Upside Down Thinking
Gary Gray, PT
F2PAcademy.com
LiveInjuryFree.org
Have you ever come across someone who turns your head around?
Last week I got a chance to do just that.
I attended a symposium on something called The Applied Functional Science™, presented by the founder of the Gray Institute, Gary Gray.
This immensely dynamic speaker took the room by storm, sharing stories and presenting a very compelling case for a radically different approach to rehabilitation, performance and injury prevention.
He was charismatic, enthusiastic, and driven to get the message out to a an audience of medical professionals, trainers. coaches, educators and parents that everything we think we know about movement and the protocols we follow in aiding people in recovering from injury is wrong.
He tells us we are illiterate when it comes to movement, and we need to recognize that this illiteracy is keeping us from enjoying life and living injury free.
In other words, we have it all upside down.
Now, I came to meet this amazing preacher of movement literacy in my day job, but his approach to getting the message out impressed me on more than one level.
As he stood before an auditorium filled with people who had spent years learning their profession, telling them they had it all wrong, I half expected people to shout obscenities and march from the theater, but they didn't.
We were also broadcasting the event live around the world, and the feedback on the chat channel wasn't at all negative. People were being told they were failing at their craft and they kept listening and taking notes!
It suddenly occurred to me that I had heard all this before, in another context, from a greater distance, regarding something much dearer to my heart and soul.
It was the way Jesus taught the crowds, by turning things on their head.
But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. - Matthew 19:30
I can understand why the leaders and scribes may have hated Jesus for his teachings. He was challenging their authority, their approach to living their lives, their rule over the people and their value as leaders.
Those who saw themselves as the best, would discover they were valuing the wrong traits, exhibiting the wrong behavior.
Jesus also told his followers that they could perform miracles if they had just a tiny bit of faith.
Gary Gray was saying the same thing. In fact, he showed videos of kids in elementary school having fun performing the movements and exercises that he described, understanding why they were doing them, and using the vocabulary of movement that professionals have held sacrosanct, considering it beyond the ability of the patient to comprehend.
Sound familiar?
What I realized in this example of employing upside down thinking was that we can all do it in our everyday lives.
We can say what we believe to be the truth and back it up, even if what we are saying sounds ridiculous to many. Many who are first will be last.
By watching and listening to a man committed to what he believes deliver it without apology, but with the passion and endurance of a marathon runner in the moment, I saw an example of breaking down the walls and going full throttle to the goal.
The message?
Follow my passion, take it center stage, and don't worry about what others might think.
Thank you, Gary.
More to come...