Well, Tara, hey. I'm really happy to chat with you today, and

I figured we should just we should just jump into our conversation.

And I'm gonna start a little different than I usually do, and that's that's usually

I'm like, hey. What's what's the story? What got you into this? But what I'm

really curious about for you is what's, what's coming up next? Because I know you

got some pretty exciting things planned for this month. So let's jump into that. What

are you what are you up to? Well, thanks again, Jess, for

having me here. I'm really always happy and excited to talk to

other therapists and to let them know what's possible. We get kind

of stuck behind that mold of what we think

a massage therapist or somebody in the therapeutic

industry can do and only what can be done in our,

community. So I'm actually heading off on August 13th

to Uganda, and there I'm, going to be working

in, out back hospital,

midwifery clinic, and then I'm gonna be doing some

education for, some special needs orphanages.

So just giving them some hands on techniques and awareness of things

that they could be doing with the kids to get them up off the floor.

And then in November, I'm gonna be, in

Nigeria. And in Nigeria, I'm gonna be working in a rectocele

clinic, and they specifically work with just prolapses

of all sorts. And, there again, I'm

gonna be giving pre and post, education and

manual therapy tips for things that they could be doing

to have more successful

outcomes. And so, yeah, that's what I have

coming up this year. Next year, I plan on going back to Makenje.

I've been going there for 7 years. And, there, I work in

a Bush Hospital again, giving education to midwives

and, whoever's doing the

lactation training or breastfeeding education

and physios. Yeah.

Working with CP patients. Yeah. That is really cool.

And I'm looking forward to diving into the the intricate details of that, but I

wanna I wanna reflect for a moment just on on what you started by this

conversation by saying, like, there's so much more we can do in this,

in this field as practitioners, and we tend to get kind of, like,

narrowed into what what our our

general city does. Like, what is our our province or our city or our state?

What do they think a massage therapist should be? And that's kind of what we

paint ourselves into the corner as time. As you were describing this this adventure going

on, what what popped into my mind was, James Cyriax, you know, the guy

who came up with Cyriax friction and and basically the the

modern father of orthopedic assessment. And part of the

reason he developed the orthopedic assessment that basically every

massage therapist and osteopath practices these days is because he

went to Africa and then realized, like, hey. They they don't have X rays. They

don't have access to all of these assessment, like, imaging techniques.

So what can we do manually without access to a

bunch of technology to really help identify what's,

what's what's going wrong with our clients. So it's really cool. You know? To me,

I got this, like, grassroots full circle vibe,

hearing you describe what you're going to be doing there.

Yeah. I mean, exactly what you said. They don't have

access to all the technical,

gadgets and, diagnostics that we have

here, in the western world. So being

able to which we are highly skilled, with our

hands and our eyes. So being able to see and assess things that are

happening without any tools. And then

just in general, manual therapy

techniques, moving fluids, creating

health back into tissues. What a huge difference we can make.

There too, they're not stuck in the frame

of, healing protocol needs to look

a certain way. And so there, we can use

their brains and their sensory perception

of what's happening, to our benefits. So in

showing them that something can move, they move it.

Where here, I find when I am dealing with patients,

encouraging them to move is really hard. But there,

if I simply because even sometimes,

the inability to articulate, right, with treatment. I'm

talking through translators. So there, I really am just using

hands on. I'm touching and I can sense

that there's pain there. I look at them. We recognize

together there's pain. I show them with my hands,

I continue to hold or whatever I'm doing. And as the pain

diminishes, just like any good therapist, I can feel it.

So as I'm recognizing with their eyes

that the pain is diminishing, now I've established trust.

And so with them feeling the pain

diminishing, usually, they're more apt to get up and start moving, which is

gonna facilitate healing more quickly. We

know this. Whereas here, I

find people are more, prone to they

really they don't wanna feel too much. So,

covering things up with lotions or,

painkillers or not moving, is

actually how

most of our patients I'm not gonna say all because some people are great about

getting up and moving, but most of our patients here. So

here, they rely more heavily on what is

that diagnostic telling me, and then I can only progress

as I'm having it recorded as

progressing. Whereas there, we have nothing but

our hands to tell us this shouldn't move or

we should be moving, and I feel

that we are able to give them more tools to help

themselves, as opposed to here.

I really appreciate that. And what what I'm thinking about too

is is how strongly

clients in the West, are are embedded and

entrenched in the Western Medical model. Now I'm not about to bash the Western

Medical model. Lord knows it has saved my life many a time.

Lots of value there, but what I find interesting is is very similar to what

you're saying is a lot of the clients, they they are stuck and entrenched in

this model of, doctor, tell me, how long is it

going to be for this to be better? And the doctor looks in the textbook

and says, it takes 6 to 8 weeks for a bone to go through the

healing process. So around 6 weeks from now, you should start to feel

better. And then that puts this idea into the mind of the client,

whereas, what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong, where you're gonna be

working in Africa is there's not, like, these standardized models. It's like, we're gonna do

what we need to do to make you feel better. And the fact is you

got a life. So when it starts to feel better, pay attention.

Go about your life and continue moving. So it seems like there's there's less

expectation that is both helping and hindering, but in this conversation,

hindering the overall process. Does that does that track? Is that about it? Yeah. I

mean, there as well, time is here, we measure it. We

wear watches. We have blue clocks. There,

if we cast something, we're hoping that they remember to come

back. We're hoping that they remember within a certain

time frame to come back to have it removed. So

being able to use tools like tape, I

I take, tape there, kines tape,

being able to have tools or just wrapping. We do a lot of

binding, Being able to have something

that they can simply take off is is a good idea.

So, yes, I think here,

we go very strictly by a time frame. We're there. They innately

have to pay attention to their bodies and

move forward when they're feeling better. Yeah. Mhmm. And I'm

thinking scope of practice too. Oh, sorry. We have so many

skills that, because we're not

we're not held by, symptomology.

Right? We're not held by a disease process.

Instead, we're just looking at how can we how can we

assist your body in healing itself. So I I feel

like because our tools are just our hands and our brains,

how easy it is to give those skills to someone else.

Mhmm. I really like that is is

the the the way we facilitate

health is very much in, providing our clients with the

tools so they could do it themselves. Like, we we do the things. We make

the adjustments. We kinda set the system in

on track. And at that point in time, it's like, okay. Now it's it's up

to you. You facilitate the rest of your own healing. And I'm I'm curious when

it comes to, like, like, obviously, when you're when you're in the bush,

you're not thinking to yourself, well, I gotta stay well within my scope of practice,

and nobody tatters on me, and I get in trouble from these. You're probably not

think I'm imagining. Right? So I'm

curious about the the techniques and the skills that you you use

every single day in your practice, in in

the West. How do those translate? Is it like a direct

translation, or is it like you do the skills that you do, but then there's

a couple other things you do that just wouldn't work in in Canada?

I think it depends on the circumstance and what I'm doing. I

do feel that a lot of what I learned there translates quite well

over here because I do, do some work

that's

outside of what a massage therapist would do here, I do feel that it

gives me a bigger perspective when I'm

treating my patients here, that I recognize

more quickly, when we need to refer,

when there needs to be, other interventions as well.

And so I'm always of the boat that the more eyes

on a patient, the better the patient's

healing is going to be because you can't be all

things, to every patient. But what I

learned there has translated here insofar as it's

definitely given me a confidence in,

yeah, in in that ability to notice

when there needs to be more. And I don't feel that that

steps outside of my scope of practice, but, very

much, I think that it enables me to have

or to give my patients confidence in knowing that their

well-being is at the forefront of everything that I do.

Right. Right. That makes sense. That makes sense. Now as you go through this

this eventually, you mentioned, like, quite a number of different, I

suppose, modalities. Right? You're gonna be working at a midwifery clinic, and you're gonna be

doing a herniation, clinic. And there's a bunch of these different

spaces that you're going to be in. And what I'm

curious about is within within this this adventure, is there any in

particular that you're just like, this is my jam. Like, this is the one

that I really enjoy. Or is it all just kinda like, everything's amazing?

Yeah. I think

of everything that I like to do. I like to work with children

best, and, especially

babies because being able to set them off

with the best start is,

very fulfilling. Also

because in when I go and help in these

countries, those are the ones that if they don't get the help, they just don't

thrive. And so and it's the smallest changes

that need to be made, that can make the biggest change.

I also just love,

I love the excitement of no borders,

of of

having to come up up with ideas outside of the box. I

mean, a couple years ago, where I

go, they don't have any braces for patients with cerebral

palsy, and they have a lot of cases of cerebral palsy,

not, not the degenerative cerebral

palsy, but the cerebral palsy from birth trauma. And

so, we had a lot of children that

because of that weren't hitting milestones, weren't weren't crawling,

weren't walking. And if you can't get up off the ground, I mean,

I what kind of a leg is that? So,

I had fun trying to figure out with some of the men that

work at the hospital how to make braces out of PCB pipe.

PCB pipe, cotton, and elbows,

and, straps, Velcro straps.

So I I think and I am

so fortunate as well in the connections, and we all have

them. We all have a dentist here in Canada or

wherever you are. We all have a doctor.

If you're in the therapy realm, you treat other therapists.

So we have a wealth of information. So I love the fact that I can

call back to Canada. I can call a friend and be like, you know

what? This is what I'm seeing right now. I'm gonna send you a couple pictures.

We don't have any supplies, so what would you do?

Cool. And, you know, at the beginning when I would call, they'd be like, don't

hold me to anything, but I think I'd take the

honey off those burns. And I'm like, perfect. Just knowing

that saved a lot of children from losing

limbs from, you know, gangrene.

So it's like these small things that here we

don't think anything of. Those small things can

help change and save lives. I have a doctor right now that's sending me

with boxes of,

erythromycin, the eye drops for the newborns. And it's

like, that is going to stave off infections

and save 100, if not 1,000, of eyeballs

in brand new babies. And, yeah, it cost them

nothing. They're, they're simply

they were samples that were given. But each sample can can do

2 to 3 babies. Right? It's like small things that we

don't think anything of. They can make toothbrushes.

I just picked up my dentist is amazing. He ordered

me from his supplier, the samples that they hand out, 200,

children's toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss. I mean, it's gonna

change lives. Right. So is that what you mean when you you

say, you know, help children? It sounds like there's a lot of different things that

you're doing, bringing eye drops, bringing the the the

toothbrushes. Do you do any hands on work with the kids?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. So, primarily, that's what my practice is

here. I do Yeah. Pediatrics. I see

babies. I see moms. So, I teach a couple

courses on uterine lye, on,

just that would take us a whole other way.

But in talking about, like, scoliosis and hypermobility

and how the changing the tension on the ligaments,

in the pelvis changes the tension on the uterine lie,

which then allows the baby in utero to develop

with a spine with the less the least amount

of compression. Or, a lot

of times, like torticollis or, some of

these are are breech baby. It's just caused by babies going to

put their head into the softest place, when they're in the pelvis.

So if if the pelvis itself isn't

square or doesn't have enough room in it, baby's head is gonna be, you know,

up under the rib cage. And so when we take tension off those ligaments,

then we allow baby to move on its own. Because baby is

super smart. They're they're always looking for

the least amount of tension when they're in the bag, and that's what helps

them to develop. So what here in Canada, I see the

mom all the way through her pregnancy. And then as soon as the

baby's born, especially if there's been a scoliosis or

if the mom's hypermobile, I'll see her afterwards to close the pelvis,

make sure that there's enough tension on it, and all of that can be done

externally. I there's no internal work done there. And then I show

her how to find the exercises that she needs to do

to close her linea alba to help so that she doesn't have

constipation or bladder issues, right after birth. And

then, then I see baby and make sure that, you

know, when babies are born, the jaw is actually has a

synthesis. And so that allows it to fold as it

comes through the birth canal. And we hope that as baby's born and they

get that good twist coming out, that this bone pops

back symmetrically. But sometimes, it'll

pop back on an odd angle or, if there's

any jaw tightness at all in through the neck, the

the baby is unable to open. They're very snappy.

They can't latch. And so then there should never

be pain with breastfeeding, but mom will hear from her

providers, well, you know, until your nipples toughen

up and so everybody keeps missing that there's a real problem. And right

now, we talk a lot about tongue ties, but there's bigger issues than

tongue ties. There's also which dentists are very good

now at facilitating, sending babies through to

some somebody doesn't like, massage therapist, osteopath,

chiropractor, physio, somebody to release some of the tension.

I mean, trauma for the birth trauma of birth is just as much for

the child as for the mother. And then

so I would facilitate making sure that any tension that's

there that might be impeding baby's ability to breastfeed

and thrive, if that's what the mom's, if that's what

the hope of the mother is. I mean, even to suck on a bottle, baby

still needs to be able to form a latch, to be able to

sleep, to have the bones of the face push out properly,

to not impede hearing, even

brain development. Right? The the bones of the head need a certain amount

of compression and pressure that the tongue has to facilitate

by pushing into the hard palate. So these are some of the things that

I just make sure at the beginning that parents are set up right,

baby's nursing well or feeding off the bottle, whatever is

happening with that, and then walking them through, making sure babies

are hitting milestones, and that, developmentally,

everything is going well. I mean yeah. We just know so much more

now than we ever knew before. Mhmm.

Mhmm. So how did you learn about this? Love that part of it.

But I also love my scoliosis patients and hypermobility because I feel

like nobody's treating or helping them properly either. And so

Yeah. That's a whole other, demographic that

seems to be, really filling

we have I have 2 other practitioners here really filling our

practice because nobody is treating them

properly. Yeah. What does properly mean in this case?

Well, with the scoliosis is, not treating them

bilaterally. So as a massage therapist, we go in

and a lot of times because a lot of us have taken trigger

point therapy, everything that we learn. When we leave school, we're just a

general practitioner. So everything that we learn is bilateral.

We do one side, we do the other side, everything is one side to the

other. We're not really looking at why

is there a difference in asymmetry. Is in

a scoliotic patient, that difference is tightness

on both sides, tightness on the short side,

tightness on the long side. If I keep treating

it bilaterally, I keep making the shorter side tighter,

the long side more stretched, so I'm actually

creating the torsion and distortion in the body.

I'm enabling the body to continue to move

into its shortest, tightest position, which that's what our body

naturally does so that it doesn't have to work so hard. But in a

scoliotic patient, it's driving the curve further into the

body, which we know we're more than just what's

on the surface. So it's impeding the work of our organs

inside, it's, changing the pressure within our

sinus cavities, It's, impeding,

press or putting more pressure on the heart. It's restricting motion

of the lungs. There's so many things. So if we

understand better that when a person with scoliosis comes

to me, what I want to do is create balance

in that body. I only want to release the short, tight

sides. I I don't want to massage

their big convexity right rib cage with the one trigger point that they

keep coming in for because I'm actually I'm

driving the the lower quadrant

into at that tighter tighter curve, and I'm now

affecting low back and sacrum at the pelvic floor. Right. Right. Right. I

mean, follows the the classic principle of of ralphing where it is, it

ain't. Right? And and on that note, I'm kinda curious because between in what you

just described with working with, the

the skull bones of infants as well as addressing these very specific issues in

scoliosis, And you mentioned it. This this stuff isn't taught in

school, and I'm I'm pretty deep in the continuing education world. And I've

been in it for quite a long time, and this stuff isn't really talked about

at all in continuing education with a few very

specifics, maybe. So I'm curious about that process. Is how

did you how did you learn all this stuff? Because it's pretty intricate, pretty

detailed, and shockingly specific. Yeah.

Well, I think it was the demographic that I was seeing,

because I deal with moms and babies with latching issues. I

was noticing that every mom that comes in with the baby with the latching

issue has a scoliosis. Really? It's not every

mom. It's the ones I was seeing that had issues. So then I

was like So wait. Wait. Wait. I need to

interrupt you for a second because I need I need to make sure I'm getting

this clear. So what I'm hearing you say is when you would have a

mom bring her baby in with latching issues, you found that there

was a direct correlation between an infant with latching issue issues

and the mother having scoliosis. Yes. Wow.

That is an interesting connection. Okay. Okay. Sorry for interrupting, but I wanted to make

sure I understood that correctly. So then I

started talking to pediatricians. And

just in that I was noticing that the patients that they were sending

me, they all had a slight scoliosis. But what I started to notice

is everybody was like, oh, a

scoliosis. Like, it was something new. And I was

like, it's very obvious that this person

has a scoliosis, and it was not being talked

about. And so it was almost as if unless

the patient presented with a back a sore back or

issues with the back or the spine, nobody was looking at their back.

And it was unbelievable to me that they were brushing off

mom's back pain as just being, well, she just had a baby. But I'm like,

but she's always had back pain. This just didn't start with her pregnancy.

And she has a scoliosis, and so we

know that the uterus attaches to ligaments

that attach to the pelvic bowl. If there's a scoliosis, we

know that there's gonna be an imbalance within the the ligaments of the pelvic

bowl, which is then gonna cause an imbalance within the uterine

lie. And then every baby that I see that has

a latching issue, that has a mom that has a scoliosis, depending on the

birth order of the baby so if it's her first baby, the

curve is the exact same as hers. The exact

same. If it's a second time baby, the

curve mirrors hers. So it's the opposite,

but it's still a curve. And then the 3rd baby

would have a distortion of the curves. And then every baby

thereafter would have some,

either some part of the curve. But

then if she had, like, 4 children, suddenly, she'd have

no curve. And so I knew that it was

the tension on the bag that was changing the way the spines were

forming. And then I have one mom that has 6 babies.

So and she has a scoliosis, and she's hypermobile, which, again,

they seem to go hand in hand. If you're hypermobile, the chances

are you'll have a scoliosis because of the lack

of tensile strength. And that's a whole other thing on its own, but

I specialize in hypermobility as well. But the lack of

tension on the tendons, then the ligaments

must take up the slack. So the ligaments become too tight,

because they are become they've become fibrotic, because something has to

hold you together. And if the tendons aren't creating the right amount of

space or strength over a joint, then the tendons will become

fibrotic and take over that tension. But then that

distorts the amount of pressure or compression, and it

causes, over time, a scoliosis. So it's

like, at what point does the scoliosis become if the

baby's born and there's already a spinal deviation?

And the spinal deviation of the mom or the baby? In the baby.

Okay. Yes. Baby's born and it already has the spinal

trait of the mom, if it doesn't have the

rib head articulation so do you know the rib head articulation for

scoliosis? Mhmm. Okay. So if they don't have the rib

head articulation, which is the convexity on one

side and the concavity, so the oblique rib cage on the other side. So

if that has already formed, if the rib heads have formed to the spine,

we really can't change then at that

point the curve or the

beginning of the curve in the spine. But we can by softening

the curve as the baby develops and grows. We can allow the

muscles to grow the same length bilaterally by

taking the tension off the curve. Because now the bundles are

growing symmetrically. If you leave

them on their own, they'll be asymmetrical. They'll

have a short trap on one side, a longer trap on the other side. Because

the frame denotes the development of the muscles based on the pull. Pull up the

muscles to the frame. Does that make

sense?

Yeah. So I also So let me make sure I got this. So

we've got we've got this connection where if, if

mom has scoliosis, then baby is

born with scoliosis baby 1 is born with scoliosis that matches

mom's scoliosis. So we're we're clear in the fact that

the the preexisting condition is mom has scoliosis. And what I wanna make

clear about that before I I summarize the rest of it is,

what is the likelihood that mom didn't have scoliosis,

but then during the fetal development phase, during gestation,

she developed scoliosis? Is that a pattern you see?

No. Because not a true scoliosis. So Fair. Because a

true scoliosis is bony articulation. So the

bone formation is wedged or fixed. It's

not something that could have just happened. So Alright. So we're talking

structural scoliosis. Yeah. There is scoliosis that can

happen from an injury, from, how

we repetitively if we if I sit and lean on my

desk every day. And but even that will cause,

as as the baby develops, if if I sat like this every

day for my entire pregnancy, that still

is restricting the amount of motion within the

bag as baby develops. Yeah. So we do know that

that scoliosis is not genetic. It's not hereditary,

but it is familial. So there are some

components of it. The genetic component would be the rib head

formation. Because it could be that the dad has

a scoliosis, and his was on

the rib head formation. I know that's a little bit much to get into, but

then there are the chances that if the child had it, the

mom may not have an actual scoliosis. Right? So you

do have to look at the family as well. But because what

I'm looking at is latching issues, every mom that

comes in has latching issues, has a

baby has has a scoliosis, and has a baby

with a spinal deviation, which just looks like a really tight

c curve in a baby, and then they can't

look all c curve. So what ends up happening is that the neck

shortens on the opposite side of the c curve so

that they make more of an s shape. And that

is fixable. That is fixable.

Mhmm. And even if you didn't know what you were doing,

even if you didn't know anything, and your baby was born and it looked

like that, and all you did every day was move it to the other side,

every day you just said, I'm gonna take this little baby and twist it to

the other side, you're allowing freedom of motion and

movement, which then lessens the likelihood of

the spine becoming fibrotic or fixed in a

position. Mhmm. Mhmm. If if

you work with with a mom and she comes in, you notice that

she has scoliosis, you're you may be already thinking that, like, okay. Mom has

scoliosis. Likelihood, child or baby is gonna have scoliosis.

I I wanna make sure I understand that that is it possible, if you've

identified mom has scoliosis, to do the appropriate,

massage where you're working on ligaments to ensure that baby either

has minimal or no scoliosis? Yes.

Yes. So I always say we can't change mom.

So her body is fixed.

The bony bony articulation is fixed. The muscles

have developed asymmetrically in a fixed position. You

can't change any of that. But if you take the tension off the

bag and change uterine lie, yes.

Yes. You can. I believe that. And I think that

and I I know it's a broad statement, but I think that there's no proof

of that because who would say, well, don't treat me and let's see what happens.

Right? If everyone was given the opportunity to

go in and get treatment knowing that it was going to help them, nobody's

going to want to be a part of the group that says, pretend on

me. Yeah. And let's see what happens with my baby.

Nobody. Yeah. So that's why it's hard to make a study,

an objective study, I think, measurable,

because anything when it comes to women and

babies, pregnant women and babies, it's like

yeah. We don't wanna play around with that. So we just make the change, and

we we see the results.

Yeah. You know, I don't want to go on this tangent, but I can't

help myself but speak to that fact about how,

in science in general, we are adamantly opposed

any study that isn't placebo controlled or following the gold standard

of studies. But then with pregnancy, we are 100%

okay looking at studies and literature and research that

doesn't follow placebo controlled for all the reasons you just explained. I agree with that

fully, but I value that way of doing studies

so much that I really wish it would extend to all areas. It's

like placebo control, very important, but it turns out the end of one

study, shockingly valuable. So, anyways,

tangent to side. I just wanted to make that point. But we're not you you

did mention something that I am very curious to know, and this is talking

about hypermobility. I would I would like it if we could talk about this

in general and then maybe tie it back into pregnancy prenatal. But

hypermobility, this is this is something I see so

often in the people I teach. So I largely teach

massage therapists, osteopaths, yoga teachers, to a lesser extent, acupuncturists.

And it's so interesting because the type of person who

goes into this field, again, massage, osteo,

yoga, tend to be hypermobile, and this occupation

is really damn hard on hypermobility. So can we

talk hypermobility for a second as somebody specializes? Love to.

So it's actually one of the things that I teach,

because there are just 2 so there are just 2 things that hypermobile

people, if they do them, they will live a great life. So the first one

is never stretch. Never stretch.

For the rest of your life, do not stretch. Every time you

stretch, you create instability within your body. It is

exhausting for your body to tighten itself back up.

75% of people that have fibromyalgia are

hypermobile. And so the reason that they're told that they

have fibromyalgia is because of the trigger point that's in the belly

of 11 muscles in the body, the stabilizing muscles.

In a hypermobile person, those trigger points are the only

thing creating tension within that body. When you release them, that

body struggles to find its way back to harmony and

balance. So never stretch for the rest of your life,

and then strengthen. Strengthen. If you

just do some kind of strength training. So does that mean that they can't

do massage? So I'm a massage I'm a sorry, yoga. I'm

a yoga teacher, and I'm a yoga teacher of yoga teachers.

And this is what I have to say about that. Yoga depends

on the intention. So you can stretch or strengthen in

yoga depending on where you place your intention.

So yoga is still valuable for people that are hypermobile. It's

just what they do with it, and they're drawn to it because it

fits their body best. We've been watching the Olympics. Have you

ever noticed the size of gymnasts?

They're all the same size. All of them. They're the same

size, and they're hypermobile. And both those

things fit that sport. And so I think

that just like with yoga, we are drawn to the thing that we

can achieve more easily. And people wanna

feel like they're doing something for their bodies. And most people

that are hypermobile, weight becomes an issue.

Because when you have a body that's not making

enough tension to stoke its own internal

fires, the systems themselves become more sluggish, and

you can stop eating as a hypermobile person, and you will still

not lose weight because your body is not

making the right amount of tension to burn the fat that it

has. And then the lack of tension it then

creates in in the fat that it lays

down, creating a tension under the skin,

if that's any, within the joints

themselves. That that extra layer of adipose tissue is

actually creating tension for you when you have no

tension. So your body's not going to give

up what it needs for stability. It's a

proven fact. It is science that in people that are

hypermobile, their amygdala is larger than the amygdala

in the average person, and they're just starting to

do studies more on hypermobile people. There's in Mount

Sinai here in Toronto, there's a whole study being set up. I'm

actually sending patients daily. You get

free, counseling, free, like, psychosomatic

emotional counseling, free physiotherapy, because they

they're trying to understand and gather information from

this population that has wholly been missed and misdiagnosed.

They have the most chronic pain. Their

inability for their body to understand

its place and space

appear to make for a more clumsy person that's

constantly injuring themselves, rolling ankles,

but the emotional stress, higher levels of depression and

mental illness when your body is not making the right amount of

tension for it to feel safe within itself.

This is, this is a big can of worms that we just opened, apparently, with

hypermobility. Yeah. I find it to be a a very

important discussion to have, and and I was very pleased to hear

you say the 2 things because those are the exact two

things that I've been preaching on myself. I mean, it it, ultimately, I

believe it's relatively obvious when you understand the the physiology of hyper and

hypomobility. But then there's this issue there's this issue that

arises, and the issue is the fact that,

well, hypermobile people, they like doing yoga because it

fits their body style. I get it. I love climbing because it fits my body

style. So somebody came up to me and said, hey, listen. I

know your favorite thing to do for activity is climbing, but

it's really important that you don't do climbing the way that you like

to. That's an important distinction right there. The way you like to because it doesn't

fit your body type. So how do you how do you work with with, like,

anybody when you say you're hypermobile, don't stretch? But

they're like, but stretching is my thing. I love it. It fills me, and they

come up with all these reasons, valid reasons Yeah. Why stretching is important

to them. How how do you work with that? So I explained to

them that because their tendons aren't making the right amount

of compression over their joints, their ligaments have become too tight.

Ligaments are not supposed to be tight. So the ligaments keep telling their

brain, I need to stretch. But the more they stretch to

loosen up their ligaments, the less tension they make in their

tendons, which makes them more prone to injury

over time. So that's why the stretch feels good short

term, but long term, it's creating a lot of distortion.

Then I always show them this. See when I do this,

how good that feels for me? And they're like, yeah. And I said, yeah. But

it's not the stretch that I need to do. Because as

you can see, look how far I can go. I'm actually just hanging

out, but it feels really good because I'm taking my body

more into what it likes. And so when I take it

more into a position it's stuck in, then I get a sensation of

relief, but it's short lived. So then I tell them, I want you to

give me 3 weeks. I want you to still do yoga,

but I want you to as you move through the postures, I want you to

think about isometrically contracting. It's not that you can't do that

stretch. It's just that I want you to isometrically

contract everything, then you can relax, and then move

on in the pose. So I'm still giving them a little bit of what they

like, but I'm also showing them how important the contraction

is. But, usually, all it takes is 3 weeks for their body to

start to have more ease, for their mind, incredibly, to

have more clarity. Because when your body is

struggling to create tension within itself all the time, it's

depleting every other system. So you're exhausted

all the time. You you you have no

capacity for anything else. And I

always explain to them, that capacity isn't physical. It isn't

all physical. It can be just mental capacity. Like, I'm

starting my day, and I'm already at 80%, my cup is

full. And so now somebody cuts me

off or like, I have no capacity to have

room for anything outside of what I'm looking for within that

day, and that's just exhausting. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yeah. That makes sense. I, again, I I I really appreciate that

sentiment and that process. Very similar to the one that I eventually came to, and

I I like the 3 weeks. I I'm I'm I was a little bit more

strict. I'm gonna try the 3 week things moving forward, but I was I was

a 2 monther. Like, let's do this for 2 months. Let's just try a 2

month trial run where you really focus on strengthening. And

the experience that I've had with with my clients is if they genuinely commit

to that and they they say, do do the 80 20

principle, 80% of their time in yoga or whatever physical

activity is spent strengthening, cool. Then you can have 20% where you could

just go ahead. Do do your do your gumby thing. Fine. Yeah. As long as

the 80% is still really focused on really making sure

that that is the foundation of strength. So yeah. Okay. It sounds it sounds

super one of those things. I feel like at the 3 week mark, because that's

that whole 20 days for a new habit. Mhmm. I feel like at the

3 week mark, they start to notice a difference. So

I just want them to notice. If they can notice, like, oh

my my gosh. I do feel better. The big thing too

is, usually, if weight gate weight loss is something that they're

they've been trying to do, and they've been doing cardio and,

you know, they're doing all these things and they're not losing any weight. If they

just follow what I said for the next 3 weeks

and the other point is closing that front line, but we'll talk about that in

a second. But if they just follow those 3 weeks, they've already

noticed that they've started to lose weight. And it's not in that the

scale has moved, but they feel tighter, and they

feel they feel like their clothes are fitting more differently. So

they're noticing that there has been a physical change, and

usually that's enough motivation. Okay. I'm

curious now. I'm curious. Tell me about this clothes on the front line. Yep.

So super important. So people with scoliosis who

usually have usually

have endometriosis, if it's a woman, endometriosis

and, PCOS, or if it's

a man, will eventually end up over time to have prostate

issues. So if that front line is open,

because it's not a woman thing, we tend to think of

that linea alba, that diastasis opening as a

pregnancy only thing. It's

not. I see men with

frontline opens, and it's not necessarily that

they gained a lot of weight. It's a beer gut, a beer belly. I have

gymnasts, bodybuilders, anywhere where

there's constant tension on that front line. So that's the

linea alba that attaches from the xyphoid process to the pubic bone

on either side of the pubic bone. So in a hypermobile

person, remember that all your connective tissue has more play

in it than most. So that front line is

all connective tissue, and it is the main

attachment for the abdominal muscles, but it also

has a fibrotic attachment into transversus

abdominis, which is the container. So transversus,

it doesn't have any contractility on its own. When we pull

our belly button in toward our spine, we're initiating motion

movement with all our abdominal muscles. Transversus is actually the

tight skin on the drum, and it envelops all the way

from the front of our body. It encases all the way around and it

wraps into and, integrates into QL,

psoas, it attaches onto the vertebral

body of the lumbar spine. It's responsible

for holding our guts in. The linea

alba comes on the front of that line, and it creates the tensile

strength to pull it all back. And it's if you think

about it, the most easiest way to think about it is we have our spine

at the back and our linea oval at the front. And those

two things together create the right amount of tension so

that our back muscles can move and our abdominals can

move. If I lose tension in that front line, my back

is gonna become rock hard because something has to hold me.

If if I become too tight in my abdomen,

then I have too much mobility in my lumbar spine.

So which is very rare. Very, very rare. I

have nobody that has a too tight frontline. But I'm saying if it

was to happen, if you were a gymnast or not a not a gymnast, if

you were a, what can I say? What would

even just pull forward all the time? I don't know.

Maybe yeah. Maybe somebody sat at their

desk all day and pulled their guts in. I don't know.

But that that line,

the tension that's on it then creates symmetry

for all the other the muscles that attach to it. We lose

tension on that line. Now, if if it

opens below my belly button, the ligament that

attaches from my bladder that attaches to the back of

my umbilicus that holds my bladder up now has no

tension on it. My bladder attaches

my ligaments to everything else that's inside my bowl. So

now it's all lost to tension and integrity to hold it

up. My cervix, the head of my cervix and

my, uterus, the neck, actually

fascially attaches onto a false floor that

attaches onto my hip bones and pubic bone at the front and then back

to sacrum. If if I lose

tension on that front line in the lower part, now I've lost

tension on all those ligaments. So now I'm more

apt to prolapse, digestive

issues, rectoceals.

Yeah. I I alternate. I have irritable bowel. I

alternate between constipation and then diarrhea because my

bowels aren't making the right amount of pressure on them. It's a huge

issue. If above that line opens up

from my belly button to my, xiphoid process. Now

my diaphragm doesn't have the right amount of tension. So I actually had a

patient, it kinda crazy. He had a a lung that

actually, came off the lining and pulled up, and

they said it was lack of tension on his diaphragm, and he had an

umbilical hernia for years that they didn't think was worth

repairing. So, yeah,

that's that that line creates the right amount of

tension within our canister, which is all our

internal organs. It's never mind our heart. Right? Our heart

attaches onto the back of our sternum, but it's actually a

floating organ per se inside a bag. And

the pressures in that canister then create the right amount of

pressure for my heart to do its job. So even my heart doesn't have

the right amount of pressure on it. A lot of

my scoliosis everyone that has a scoliosis will

say, occasionally, I get these weird heart palpitations. It's a little bit

of a cough, and then it goes away. And they've hooked me up to the

heart monitor, and I'm fine. I'm like, you just don't have the right

amount of pressure on your sternum, which is

not creating the the best environment between the

lungs hugging your heart and the sternal pressure on your heart for

your heart to be in a space where it

has the right amount of pressure on it. Yeah.

So it's inspired that go

ahead. Yeah. I'm gonna say I can't so one thing I will say is this

has just been what I've seen. I mean, I'm not a medical

doctor. Right? So I'm not a scientist.

But when you have every patient and you say to them, are you having this

sensation? And they say, yes. It's like, you have to start at

some point putting the dots together. Even the cardiologist that I talked

to that I said this to, he was like, that makes complete

sense. Mhmm. But it's not

something he would investigate because it's not helpful for him.

Yeah. That's it. No. I'm I'm on board with that. I think I think all

of these these matter, and that's part of the reason why I love having these

discussions is because I get to talk to people like you who have a

a genuine wealth of experience in which you've seen

100, thousands of patients submitted to put this together. And it

sounds like this whole frontline laxity issue is, has some

pretty profound consequences. I mean, you you listed off a lot of them, and I'm

curious. What do we do about? It? Yeah. It's

super easy to close it. So gentle pelvic tilts will

start bringing that line back together. I say in my

pregnant patients, it happens quite quickly because the line came

apart quite quickly. In my male patients,

that line comes back together quite fast, and I believe it's

because the difference in the shape of the pelvis. So

because their pelvis is more straight, there's actually less

pull on that line. So it's and they seem

to be more motivated to do the

exercises. I'm not sure they're but they tend to get the

results more quickly. And then, yeah, I

so I see it in babies with umbilical hernias, that frontline.

If they have a spinal deviation, that frontline will have not come

back together smoothly. I also see it in toddlers.

If you have a toddler and they can't jump, chances are that front

line is still open on them. It seems like such a small thing, like,

children should be able to jump. And so if you ask your toddler,

jump, and they actually can't bring their feet up off the floor,

chances are that front line is open. If you're experiencing toileting

issues with them and they're still not training, chances are that front line

is open. So in children, we can do, like, a fake

little sit up to cause a contraction to

close it, because the line is more malleable.

In adults, we start with pelvic tilts. So no

contraction, just lying flat on a

surface with knees bent, and it's just that gentle

pelvic rock. Low back next to the mat, low back up.

Super simple. No contraction. In 2016,

Diane Lee put out a study. She's, like, the guru for

pelvic floor, worldwide. And up

until 2016, she was saying it didn't matter if the

front line was closed. And I was like, I don't care if you call

it a diastasis or if you call it, because they

like to play with words. So a diastasis has to be 3 fingers.

But an abdominal separation can be as little as one finger.

But they're saying if it's a diastasis, it'll cause issues. If it's a one

finger abdominal separation, there's no issue. But I'm I'm in the

camp, and now they're coming on board. If there's a separation, there's a separation.

So any separation causes a loss of tension, which

over time will only exasperate itself. Right.

So starting with general pelvic tilts, no

contraction, 3 times a day, 15 times. So

it's more that you space out in the consistency than the

amount. And then once that line

has tensile strength to it, then we say start

with minimal core exercises. So before the

line is closed, no crunches, double leg lifts, or planks.

Once the line has been closed, we start doing asymmetrical

motion and movements. So crossing over crunches,

but, again, upper or lower, not together, until the

line is hard. And then you can go back to your core

exercises. There's some great sites out there.

Actually, I have a online app. It's called

Osteo You, and people can click on it,

and all they have to do is put in their email address and not gonna

be spammed. I have no time to put anything in there. So but

it has a bunch of free stuff in there. So it does have, like, a

sequence for closing the line and then what the graduated

exercises would be. But there's other people that have it as well.

Trista Zinn has a site that does it. The bell

method, b e l l e. She has a

great site with one of her bubbles is just diastasis

repair. I highly recommend whether you've had a baby or

not. If you have a frontline, separation,

those exercises are great. That's

that's Osteo U or Osteo University. I'm

I'm gonna put the link is my app. I'll send it to you. Okay. It's

free. Make sure it's in the, the link in the description so people could check

that out because that sounds like an invaluable resource. Oh, thank

you. Yeah. And I'm curious now. We

we she chatted for nearly an hour, and I suspect we could talk for about

another 5 hours. But, you know,

you're you're going to Africa. You're doing this, but you also teach,

and you're pretty prolific in the teaching world. And I'm curious, what's,

what's, like, the dream? You know, what's what's their dream if you, as a

practitioner, an instructor, and a philanthropist, and somebody who is

deeply embedded in this world of manual medicine? If you could wave your

magic wand and and have something change or happen

in our industry, what what would it be?

Well, I think I see it already happening. So what I would

like to see is more people

excited about developing greater

skill sets for specialized populations.

There are a lot of people just doing massage, and

it's invaluable. I often say when I speak at

conferences, a lot of people are doing the work that I'm already doing. They just

don't know what they're doing, which is exciting for me. But

my whole goal in what I do and what I'm hoping to see is I

just wanna get into as many forms as I can and

share as much of the education as I am. Because if

people could step off from what I've learned and then move forward, then we

actually move forward. If I keep waiting for everyone to get

to the point that I'm at, I mean, I'm 57, what a waste

of time. So I for me,

it's never been about selling courses,

which I'm horrible at doing, and I've realized that it's better

for me to go and teach courses for other people because they've

already set that up and got that running. My whole goal is

to share as much information as I can so that

I can have so many other people be my hands and feet. And

I feel that if we, yeah, if

we just get excited about what's before us

and look at the populations that we're seeing,

and then just how can I serve you better? And

I can save sites like yourself. Education sites,

continuing education sites are invaluable. And even if you

just take away one small piece and you can implement

it, yeah, how how

exciting that is for us as educators that people are listening.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you. I love that message. And I and I have one

final question for you, and it's the same question I asked virtually everybody.

It's my closing question. So in your experience,

both as a practitioner as well as somebody who has received a lot of

treatments, what do you think makes a practitioner

successful? You know what? That is so

interesting because today, I went and have my eyebrows done.

And at the last time I went to that place, at the

end, after the girl did my eyebrows, she gave me a face massage.

And I loved it. Loved it. And so

I tipped her, like, an extra $20. It was only $20 to get my

eyebrows done, but I was like, that was amazing. So

this time, I went back to that same place because I was excited

about the face massage. And I didn't care who did it

for me at that place because I figured if she did it, they

all did it. But I went in, this girl just did my

eyebrows. At the end of it, I was, like, sitting there waiting for the

face massage, and she tapped me on the shoulder, like, you're

done. And I was like, oh.

So I got up, so I tipped her, and I left. And I was

thinking about it when I drove home because I believe that that's part

of every business, and I thought all she had to do was rub my forehead

a little bit. Right? Like, all she had to do was just touch

just, just do something that showed, like,

oh, I I'm caring. Right? And I believe

that what sets practitioners apart are those small

extra things that are like

I was even thinking of that today that everyone here, I'm gonna tell them, I'm

gonna get some, lemon oil. And I'm gonna say, at the end of

your treatment, every treatment, I just want you to rub

some lemon oil on your hands and just hold it over their eyes for a

second, and ask them to take a couple deep breaths in.

Because when you leave them with something that feels

like you're resetting their nervous system,

I think that'll really set you apart. Yeah.

Something you have to do something extra that

sets you apart if you wanna be successful because,

otherwise, there's a 1000000 people out there doing the same thing.

Yeah. I love it. That's great.

Thank you. My eyebrows before.

Yeah. This has been a fantastic conversation. I'm really grateful

for this. I learned a ton, and I'm sure everybody who's listening to

this also learned a ton. You are you are a a fountain of knowledge.

So, how could people keep track of what you're doing as far as if you're

gonna be speaking anywhere courses? Of course, I'll put the the link to that app

in in the show notes. So how else could people, get in

touch? Well, I'm hoping to do some work with you at some point, Jess. I'm

excited about that. But Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I speak at a lot

of conferences. So the best place to see where I'm gonna be speaking or

what I'm doing or what I'm up to is follow me on my Instagram account,

Terra Therapeutics. It's in the show notes. That's the best

place, to see what I'm doing. On my OsteoU

site, Hopefully, I'll upload some more. There's a

ton of free stuff on there for hypermobile,

hypomobile, pelvic floors, how to spring a rib

cage. Yeah. I do a short rant

on everything, hypermobility and scoliosis. And,

yeah. And ask me questions. I learn when people post

questions, especially when I don't know the answer. I'm

like, that was a great question. I need to know that answer.

So, yeah, wet my knowledge, and hopefully, I

inspired and got some other people

excited about what we can do. There's a lot of possibilities.

There sure are. That is great. Thank you so much, Tara. I really

appreciate it. Thanks, Jess.