Kinesiology is “the study of movement”. Educational Kinesiology is the study and application of natural movement experiences to facilitate learning. It focusses on the performance of specific physical activities that re-educate the mind/body system for accomplishing any skill or function with greater ease and efficiency.

Edu-K includes both self-help and facilitated processes. For example, Brain Gym® and Vision Gym™ feature self-help activities that can be taught in class as well as used in one-to-one work. Educational Kinesiology In Depth: The 7 Dimensions of Intelligence is a facilitated process that is experienced one-to-one with a licensed Educational Kinesiology Consultant or Brain Gym Instructor.

Brain Gym® is the registered trademark for an Educational Kinesiology sensorimotor programme. It is based on 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 those performed naturally by young children as part of the process of brain development. The Brain Gym® movements have been shown in clinical experience, field studies and published research reports to prepare learners with the physical skills they need to read, write, concentrate, organise and otherwise function effectively in the classroom and adult life/work.

Paul Dennison, PhD, remedial educational specialist and founder of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation, developed the Brain Gym® programme over a period of 25 years, including as director of California's Valley Remedial Group Learning Centres in California. These nine learning centres offered Dr 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 focussed 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.

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. He and Gail Dennison have published fourteen books and manuals, beginning with Switching On: A Guide to Edu-Kinesthetics, published in 1980, and most recently Brain Gym® for Business: Instant Brain Boosters for On-The-Job Success published in 1994 with Jerry V Teplitz, JD, PhD.

After receiving his undergraduate education at Boston University, Dr Dennison moved to California to teach elementary students in the Los Angeles public schools. There he assisted in the implementation of Dr Constance Amsden’s Malabar Reading programme, well known as an innovative approach to teaching reading.

Dr Dennison established his first reading clinic in 1969. Two years later, after studying the seminal work of Dr Samuel T Orton in neurology and Drs Doman and Delacato, specialists in language development, he began introducing perceptual-motor training to his students. Over the next three years, he worked closely with Louis Jacques, OD, a leading pioneer in vision training, and Samuel Herr, OD, with whom he shared a learning centre. In 1975, Dr Dennison received the Phi Delta Kappa award from the University of Southern California for outstanding research where he earned his PhD in Education with a major in Curriculum Development and a minor in Experimental Psychology. His research study for his doctoral dissertation focused on the relationship of covert speech (thinking skills) to the acquisition of the skills of beginning reading.

In 1976, Dr Dennison began working closely with Chiropractor Richard Tyler and Sports Kinesiologist Bud Gibbs. He continued an active chiropractic and optometric referral programme for students through his nine learning centres. In 1978, Dr Tyler helped him to implement a longitudinal research study at the centres to see how Dennison’s specific movement interventions might affect learning (see Switching On). In 1979, Dennison took the Touch for Health course and, modelling that workshop format, began to outline the Edu-K programme. His first book, Switching On, was published in 1981. He discovered his Laterality Repatterning in 1982 and began focusing on the adult population. In 1983, he developed Educational Kinesiology: Seven Dimensions of Intelligence (previously titled the “Edu-Kinesthetics In Depth” course). In 1984, he began working with Gail Hargrove Dennison with whom he developed other elective courses. Gail Dennison helped to systematise the Edu-K materials and developed the Creative Vision material, Vision Gym™ activities and Visioncircles programme.

Many of the Brain Gym® activities, like The Owl, The Elephant and the Alphabet 8s, were developed from Dr Dennison’s knowledge of the relationship of movement to perception and the impact of these on fine motor and academic skills. Others were learned during his training as a marathon runner, his study of vision training, his study of Jin Shin Jitsu (a form of acupressure) and his study of Applied Kinesiology (taught to the public as the Touch for Health synthesis).

Brian Gym® is Edu-K’s readiness programme. It prepares students of all ages to practise and master the skills required for the mechanics of learning. The programme 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 programme 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 curriculum. The programme is used as effectively in business, sports and the arts as in the classroom.

Specific strategies for improving reading, writing, spelling, maths, 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 co-operation and co-creativity

Unlike a tutor, physical therapist, reading specialist, speech therapist or counsellor, the Educational Kinesiology (Edu-K) Consultant does not have a preconceived expectation about what needs to be learned, or how that learning will occur. The Consultant follows the learner’s lead as to the unfoldment of these processes.

Like the above-named professionals, the Edu-K Consultant addresses the personal motivation to learn. The Edu-K Consultant, like other specialists, is concerned with the mental mechanics of learning, such as encoding and decoding language (ie phonics) or writing the alphabet. Unlike other specialists, however, the Edu-K Consultant is primarily concerned with the physical skills of learning: the ability to use the eyes as a team, to hold the pen or otherwise, co-ordinate eyes and hand and to listen actively. The Edu-K consultant does not emphasise curriculum or behaviour directly. He or she looks at the individual as a whole person who, at any given moment, has untapped potential related to underdeveloped movement patterns. The emphasis is on learning readiness––accessing innate gifts and helping the learner to be comfortable and able to draw out those gifts and to match them to the physical, mental and environmental requirements of a given skill or situation.

The Dennisons metaphorically describe brain functioning in terms of 3 dimensions:

Laterality addresses the skills of communication. Work in this dimension helps to improve the abilities of reading, writing and effective listening, of fluid whole-body movement and the ability to think and move at the same time. This dimension focuses on the ability to co-ordinate one side of the body with the other, particularly in the visual, auditory and kinesthetic midfield, where the two sides overlap. The physical relationships between left and right side of the body addressed in this area led the Dennisons to link all aspects of this area metaphorically to the left and right sides of the brain.

Focus addresses the skills of comprehension. This dimension relates to comprehension, the ability to find meaning and to the ability to experience details within their context. People without this basic skill are said to have attention disorders and difficulty in comprehending. At a deeper level, focus allows us to interpret a particular moment or experience in the greater context of our lives or to see ourselves as unique individuals within the larger framework of our society. The relationship in this dimension between the ability to move forward by making conscious choices as opposed to being held back by unthinking reflex reaction led the Dennisons to link this area metaphorically to the front of the brain (the “comprehending” frontal cortex) with the back of the brain (the “instinctive reptilian” system)

Centreing addresses the skill of organisation. This dimension relates to organisation of information, thoughts and physical materials, grounding, feeling and expressing one’s emotions, a sense of personal space, and responding rationally rather than reacting from emotional overlay. The relationship in this dimension between being emotionally up in the air as opposed to grounded in rationality led the Dennisons to link this area metaphorically to the top of the brain (the “rational” cortex) with the bottom of the brain (the “emotional” limbic system)

The Brain Gym® movements interconnect our abilities in these three dimensions, allowing us easily to learn through all the senses, to remember what we learn and to participate more fully in the events of our lives. We are able to learn with less stress and to express our creativity using more of our mental and physical potential. The movements also assist in clearing emotional stress that can affect us both mentally and physically. Reported benefits include improvements in such areas as vision, listening, learning, memory, self-expression and co-ordination in children and adults. Teachers typically report improvements in attitude, attention, discipline, behaviour and test and homework performance for all participants in the classroom.

Brain Gym® is used in classrooms around the world. The movements are often done as a whole group activity before, during or after school. A skilled teacher can also identify individual students as candidates to benefit from specific movements. Older students can easily learn to notice times when they could benefit from the various movements.

The Brain Gym®programme is distinctive in that it prepares learners to learn. It enhances, rather than replaces other programmes or curricula.

Education of the classroom teacher in this century has been based on the premise that learning is a mental activity. The physical components of learning––the visual, auditory, fine motor and postural skills––have been almost entirely ignored by educators. A student who has difficulty in the early grades rarely does better later on unless the physical cause of the stress is somehow addressed. Moreover, since learning is measured by results rather than by process, stressful compensations are often acquired and carried throughout a learner’s life.

Dr Dennison came to the conclusion by 1975, after having tested and prescribed remedial programmes for hundreds of “learning disabled” students at his learning centres, that most students experiencing difficulty in school were sufficiently intelligent for the tasks required of them. The deficits he found were in their physical/perceptual abilities and had often plagued the child’s development, uncorrected, since infancy. Spatial awareness, a concept of wholeness and closure, the ability to focus attention and perceive an organisation or a structure, are requisite learning skills, easily taught yet often not available to the children who need them.

He discovered that these skills depend upon an innate understanding of our bodies and how they move in space. Children only repeat those movements that are comfortable or familiar. It is as if the person considered “learning disabled” lacks permission to move in an integrated and co-ordinated fashion. Dr Dennison’s Brain Gym® and Repatterning procedures were developed as he explored processes to encourage his students to discover new ways to move that were more functional and co-ordinated.

His educational therapy builds the student’s self-esteem, trusting the learner to work through mental aspects as physical blocks are released. The teacher’s role becomes that of facilitator of the process of learning. The teacher models how to learn and presents the curriculum. The teacher helps the student to notice what makes learning easier or what interferes with learning. The child has control of the process by which he internalises information.

Children with special needs and severe learning challenges benefit positively from Brain Gym® as is attested to by thousands of families using the activities. Licensed Instructors specialising in this area of work may recommend a more intensive programme and a simplified or assisted application of the movements.

Brain Gym® is currently being used by people of all ages and in all walks of life. Although the programme was originally designed for kindergarten through college level students in the classroom, it is now being used successfully with infants, pre-schoolers, adults and seniors. The Brain Gym® for Business book offers an easy guide for applying these tools in the business environment. A number of Brain Gym® Senior programmes have shown Brain Gym®’s effectiveness in helping older people to enhance and retrieve physical and mental skills.

Research over 30 years shows the correlation between brain organisation (dominance patterns), attention deficit, allergies and auto immune deficiency. Effective functioning usually requires bilateral physical co-ordination, including binocular vision, binaural hearing and contralateral movement. Common sense tells us what research has validated: chronic one-sided behaviours (monocular vision or excessive left- or right-handedness), especially without the context of whole body movement, can adversely affect learning, behaviour and immune response. Improving learning abilities and behaviour reduce chronic anger, frustration, and depression, reducing stress and improving health.

Brain Gym® promotes the ability to learn and to retain learning at a deep, whole-brained level. New learning occurs when a person is relaxed and easily able to access their sensory system for seeing and listening and to comfortably feel and express their feelings. Learning tends to be more permanent, accessible and applicable when a person is not tense, stressed or frightened. As self-confidence and self-esteem increase, motivation and behaviour generally improve as well.

We are not yet at the stage where we have any scientific evidence for what happens in the brain through the use of Brain Gym®. Many people experience a much increased ability to learn through the Brain Gym® programme and observe themselves functioning at higher efficiency. We know that the brain controls all of our physical functions, so we hypothesise that the use of Brain Gym® produces some changes in the brain, but we cannot yet explain what actually happens in any detail.

A balance is a five-step learning process that models the lesson plan most often used by effective teachers. A short balance can be completed in just minutes; a longer balance may take an hour or more.

A balance involves:

• getting ready to learn
• setting a goal or intention
• pre-activities which playfully identify aspects of the learning that need more focus for integration
• a plan for integrating the learning into physical movement (in this case, through the Brain Gym® movements)
• post-activities to identify the new learning

After the balance, new choices and possibilities are available to the student, and improvements are usually evident. The final, unnumbered step is to “celebrate the new learning.” This is the step of play, exploration, innovation and implementation that is so essential to creative learning, yet often omitted in the classroom, where learners are pressed to begin a new task before even acknowledging the skill with which the previous one has been accomplished. Anyone who is so inclined can learn to facilitate this process for self or for others by taking a Brain Gym® course. The balance process is simple, yet requires deep understanding, based on a personal experience of the physical as well as the mental and emotional components of the learning process, for skillful, non-intrusive facilitation.

The Brain Gym® activities are performed in homes around the world. Following simple instructions the safe, simple movements can be practised in 10-15 minutes per day in the comfort of your own home.

Doing the Brain Gym® movements every day is fun, easy, energising and reinforces positive movement and postural habits. Once new learning patterns are mastered, they become automatic and one no longer needs to do the movements daily in order to benefit from them, although they will still find Brain Gym® helpful during times of stress.

Brain Gym® is similar to, yet different from, other movement programmes. Brain Gym® helps to increase flexibility and co-ordination, as other programmes do, yet it also provides specific activities to facilitate brain function for the physical skills required for such activities as reading, writing, and spelling. Brain Gym® is fun, easy and requires no special talents or co-ordination skills. Brain Gym® is a good warm-up for all exercise programmes.

Educational Kinesiology is based on a unique integration of the learning process with kinesiology, the study of muscles and their movements. The intention of the Edu-K work is to invite the emergence of latent potential through the vehicle of the body––the repository of thoughts, feelings and movement patterns. The Edu-K processes offer a structure for the continuous interweaving of thinking, feeling, and sensation––the integration of mental and physical functions. Edu-K enhances, rather than replacing, other educational and kinesiological approaches to growth and development.

Applied Kinesiology (AK) is a distinct work used by Chiropractors, similar to Edu-K in its study of muscles and its use of muscle-checking or muscle-testing (in Edu-K, muscle-checking is optionally used, mainly in advanced, facilitated Edu-K work, rather than the self-help activities of Brain Gym), and yet different from Edu-K. AK is based on processes of “muscle-testing” that isolate the response of individual muscles in the body. Edu-K is oriented to goals and to daily life function and performance, rather than to a medical or mechanistic model of the body.

In Edu-K, the body is seen in terms of the situational or environmental context of the individual’s moment-to-moment needs, motivations and interrelationships. The individual does not need to change, as they are in a growth process. He or she is fine just as they are. Presenting challenges or behaviours are valid just as they are. New learning is possible as a sense of objectivity and choice develops around old patterns. Muscle-checking, where chosen as a tool, is primarily to anchor new learning. The Edu-K process offers a multi-dimensional approach to balance emphasising the learner’s discovery of movement patterns that release physical, mental, or emotional holding, making latent potentials more available.

The Educational Kinesiology Foundation, the international body for Educational Kinesiology and Brain Gym, was established in 1987 in Ventura, California, USA, as a non-profit/educational organisation. The Dennisons, along with a group of educators who had experienced the Edu-K process, envisioned together how Edu-K might bring wholeness and ease to the educational system, as well as to other facets of life. These people were eager to explore ways of working with learners that would respect and nurture individual differences, value co-operation and conserve wholeness. They agreed to develop Edu-K around the concept of “drawing out” the unique potential of an individual, rather than “stamping in”, intruding, or filling the mind with “information for its own sake”.

The Edu-K process continues to evolve around the concept of creating safety and trusting the learner’s unique learning style to emerge as the movements and balances set him or her free. The Dennisons, the Board of Directors and the International Faculty Members, together with the Edu-K network, hold an ongoing intent to refine the Edu-K materials and language to keep the Edu-K system inviting and non-intrusive.

The Board persists in exploring the make-up and possibility of an organisation based on interdependence, decentralisation, diversity and an openness to new possibilities. Edu-K continues to evolve its processes, language, course materials and organisation around these principles.

Since 1987, the Foundation has trained thousands of professionals, at various levels, to facilitate the Brain Gym® programme worldwide. The work is being used extensively in homes, classrooms and businesses.

For more information on the Educational Kinesiology Trust UK, the national body for Educational Kinesiology and Brain Gym in this country, click on Brain Gym in the UK.