With Don Solomon, Michelle Doyle, and Gunna Hojgaard from Copenhagen, at the Fascia Congress. GREAT FOLKS!!!! We're riding in together, all staying @ Don's home. Parking's expensive at the Wall Center Sheraton, $40-50/day, ouch.
Raining here yesterday when I arrived, and I was hoping for some clear gray moody northern weather. Even covered with raindrops, Vancouver's a BEAUTIFUL city. One of the prettiest I've visited yet. Lionsgate bridge we cross to get into downtown sparkles like a diamond necklace at night, perched over the well sheltered boats docked under her.
LONG day yesterday. Arrived early to register and stayed for a schmoozer after the presentations. Great food at this event. Big WOW to the organizers on that front. Lotsa folks buzzin with excitement at seeing each other again and being at this shindig together. Lotsa self promoting and marketing goin on too. That part's not really my cup of tea. Too much of that infiltrating our profession, IMO.
We walk past a small forest of large posters to get to the dining hall for lunch daily and for this evening gathering. They're for sale by vendors whose work didn't cut the mustard to make it into the presentations as actual research. Like Hansel and Gretl I ventured too far into the forest, only to get accosted by a guy selling what looked like a primitive jai alai xistera made of a narrow curved piece of copper bolted to a wooden handle. His rap was that it was a copy of an ancient massage tool that had successfully been used as a connective tissue scraper with the added feature that it removed cell wastes from tissues and had been doing so for thousands of years. I forgot instantly what culture he claimed he discovered had used it and winced when he showed me vials of gooey fatty stuff floatin in dirty water, that it had supposedly gotten from folks' tissues. I told him that my bullshit detector was too good to buy that rap, for even a LA minute, and scuffled off before he could blurt out his "Yeah, but...". Oyvay, do ya actually think someone bought that rap and that crappy crap scraper?! Maybe one of the folks that think cupping is a legitimate modality to add to their bodywork retinue might sign on for that crock of you know what. From then on I avoided the poster forest entirely lest I get accosted by another such snake oil vendor. Even at a sideways glance it seemed clear to me that those poster folks are in serious need of a good graphics designer, just sayin.
Most all of the presentations this day had at least one idea/insight that was presented that sparked some new thinking in me or refined my view in some way....except one pedant of a researcher, Albert Banes, who used his podium to stroke his own ego by tossing out names of all the important researchers he knows, blasting thru his PP presentation on cellular function so quickly that even the likes of Tom Findley and Erik Dalton watched his concepts fly right overhead without capturing much. Too bad, cuz I do think he had some great insights about cellular metabolism to share if he coulda deigned to do it at slower than warp speed. He even had the cojones to imply that he, HIMSELF, discovered PRP before its current popularity arose. Give a girl a break!!! This is the kinda thing that caused me to lose patience with Academia; pompous compartmentalized thinkers pissing on very small trees and puffin up their already oversized sense of self importance. I wanted to go up to him after his presentation and chew on his chin. The theme of this congress is cross pollination of information between researchers and clinicians. GET OVER YOURSELF, dude.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, were the Biomechanics presentations, for me, especially Helene Langevin's on the slide and glide directionality in thoraco-lumbar aponeuroses. The scar tissue panel was really interesting too. As Michelle Doyle mentioned on her wall, Jean Claude Guimberteau's video on scars was a jaw dropper! He seemed so radiantly pleased when folks gave him a standing ovation.
I loved the presentation by Susan Chapelle, Geoffrey Bove's, colleague, who lives and works in the small town of Squamish BC. A town with a predominantly young athletic population with plenty of sports injuries to keep the local practitioners busy. She showed a slide of her work with an arm that had been completely ripped off in an accident, then re-attached, that just blew my mind. Her presentation was quite impressive. I loved that the practitioners in her town collaborate well and readily with each other in service to the community. Wish it were that way everywhere.
If time allows I'd love to elaborate abit on some of the presentations. The goal of such a congress is to initiate a dialogue between researchers and clinicians. I also think that, although none of these presentations offered insights that will directly change how I work with my clients when I get back into my studio, not immediately anyway, some of them will certainly change how I view the nature of the work I'm doing. That part will have to gestate a bit I'm guessin.
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