes about our often dogmatic approaches to the body this episode is for you.

Dr. Eyal Lederman joins me to talk in particular about his paper titled “A process approach in manual and physical therapies: beyond the structural model" and his controversial view that the structural model is outdated and needs to be replaced. We discuss what he sees it replaced with and how patients are treated at his clinic, and what the benefits are to people when we expand beyond structural explanations for things.

Bo Forbes is a clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and Integrative Yoga Therapist. We’re following up on the last two episodes which are pretty interoception based- first with Will Johnson and then with Norm Farb. A central guiding theme of Bo’s work is with interoception, and she has put together the Interoception Tribal Council which is bringing together researchers, primarily neuroscientists, who are looking at interoception and its effect on the whole person’s health both physically and mentally. In this conversation we talk about some of the amazing research that is coming out these days, but we also talk about her own experience putting her interoceptive abilities to the test when she underwent hip surgery this year- which was her 4th hip surgery in 8 years. It’s a really beautiful story of living one’s practice.

Neuroscientist Norm Farb's research focuses on the intersection between present moment awareness and well-being. Today we are discussing one of his papers, Interoception, Contemplative Practice, and Health. What are the benefits and risks of honing one's ability to feel what's going on in their body? And what do we appraise that input to mean based on our perceptions of the world?

Wil Johnson is the founder of the Institute for Embodiment Training. In today’s conversation we dove into what Dr. Rolf’s original concept of “The Line” was, and discuss its implications for both finding delicious support in our bodies and also for its ability to evoke our evolutionary potential.

Dr. Steve Gangemi, aka The Sock Doc, has ruffled more than a few feathers with his proclamations that stretching is for Bozos... these days he's tempered his statement to "stop mindless stretching". He joins me in this conversation to talk about what stretching even is, what flexibility is really a reflection of (hint: it's not your stretching regimen), why we might feel the need to stretch, and more.

Dr. Helene Langevin of Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, University of Vermont College of Medicine, and The Osher Center for Integrative Medicine talks about her research on acupuncture, stretching, connective tissue, cancer, inflammation resolution, and the bridges between all of those subjects.

I give my take on the 7th Biotensegrity Interest Group, the 1st Biotensegrity Summit, and the 4th Fascia Research Congress all of which recently took place in Reston, Virginia.

James Earls, author of Born to Walk, takes a very whole system approach to understanding walking.

We talk about how the whole body walks, different schools of thought that have looked at walking in “parts” instead, how we are seduced into seeing anatomy with the same eye that we look at the manmade world around us, his homage to Robert Hooke who was a contemporary of Newton’s,understanding ground reaction force, the essentialness of efficiency in our evolution, the debate about whether or not walking is controlled falling, fascial wrappings as hydraulic amplifiers and oh so much more. 

Dr. Dan Keown, who is both a Western medical doctor and a Chinese medicine doctor joins me for a conversation about his book The Spark in the Machine.

We talk about many of the crucial things that Western medicine ignores- things like fascia, extracellular fluid, how an embryo knows how to organize around a seeming blueprint, and how your spirit affects your health. We talk about how fascia explains chi, how and why jing and shen are better predictors of lifespan and health than a person’s genetics, what cancer has to do with fascia and chi, how we are all built like crystals and what that has to do with piezoelectricity, and so much more.