Teachers and Therapists of A Macau School for the Mentally Handicapped Participated in Brain Gym Training
By Amy Choi, Hong Kong, August 31, 2017
Lengthening Exercise “Arm Activation”
Kai Chi School of the Macau Association for the Mentally Handicapped invited me to teach a one-day Dennison’s Brain Gym training on 30 August 2017 in Macau. The course was provided to 35 teachers and therapists who give preschool education services to young children with special needs.
Participants learnt the basic movements, movement variations, history and principles of Brain Gym. They also learnt the “stepping-back-to-go-forward” strategies to enable them to choose the more easily applied movements from a set of conscious integration movements originally designed for average people. Based on the rhythm and PACE of the learners, they can then further simplify the chosen movements to use on the special need young children who do the movements passively with assistance.
Lengthening Exercise “The Owl”
Participants were also given sufficient time to notice the effects and changes brought about by Brain Gym in them, anticipating the application of Brain Gym to themselves and their family in daily life.
This workshop took place soon after two severe storms battered Macau. There was no electricity and water supply in many areas just days before the workshop. When I arrived, some roads and piers were still closed, and fallen trees and the aftermath of flooding could be seen everywhere. Luckily, the workshop could proceed as planned. There were two minor incidents in relation to the course. The air conditioner of the classroom originally booked for the training had been blown away by typhoon and so we had to change to a smaller room. The school could not buy any bottled water due to a supply shortage in the city. Luckily, the school principal contacted a government department which donated two big cartons of bottled water to us. Without water, we could not have done “Sipping Water”, the first movement of PACE. We are so blessed!
Midline Movement “Lazy 8s” variation
In recent years, many teachers, traditional therapists and parents of the visually impaired, hearing impaired and mentally handicapped have become interested in some simple techniques of Brain Gym and Touch for Health although these movements and techniques were originally designed for average people. In particular, the Chinese version of “Brain Gym Teacher’s Edition” has been translated into Braille. Interested readers can borrow it from the library of the Hong Kong Society for the Blind (Contact number: 27788332) or visit http://www.hksb.com.hk to find it in the Tele-digital Library for the Visually Impaired.
I wish the teachers and therapists of Macau Kai Chi School bring back what they have learnt and use Brain Gym to enhance learning of the special need children.
I also hope that when one of the Brain Gym founders Paul Dennison, Ph. D. come to China for the first time in November, he can teach participants Brain Gym some private session techniques from the body level such as active and passive movement re-education. This would enable Brain Gym instructors and therapists with Edu-K In-Depth background to use the techniques to help those in need to release stress in the body structure, promoting learning.
Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation. Foundation. Website: www.braingym.org
