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. 

Joanne Avison, author of Yoga, Fascia, Anatomy, and Movement, talks with me about fascia and why it has been overlooked historically (which includes a fascinating tour through the history of anatomy and its relationship to the Catholic church), how we form embryologically and what implications that has for biomechanics vs. biotensegrity (or biomechanics vs. biomotion), what that changes when we think about movement and the language we use about movement and the body, 

Juliet Starrett talks about the non-profit she and her husband Kelly have founded, Stand Up Kids, which aims to spread movement rich classrooms throughout the nation. They've started with their children's public school in California, which this August aims to be the first chair-free school in the United States.

How can standing desks create a movement-rich classroom environment instead of just replacing old furniture with new furniture? Hear the key details that make that possible.

How is a movement rich classroom environment and equality issue for boys and/or children with ADHD?

How can you make this happen in your community? 

I talk with Richard Brennan, originator of the School Chairs Campaign to make backward sloping chairs illegal, and Patricia Pyrka of Beyond Training about her week-long furniture-free experiment in her son's school.

What is (approximately) 15,000 hours spent sitting still in chairs throughout their educational years costing our children in terms of their physical and emotional health? 

How have our "advances" physical disempowered infants and children?

What long terms costs does that have?

How might the epidemics related to poorly functioning nervous systems be linked to or influenced by this?

How do we send the message that what is "out there" is more important than what is "in here"?

What are some of the movement-related predictors and therapies for autism spectrum disorders? 

Frank Forencich and I talk about "the long body". A Native American term about how we are massively connected with the biological and social world around us.

Where does the human body begin and end?

Why is our perception of ourselves as isolated units dangerous?

Why do we have nervous systems?

Are we currently living in an alien environment?

What are some of the features of our culture that make is a "short culture"?

How is technology changing our nervous systems and our relationships?

How has stress changed since paleo times?

What is pain? Neil Pearson helps to clarify the assumption that all pain is directly correlated to tissue damage, why your brain is messing with you by creating pain in the first place (if it’s not always telling the truth about what’s going on on the inside), and how you are likely to convince your brain that you need more oomph in order for it to be listened to.

Neil also discusses how pain isn’t just biological, biomechanical, or biomedical- and how better understanding how our lives and bodies are integrated can help us to address it more effectively than reducing this way and trying to put it into one “box” or another.

We also touch on the controversy about whether you can measure someone's pain with a brain scan, and get into how yoga, movement, and fitness teachers can educate themselves in order to help their clients better.   

Christopher McDougall is talking about his latest book, Natural Born Heroes. We talk about this remarkable story of a band of resistance fighters on Crete during World War II, how they contributed to toppling the Nazi occupation there, and the amazing local Cretans who taught them about their tradition of the hero.

Christopher doesn't stop at these remarkable people however, he asks what makes a hero and how can we all be heroes?

We talk fascia, Parkour, natural movement/MovNat, low heart rate training, burning fat for fuel, and how we can all rise to the occasion by studying the way of the hero.