Educational Kinesiology and Wellness
by Paul Dennison and Gail Dennison
Creators of Brain Gym®
Source – This statement from the founders of Educational Kinesiology was written in the spring of 2004, at the request of an International Faculty member in Europe.
Its purpose is to deepen and refine the reader’s understanding of the educational model of wellness used in Edu-K in contrast to the medical model.
What is Educational Kinesiology (Edu-K)?
Educational Kinesiology is a distinct and dynamic branch of education, one founded on the principle that movement is the basis of all learning.
The Latin root word educare (“to educate”) comes out from educere (“to draw out”), and kinesis derives from the Greek Kinein (“to move”).
In Edu-K we say that movement patterns influence function. The Edu-K processes are designed to facilitate whole-brain learning for academics, business, sports, and other daily life activities.
Principle of Edu-K
Human beings share a physical functioning that is both wonderfully simple and profoundly complex. In Edu-K, our focus is on the physical and mental skills, as well as the emotional qualities, that we want to support. Anecdotal research shows that many people who use this program experience increased fitness and well-being – a general feeling of good health – as a natural byproduct of their enhanced self-expression and greater ease in performing everyday functions.
Where do we use Edu-K?
Movement educators are the primary users of Edu-K, which includes the self-help program Brain Gym® and its Co-process, Educational Kinesiology in Depth: Seven Dimensions of Intelligence. Such practitioners know well that this field of study offers individuals a way to reconnect with innate intelligence and to develop or restore both physical and mental functioning.
Benefits of Edu-K
Edu-K is also often used by healthcare providers such as psychologists, medical doctors, and family counselors, to support and maintain their patients’ and clients’ health.
1.) Such professionals know that Edu-K empowers people to define and realize their goals of well-being;
2.) achieve coordination of their desires, needs, and skills;
3.) and improve their ability to release stress and find balance.
What Is Edu-K is actually based on?
Even when used in this way, Edu-K remains a nonmedical method, employing only its own well-established educational terms – such as
1. PACE,
2. noticing,
3. coordination,
4. and integration that accurately reflect the Edu-K work and process.
What Edu-K is actually not based on?
Parents and professionals should note that Edu-K makes no use of medical terms (such as therapy, symptoms, diagnosis, or treatment) or of any medical labels (such as arthritis, allergies, curable or incurable) or academic labels (such as hyperactivity, ADHD, dyslexia, or autism).
Foundation of Edu-K in Brain Gym
The Breakthroughs International foundation recognizes as Brain Gym Instructors only those highly qualified individuals who have completed the many required hours of training. Brain Gym Instructors are not licensed to diagnose, treat, or attempt to cure any medical condition.
In Edu-K, we see human beings and their function as dynamic, not static; what is important to us is how a person actually functions – the relationship between an individual’s goal or intention and their daily patterns of movement.
Thus Educational Kinesiology is not part of any medical model. It is a purely educational form of human interaction designed to complement any course of learning or personal development being pursued.
Conclusion
In Edu-K, we observe that health derives from the ability of the body-mind system to function creatively in wholeness. This kind of health is more than a lack of illness. It is the ability to take vital and appropriate action in one’s life and to include rest and restoration as needed.
What’s important to us is how a person actually functions – the relationship
between an individual’s intention and daily patterns of movement.
Authors Paul Dennison and Gail Dennison, California, USA
Founders of Educational Kinesiology and creators of Brain Gym®
The Brain Gym works are copyrighted by Paul and Gail Dennison, beginning in 1986.
Brain Gym® is a trademark of Breakthroughs International breakthroughsinternational.org/programs/the-brain-gym-program/