"Learning is that magical thing that takes place in a split second, that changes us forever. At Educational Kinesiology, we believe that no matter how many times we repeat a 'learned' task, if a better way of doing it is presented, and the whole brain/body system experiences the ease and joy of the new way, all former patterns can be released in a moment. This, for us, is learning."
- Paul E. Dennison, Ph.D., Founder of Edu-K Foundation

What is Educational Kinesiology? What is an "educational model?"
Education means literally "to draw out". Kinesiology means "the study of movement". Educational Kinesiology (Edu-K) is the process of drawing out learning through our natural movement experiences. More precisely, it is the study and application of exercises that activate the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information. Edu-K is a process for re-educating the whole mind/body system for accomplishing any skill or function with greater ease and efficiency. The Edu-K process emphasises the "educational model" - the model of "drawing out through movement". The intention is to support and nurture the learners innate and organic unfolding of skills and intelligence. Educational Kinesiology includes both self-help and facilitated processes. Of these, the PACE process, Edu-K 5 steps to Easy Learning, Brain Gym®, and Vision Gym activities provide self-directed learning though movement experiences. Educational Kinesiology In Depth: The Seven Dimensions of Intelligence, is a facilitated process that supports change through a multi-dimensional system of movement re-education.

What is Brain Gym®?
Brain Gym® is the registered trademark for an educational, sensorimotor program developed by Paul E. Dennison, Ph.D., an expert in child motor development. It is based upon more than 80 years of research by educational therapists, developmental optometrists, and other specialists in the fields of movement, education, and child development. Brain Gym consists of simple movements similar to the movements that children naturally do during their first three years of life as they complete important developmental steps for coordination of eyes, ears, hands, and the whole body. The Brain Gym movements have been show in clinical experience, in field studies, and in published research reports to prepare children with the physical skills they need in order to learn to read, write, and otherwise function effectively in the classroom. The ability to learn easily is especially important for children in the first years of school, when they are laying the foundation for their future schooling and adult life work.

Who started Brain Gym®? When? How?
Paul Dennison, Ph.D., president of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation, developed the Brain Gym program over a period of 25 years as an educational specialist. He began researching the work as founder and director of the Valley Remedial Group Learning Centres in California. These eight learning centres offered Dennison students with whom he could actively explore the effects of specific movements on the ability to learn various academic skills. During this time, he drew from a broad spectrum of innovative work in the fields of education, developmental vision, and personal development as he focused on the causes and treatment of learning disabilities. Dr. Dennison served as director of the Valley Remedial Group Learning Centres for 19 years, helping children and adults turn their learning difficulties into successful growth. In 1980, he synthesised his work and began travelling and teaching internationally. Since that time, the Edu-K processes and applications have continued to evolve. The current Brain Gym Handbook, based on the work of Dr. Dennison and his wife, Gail E. Dennison, was developed in collaboration with over 29 educational kinesiologists from around the world.

Dr. Dennison has been an educator for all of his professional life. His work is based on an understanding of the interdependence of physical movement, language acquisition, and academic achievement. His effective and ground breaking approach to teaching grew out of his background in brain research and experimental psychology. He and Gail Dennison have published fourteen books and manuals, beginning with Switching On: A Guide to Edu-Kinesthetics, published in 1980, and most recrntly Brain Gym for Business: Instant Brain Boosters for On-The-Job Success published in 1994 with Jerry V. Teplitz, J.D., Ph.D.

What are the primary aims and outcomes of the Brain Gym program?
Brain Gym is Edu-K's readiness program. It prepares students of all ages to practice and master the skills required for the mechanics of learning. The program includes a simple teaching format, a language for stress-free learning, and a series of movements for integrating learning into the physiology. Brain Gym offers the learner a self-directed system with which to pace individual learning needs, building self-esteem through the successful mastery of skills. This program is distinctive because it addresses the physical (rather than mental) components of learning. It builds on what the learner already knows and does well: it meets the learner just as he or she is, without any judgment of capabilities: and it teaches the student key elements of learning theory that he or she will be able to apply. Brain Gym requires little additional training for the classroom teacher, no testing, no technology, and it enhances (rather than replaces) current cirriculum. The program is used as effectively in business, sports, and the arts, as in the classroom. Specific strategies for improving reading writing, spelling, math, communication and organisation skills are included. Patterns of stress and addiction are explained in terms of the brain and physiology. Tools for alleviating these stresses are included.

Brain Gym outcomes for student or worker include:

• increased self-esteem
• the ability to harness motivation
• skills to identify and avoid stress
• increased awareness of and respect for one's own intelligence, body and personal space
• unique tools for team building, and for developing cooperation and co-creativity

What is Kinesiology?
Conventionally the word Kinesiology (kin-easy-ology) means the study of movement, in particular the study of how muscles act and coordinate to move the body.

However, in the natural health field, the term kinesiology is seen and used in a different way.

Here, muscles become monitors of stress and imbalance within the body where "muscle testing', the key technique in Kinesiology, is used as an effective and versatile tool for detecting and correcting various imbalances in the body which may relate to stress, nutrition, learning problems, injuries and so on. This exciting aspect of Kinesiology is sometimes is sometimes referred to as "specialised kinesiology" and can be found in courses such as Touch for Health, Educational Kinesiology and Three in One Concepts, to name a few available in Australia.

How does movement impact better brain function?
Body movements stimulates the "feel good" chemical messengers of our system. Endorphins are the natural opiate manufactured by the body, and production is stimulated by movement, as the famous runner's "high" confirms. One side of the body is controlled by the opposite brain hemisphere, so when you move your opposite arm and leg, you are stimulating better neural pathways between your two brain hemispheres, which are like the super highways for brain associations. The more interconnections you have, the smarter you are.

How is movement the key to learning?
We start life using movement to stimulate our learning process. From the time we were infants until school began, we live in a three-dimensional world of exploration through movement and the senses. The thrill of discovery, the joy of moving with our new knowledge and the ease of ownership of that new learning filled our days.

With each reach beyond our present limits, we created new nerve networks. Developing links of communication and cooperation within the brain, we grew in our ability to access and use our innate capabilities. Our systems embodied learning at amazing speeds. Latest research supports that we learn better when we have stimulated our multiple intelligences, which include music, movement, drawing, inter and intra personal skills as well as verbal and logical skills, as we have more connection into long term memory.

Many of America's foremost brain researchers gathered in Chicago the first of May, 1995, to examine the link between movement and learning. Exercise, besides shaping up bones, muscles, heart and lungs also strengthens the basal ganglia, cerebellum and corpus callosum of the brain., Aerobic exercise increases the supply of blood to the brain. But a coordinated series of movements produces increased neurotrophins (natural neural growth factors) and greater number of connections among neurons. Integrative movements like Brain Gym are an effective, profound, common sense, non-drug option which greatly facilitate lifelong learning.

How can formal education affect children's learning?
As we came of age to start our formal education, we leave the world of movement and three-dimensional, experiential learning. Our learning becomes very structured and two-dimensional and providing very limited whole-body movement. Limitations begin to be programmed into our movement. If a developmental sequence is incomplete, skipped or inhibited by stress, our experience is built in with a compensation pattern, so we then struggle in a new learning situation.

What do you mean by stress?
Stress can come from family situations, relationships, career, finances, health, environment, beliefs and sleep patterns. The repeated disappointments, frustration, losses, fear and anxieties, live in the muscles of our face and body causing tension, aches and pain. Research at McGill University concluded that increased cortisol correlated with decreased learning and memory as attention problems. When we are under stress, we normally remember less than that we otherwise would. No wonder it is difficult to focus and remember under stress.

Another important aspect to consider is that a person tends to hold the breath, which starves the brain of oxygen and less learning can take place. Learning acquired under stress is easily forgotten, as it is not fully assimilated into the long term memory of the right side of the brain. When under stress the eyes are tensed, creating further stress in the eye muscles. This can result in headaches, reduced performance, double vision, fatigue, poor eye hand coordination and specific learning problems in reading, writing, maths and spelling. It is important to realise that these may not go away with age and need attention from a Educational Kinesiology pratictioner.

Stress can be caused by our Emotions: how we feel about what is happening in our lives, relationships, time, money etc; Biochemical: quality of food and water etc; Environmental: lighting, pollution, radiation etc; Behavioural: sleep patterns, procrastination, lack of time management & organisational skills etc; Physical: injuries that cause the body to compensate, inappropriate exercises, poor posture etc.

How does Brain Gym movements change the compensation pattern?
Our mind/body system has the exceptional capability of reorganising itself for more efficient learning through the use of specialised Brain Gym movements.

"Integrative movements such as the Brain Gym movements accommodate all learning styles, enhance myelination between the two hemispheres and balance the electrical energy and integrative processing across the whole brain……

Learning itself is part of a totally fulfilling life, and should continue to occupy a central role from infancy to old age. Movement, a natural process of life, is now understood to be essential to learning, creative thought and high level formal reasoning. It is time to consciously bring integrative movement back into every aspect of our lives and realize, as I have, that something this simple and natural can be the source of miracles.", says Carla Hannaford, Ph.D.

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