Health Should be Fun
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An unconventional meditation
I am not the type to sit quietly and cultivate stillness. I understand all of the reasons why I am supposed to, all the benefits for mind/body health. And yet, any time I have tried to sit peacefully for an extended period of time, what I end up with is a back in spasm and an anxious brain. So what is a quasi-enlightened person to do? Find another way. This is the first half hour of my day: When I emerge from my little cabin in the morning, I get a few supplies ready, pull on my boots and walk across the property to the animals. It is early and…
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Highlights from the 42nd Touch for Health Conference
The TFHKA (Touch for Health Kinesiology Association) recently held their 42nd conference in Kansas City, MO. I’m not going to extrapolate all of the reasons why you should consider attending a conference in general – though if you are interested, you can click here to find an article where I do precisely that – instead, let me share a few highlights of this conference in particular. I arrived a couple days early in order to take a pre-conference workshop; biokinetics, taught by Wayne Topping. As soon as I heard that Wayne would be teaching a workshop, I signed up immediately, then figured out what it was and how it would…
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IASK Meeting of Associations and Conference in Bergamo: A few thoughts.
I don’t often write about my travel experiences. After all, this isn’t a travel blog; it’s about health. But when my love of tromping about in far off places meets my passion for Specialized Kinesiology? Well that’s about as good as it gets! In April I attended the 4th Annual Meeting of Associations in Bergamo Italy as a representative of the IASK (International Association of Specialized Kinesiology) Board and speaking on behalf of the Canadian association as well (CanASK). Top 3 reasons (in my opinion) why the MoA is a good idea: Many of the challenges encountered by Specialized Kinesiology associations are universal – in discussing challenges as a group,…
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International SK Week
Every year it becomes a little less weird. Specialized Kinesiology is becoming more mainstream, but we still have a long way to go to increase public awareness. At the 2nd Meeting of Associations in Portugal, 2015 (hosted by IASK, the International Association of Specialized Kinesiologists), we decided to declare a week for just this. Seven days when, as kinesiologists all over the world, we will all make an effort to bring muscle testing out to the public and educate as many people as possible. International SK Week is March 13-19. I encourage all my peers to find a way to talk about their work with as many people as possible.…
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GF Sourdough Bread with Kombucha Starter
Because warm homemade bread is basically love in carbohydrate form. Two of my ‘kitchen’ goals for our little homestead this year were, 1) to keep my kombucha continuously brewing, and 2) to bake bread every week. We are gluten-free as my youngest son has some issues with digesting it and my daughter is allergic to eggs. This combination, added to the fact that we live in a village in the jungle where certain trendy luxuries (ie: GF cookies, bread and pizza) have never been heard of, means that if we are going to have treats, I pretty much have to make them myself. I was utterly delighted when I stumbled…
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Matthew Thie on Touch for Health Basics and Why They Matter
Originally published in Specialized Kinesiology Magazine, Winter 2017 Back to Basics issue. Photo credit: Jan Cole, 2016 TFHKA Conference Growing up with the creator of Touch for Health for a father, the system seems to be in Matthew Thie’s blood. Any conversation with Matthew about kinesiology work eventually makes its way back to the core tenants of self-responsibility and why basic, simple techniques are the best ones; and he has made a career out of travelling the world speaking on this subject and teaching others. And so for this issue, Matthew and I sat down for a long-distance conversation about the basics of kinesiology, what has changed and why it…
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Expectations vs. Reality
…In which I meander aimlessly on the topic of money and how it’s working/not working for us in the rainforest. It is always interesting to see what happens when expectations bump up against reality. We have been living in Costa Rica since late February and extremely few things have gone according to plan. The overall shape of life that I was looking for is here, but the path was not at all what I thought it would be. And for the most part, that’s ok, but in other ways we need to seriously re-evaluate where we are at and what we are doing. Money is one of those areas.…
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Why SK Magazine?
Why put together a magazine? I love to write. When I was a little kid, I figured I would be a poet and fiction writer when I grew up. When I was in high school and began to understand that poetry may not be a lucrative field, I decided I was going to be a journalist. That career path was unceremoniously tossed aside when I fell in love with the natural health world, but I have always kept my toes in it. Over the years I have written for newspapers, magazines and websites as a freelancer, usually on the topic of health and wellness, trying to demystify subjects like kinesiology…
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Specialized Kinesiology – What I Wish I Knew Before I Started
Lately, as I have been attempting to navigate my way through new adventures in homesteading, I have been reading a lot of blog posts. Many of these have had similar titles of the, “5 things I wish I had known before getting goats” or “10 things you should know before buying chickens” variety. This has lead me to think a lot about one of the most common questions I am asked as an instructor of Specialized Kinesiology – what do you need to know before you start? The truth is, looking back, I am embarrassed by how little I knew when I started out. I had a background in nutrition…
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Gluten-Free Pizza Recipe
Warning: This recipe is not going to be perfect pizza dough. You could never toss it up into the air while singing Italian folk songs. It is, however, fairly tasty and doesn’t fall apart instantly once it’s cooked, which is a step ahead of many gluten-free crust recipes. 4 cups brown rice flour 2 cups corn flour ½ cup arrowroot starch 3 tbsp cane sugar 1 tbsp dry yeast 1 tsp salt 3 cups warm water 1 egg 2 tbsp olive oil We live in the middle of nowhere and gluten free flour blends are hard to come by (and really expensive). I throw 4 cups of brown rice in…
