BRAIN GYM - An Interview with Debi Peterson
(www.brainclasses.com)
See Biography below

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By Ellen Hughes

SOE:  When did you first get interested in Brain Gym?  What drew you to it?  Was there something specific?
  
In the Beginning
I heard that Community College of Aurora was teaching mind/body health classes.  I saw the class called “Brain Gym” and thought, “If anybody needs that, it’s me.”  My own health was not good and I felt my brain had not worked well most of my life. The class was a 3-hour introduction class and through the movement taught in the class, I started to feel better.  The teacher talked about her son who was struggling in school.  She had brought in a “before and after” sample of his handwriting.  It was only a matter of three weeks of using Brain Gym that his handwriting changed from chicken-scratch (that the teachers couldn’t read) to very large, clear letters that were not scrunched together as before!   I thought, “Wow”!
  
She told me about a 3-day Brain Gym training.  I took that class within a month of taking the introductory class. I now teach the 3-day training class.  It was quite expensive and for someone who never, ever wanted to take a class again (because I hated school) this was a big deal.  I decided to take the workshop, because it had something to do with movement.  It wasn’t like words that I had always struggled with. 
  
SOE:  How did Brain Gym help the boy with his penmanship?  How does that work? 
  
There are so many different ways.  Now that I am down the road a ways and more aware, myself, more in my own body, it is easier for me to explain.  Brain Gym gets us in our body.  If you are not in your body, you have no place to connect information and experience to. Brain Gym gets you in your body so that when you are having an experience, it takes your experience in.  There is somebody there to receive it.  It literally comes into the back part of the brain first, into the sensory brain. From here, the mid brain, which has to do with how we experience things emotionally and how we relate it to what we already have experienced, helps to decide how we liked or did not like the experience. This is also where the amygdala looks at our experience and says: “Wow, I really liked that, I’m going to store it in my filing cabinet that says, “I really want to do this again”.  Or if I really don’t like that, I’m going to put that in a file that says, “Ew, I really don’t want to experience that again”.  We also have experiences that have less of an emotional connection one-way, or the other.  It is not so memorable and we may not remember that situation as well, it won’t be as accessible as “Ew, Don’t go there again” or “ Wow!!, Let’s go there again.” 
  
The mid-brain has to do with emotion.  It “relates” with the experience.  It decides what to do with it.  It helps to store it. Then the higher thinking brain (the neocortex) helps us to express the experience and take action or respond.
  
When we are not in our body, this process is more difficult.  Brain Gym helped my friend’s son to be in his body and to be more aware of his experience.   When we connect to ourselves, we start to really experience life and to have a choice about how we respond to our experience. 
  
Brain Gym helps us become more conscious.  It’s a tool, not just a simple, fun thing to do in school.  It doesn’t matter how old you are; you can be walking through your life and not “be there”.  Not being in your body is not an enjoyable way to do life!
  
If you think about somebody’s handwriting, it’s not just the hand that is writing and it’s not just the eye that is seeing the handwriting.  We have to be grounded in our body so that we can be balanced in the chair that we are sitting in.  We have to have different parts of the body connected:  the core of the body, so that the shoulder, the arm and the hand are comfortable and connected to what they are doing, as well as having the eye/hand coordination to form and read the letter, to know what it sounds like, and comprehension, to know what the words mean. All of these things are interconnected.  We can’t handwrite with ease, if we are not in our body, and have eye/hand coordination, and our whole brain/body system coordinating what is happening.
  
SOE: The name of it sounds like a game.  But it’s not, is it?

As simple as Brain Gym sounds, it actually it’s very profound.  That’s why people… once they get into it… they just keep going with it.  You find yourself sharing it with people: whether you are sitting on an airplane with someone who is anxious about flying or when you see a child upset in a grocery store and the mother is yelling at the child.  You can do Brain Gym from a distance. One of the Brain Gym exercises is called the Lazy Eight, which is the pattern of the infinity sign. You can just imagine tracing this pattern around the mother and child.  The infinity sign is a pattern that we find in nature.  The pattern of the movement of the sun traveling, actually creates this pattern.  Many ancient healing traditions have used this pattern for thousands of years.  Usually in Brain Gym, we use it to improve eye-hand coordination and to connect right and left hemispheres.  In “Energy Medicine”, we use it as a healing technique and we trace the pattern on areas of the body.

Place your extended arm straight out in front of you with the thumb pointing towards the ceiling. Focus your eyes on that thumb and without taking your eyes off of it, while keeping your head straight ahead, you are going to trace the number "8" laying on its side, in the air, slowly and smoothly. Begin your Lazy Eight at the center of the 8 and go up and to the left with your hand. Do three full Lay Eights with one hand, then three with the other. Finally, three of them with both hands together, moving in unison in the same direction at the same time.

To do Cross Crawl, "march in place", lifting the knees high. At the same time, reach across and touch the knees - or somewhere on the leg - with the opposite hands.

Doing the Lazy 8 or movement creates an energy pattern.  This pattern can break up incoherent patterns that keep us stuck. If there is someone who is having a hard time, even without putting your hand on them, you can send that pattern toward them (in their energy field). There is something about that pattern that’s very integrating and very calming. There were 40 teachers for a  3-day workshop that I was teaching and we did the Lazy Eight the first day of class. The next day when we met again, they all shared their experiences.  It was amazing how many of them had gone home and rubbed the Lazy 8 on the back of their spouse or their child or done it for themselves and they were saying things like, “Wow, I or my spouse, usually wake up every morning at 3am and can’t go back to sleep, after using the Lazy Eights’ yesterday, we didn’t wake up at 3:00 in the morning.  Or “My husband’s backache went away” or “I used it on my dog, and they calmed down.

This is a very healing pattern and it starts to bring us back to a more centered place, when we use it.  In Brain Gym, we use it for handwriting and we trace the letters of the alphabet on the Lazy 8.  That’s called the Alphabet 8.  It can be done by following your hand movement with your eyes (tracing the Lazy Eight or the Alphabet Eight on paper or in the air, or on someone’s back, for a more kinesthetic experience.
  
SOE: Have they ever done any kind of study with a large group of people doing the Lazy 8 in the air?  I know they have done meditation like in DC, for peace, and the number of violent crimes dropped considerably. (National Demonstration Project to Reduce Violent Crime and Improve Governmental Effectiveness) Has anybody ever done this with the Lazy 8 or any of these Brain Gym exercises, I wonder?
  
There is no research on using Lazy Eights in a similar situation that I know of. There may be research on the Infinity pattern from other healing practices, but I do not know.   The International Brain Gym Foundation and Paul and Gail Dennison (who are the founders of Brain Gym) teach and use Brain Gym for educational purposes.  Since I have been teaching and using Brain Gym for clients, I have also studied and practiced other modalities that are used for healing and self awareness and I am aware that there are similar processes, like the Lazy Eight, that are used to change energy patterns, that can keep people’s energy stuck and cause pain or mental and emotional confusion.  There are many Brain Gym practitioners, like myself, who use multiple healing techniques for multiple purposes but when we teach Brain Gym, we follow the “Educational” guidelines of the Brain Gym foundation.
  
First Major Experience Using Brain Gym
  
One of my first experiences that I had with Brain Gym, from the Brain Gym, In-Depth class was using the “Meridian Massage”.  The Meridian Massage follows the flow  of the energy meridians in our body. 
My husband is in the Army National Guard and a friend of his had been in a severe car accident.  A semi-truck had flown through the air and the axle from the truck; hit this young man in the head and shoulder.  He was in a coma.  A few days after learning the Meridian Massage, I went to the hospital with my husband to visit his friend’s family and to visit this young man.  I offered to his mom, that I would show her some Brain Gym and told her a little bit about it.  She requested I start with the Meridian Massage.  She was standing by his bedside with me.  I started moving my hands over his body.  I was literally reading it off the piece of paper.  “The blind leading the blind.” 
  
She stepped away from the hospital bed, partway through the Meridian Massage process.  This only took a few minutes at the most.  There was a nurse in the room as well.  I was finishing the Meridian Massage and thinking to myself, “Oh, she thinks I’m crazy.  I had better finish up and get out of here.”  When I turned around, she and the nurse were standing there with their mouths hanging wide open.  They were looking at all the monitors that this young man was hooked up to and they had all improved.  His head swelling had come down, which had been very severe.  His blood pressure had come down.  His heart rate had gone from 60 to 120.  The nurse said that was a sign that there was some brain activity.  I left the room thinking, “Okay, there is energy.  It’s in our hands.  It’s around our body and we don’t even have to know what we are doing.  We just have to have a good intention and it can do some good.” 
  
So, whether it’s the Lazy 8 pattern or the more involved Meridian Massage, that you learn in the In-Depth class, there is energy that effects us physically and mentally, and we can use it to change ourselves for the better!!  When we are doing the more physical Brain Gym movements, like the Cross Crawl - where you are reaching across the body and touching right hand to left knee, left hand to right knee … these movements, the more concrete physical movements, are helping the brain and body to connect, but there is also an energy around the movement that is changing and helping that person to stop being stuck in one side of their brain, which is causing them to be in a place of distress.

SOE: I remember you mentioned in class there were three areas of the brain: reptilian, mammalian and what was the other one?
  
It is the neocortex.  It’s that later developed part of the brain. Your neo-cortex or higher thinking brain surrounds the other areas of the brain and it includes the, pre-frontal area in the forehead.  It is said that this pre-frontal area of the brain helps us to be altruistic, where you can care, not just for yourself but also for someone else.
  
SOE: What is the basic brain?  Is that the reptilian?
  
The first area of the brain that is developed is the reptilian. This is according to a man by the name of McLean,  he calls this idea of three basic brain areas:  the “Triune” brain theory.
  
SOE: What does that do for your body?  What does that take are of?

I can’t give you a detailed explanation, but this area of the brain, as I was mentioning before, takes in all the sensory information - your vision, your auditory, your kinesthetic body, touch, movement.
  
The “triune” brain theory breaks the brain into three areas. The reptilian brain takes in the sensory information: vision, auditory, kinesthetic and then the mammalian brain or the middle brain relates to the experience with emotions and when it moves to the neo-cortex, we can then express the experience and decide to take action.
  
SOE: Do you use Brain Gym in conjunction with any other alternative health methods?
  
Yes.  I use it in conjunction with many other healing methods.  I do a lot of retreats.  I teach a gentle form of yoga.  I integrate everything into it and then I see clients one on one.  Basically I teach classes called The Balance.  It starts by just doing a few movements that get you in your body and get you clear without even looking at what your issue is that you would like to improve.
  
SOE: Excuse me, is that what someone might call “getting centered”?
  
Yes, getting centered or more balanced. The sessions we facilitate with Brain Gym have several parts. In the first part, you are doing some simple movements that bring you to a more focused balance state, before you even look at the life issue that you would like to improve.  You are just doing a few things that get you in your body. 
  
SOE: You mentioned yoga.  What other methods do you use?
  
Touch for Health.  Touch for Health is a wonderful amazing process.  John Thie who recently passed away developed Touch For Health. He worked with the muscles of the body, the neurolymphathic and the neurovascular points, the meridians and some other points that help to bring the body into balance.  He used muscle check (kinesiology) to sort of help balance the body.
  
SOE: Do you touch the person with this Touch for Health?
  
Yes, most of it is hands-on. 
  
SOE: Is it like massage?
  
You are massaging neurolymphatic points on the body.  And they are helping the lymphatic system which is your large waste system in your body.  They are working with lightly touching your vascular points around the head.  There are some other points on the back of the spine. It was one of the classes I took to get my Brain Gym certification and it was a piece that you could use for the physiology, or kinesiology, part of the certification.  It’s a wonderful piece of work and it gives a person a lot of concrete feedback to feel that for instance, this dorsal muscle is not strong right now.  It’s not connected.  It doesn’t have a good circuit going through it.  Then I rub these points.  I hold these points, I trace the meridians with my hands away from the body.  I come back to that kinesthetic “body” check, and there is an energy connection.  And it’s another wonderful way for people to get in their body.  Before and after surgery would be a great time to use it. 

But the main thing with Brain Gym, it’s something that you can do that helps somebody to be more aligned for a process they are about to go through and be healed from a process that they have been through, like a surgery.  If you went to the Brain Gym Foundation, they are going to strictly look at it as an educational tool, which is fabulous but it goes so way beyond that. 
  
SOE: You learned what they taught you but then you ran with it, and learned so much more.
  
Like so many people who have taken Brain Gym,  once you “get” that place where you are more in your own body and more aware, you just want to keep adding things to your toolbox. Once you get to the place in the balance process where the person is identified how they like to be different - sort of their goal and their intention - then you just intuitively think kinesiology.  Not so much in Brain Gym now, but just with what they call “noticing” which is more like what we’re drawn to.  Which of these Brain Gym movements are you drawn to right now?  If I use kinesiology and noticing with people, whatever they notice that they would like to choose from that menu, I will muscle check their system and make a statement like “This is the best Brain Gym (exercise) at this time,” or even some goals that they have, their system will always respond with a positive, strong and steady “yes”. 

What I have understood more and more from Brain Gym over the years (which went from using a lot of kinesiology to using noticing and intuition), I realize how I can have a 3-year-old child or a 93-year-old person and their feedback would always agrees with what they have chosen.
  
SOE: So this is across the board as far as age goes who can benefit from it?
  
There are all sorts of stories. People have used Brain Gym of all different ages, for all different challenges in their lives.
  
SOE: You said you used it with Touch for Health.  Are there other alternative health method that you use in conjunction with Brain Gym?
  
Right now I am studying Energy Medicine and it works pretty well with Energy Medicine.  Healing Touch is another.  I use tuning forks for sound healing. Drumming.  Literally anything can fit into using Brian Gym.  Even before going to chiropractic adjustment or going for some kind of physical treatment that I am going to get, I will do a little Brain Gym to myself so I am inviting whatever happens on the table or the chiropractic table that is also will be part of what hopefully aligns the system to be better at whatever I want it to be better at.
  
SOE: Does that help the body heal faster?
  
Fast.  If you think about the chemicals that they are putting in your body to sedate you for a surgery.  Just the trauma that is going to happen to your body, which is why they are sedating you.  When your body comes out of that and before it goes into it, there are some toxins that are put in there.  There is a new pattern that has been put in there just from process.  And so doing a (Brain Gym) before,  it helps align you with feeling that you are very confident  in your doctors, your nurses, whatever procedures they are going to do.  Your body accepts and receives it.  Then you go through the process and then do a session right afterwards.  Whether you had something removed or something repaired, even with glasses. 

Paul Dennison who developed Brain Gym, was two steps away from being legally blind.  In all of the pictures in older books he wore these really thick coke-bottle glasses.  Now he only wears glasses when he is driving in the dark and in the movie theater.  He has corrected his vision through Brain Gym.  There are other classes called Vision Gym.  There are more books and exercises that he has corrected his vision through movement. 

So if you think about getting a new pair of glasses or contact lenses or whether it’s a person receiving a new limb, align yourself with that new part.  It’s going to be something you are using everyday.  It’s really important.  Maybe acknowledge the part that is not there anymore.  It alters the way that you work.  And with the work that you have talked, the EFT, the NLP. All these are simply wonderful tools that are out there.  Start putting an intention in front of them.
  
SOE: That is really my goal here is the reason for the website, the reason for interviewing experts like yourself is because many people don’t know about Brain Gym.  They don’t know about EFT. You mentioned Energy Medicine.  Are you referring to Donna Eden?
  
Yes. My friend Lisa Buford from Montana.  I’ve taken many Brain Gym classes with her.  She started taking some Energy Medicine classes and it has helped her so much. So I am in the process of taking a series of four workshops with her right here in my home.  She is coming to New Mexico to do the workshop.  That’s really wonderful.  And then just adding it in as one of my tools. 
For instance, my 16-year-old grandson is really wonderful in his life.  He’ll get onto the spine table and let me use the Energy Medicine with him.  And he just loves it because after a couple of football practices his body hurts and he is like, “Yeah, you can do that energy medicine on me.”
  
SOE: You have said “people are not in their bodies”.  How would you explain that, not being in your body?
  
I can explain it from my own experience because all through school, I just didn’t get it.  I just didn’t get it.  And I always thought I was stupid.  As I started doing Brian Gym, I started to feel like somebody was home to receive the information.  It clicked. 
When you are not in your body, it’s very disconcerting.  You can’t keep your attention anywhere because there is no sort of “ground or home” for anything to come into and to make sense, so there is no meaning. 

You are walking around without understanding life basically.  You just feel like you are losing.  You know, I always felt like I was at the end of the line when they were handing out the brains.  And I didn’t fit in with this group or that group.  And I didn’t get what was going on in most of the classes. 
 
SOE: Was it a foggy feeling?
  
Yes.  You are foggy.  Instructions are given and your response is: “Huh, what?”  You got the last few words and you know, if you could have had someone repeat them a couple of times, maybe go a little slower or maybe point their finger where the line was that you were supposed to be reading and pointed out the important pieces of it, you would have known what to do.  But it was like you couldn’t hold it.  Couldn’t hold it all.  Even the smallest sentence sometimes.  So, yes, foggy is a very good way to describe it because once you are more in your body, it’s clear and it makes sense and you start feeling like, “Wow”.  It was good to “really” be here, instead of “pretending” to be here. 
  
My sister was very much in her body.  Very athletic.  That was another thing that I wasn’t very good at.  She was very good in school.  Had a lot of friends and just had a wonderful life and had no idea that I was not like that.  That I was sitting on the bench and not getting the good grades.  And that I didn’t have the kind of friendships that she had, because I didn’t have the confidence in myself.  And she just went along her merry way. She is a very caring person , but you know, when she was younger, she was just a kid having a good time without realizing that the person she shared a room with was having a pretty tough life.  
  
SOE: So Brain Gym helped you gain self confidence, too?
  
Yes, I think that is the most important thing because when you can start putting meaning to things, you just start to feel more confident and you start to connect to who you are, and what you believe in.  You can’t do that when everything is sort of foggy and not sticking.
  
SOE: Because of the work you do with Brain Gym and with your body, I was wondering what your feelings are on personal electronics, things like earbuds, iPhones, iPods, cell phones, etc.  Are they working like an “electronic” Brain Gym?  Or can they be potentially harmful?
  
That is such an important thing to look at, in today’s society. Of course, I find myself using the earbud because in the state of New Mexico you have to use one when you are driving or you will get a ticket.  Everything has its own electromagnetic field.  Everything.  Our electromagnetic field is weakened and scrambled by the electromagnetic field of television sets, cell phones, fluorescent lighting is one of the most harmful. Carla Hannaford is a neuro physiologist that has brought Brain Gym to many areas of the world, way back when it first started, over 20 years ago.  She is an amazing woman who has taught several classes in my home and she used to travel to all these different countries and go to school and to medical systems and introduce Brain Gym.
  
She became a scientist, but when she was young, she also struggled with school and wanted to know why some things “ticked” and why they didn’t.  Years ago when I first started Brain Gym, she brought in this little gizmo that measured electromagnetic fields.  The thing that really set it off the most in that room at that time was the fluorescent light which are so many schools, places of work and hospitals. 

I think people who deal with issues like dyslexia and ADD and ADHD and autism are all very sensitive.  And what is happening, for a lot of these people is: they are paying attention to everything, which is why they can’t focus on what they want to focus on.  They are not in their bodies and they are drawn outside themselves.  The sight of something moving or how the chair feels underneath them, or a smell in the room is distracting. And when they are around electronics, this too is a distraction that scrambles their energy and their brain’s ability to communicate. 

Sitting in front of a computer can disorganize your electrical system.  Your energy pathways or meridians flow up and down and most of what goes on in computer screens is running horizontal. People sit and eat in front of their computers.  Their stomach meridians go down the front of their body.  So this too can play a part in disturbing the body’s digestive process.

 It’s not great but it’s the society we live in and therefore, having things like Brain Gym and Energy Medicine are very important  to help keep us  balanced.  We are not going to go backwards technologically.  We are going to go forward and there is going to be more and more (technology). 
  
There was an article that someone sent me about a month or two ago.  It was talking about the younger generation that is spending all this time texting and how they are losing their ability to read body language because they are not using it.  They are not interrelating with each other.  They are not face-to-face nearly as much as all the previous generations.
  
SOE: I bought a magnet where they said wear it when I am in front a computer.  Have you ever heard of that?  Does that help or have you heard of that?
  
I have heard of that.  There are different things that can help different people. Magnets can be beneficial for some and can be very disruptive for some people’s energy.  That is one of the things that we have learned in the Energy Medicine class.  There are techniques that you can use with the magnets that are very beneficial and very powerful for some people.  I am one of the people that are sensitive to magnets (not in a good way). 

My husband (on the other hand) put a pair of magnet insoles in his shoes and it helped greatly with some plantar fasciitis.  Some people tend to benefit from the magnets.  It can help some people stay balanced with their computer and can help manage pain for others. That’s what is nice about kinesiology or energy checking.  You can check your whole system to see what benefits your system or whether it is detrimental to your system, so you can choose what things you are going to use and that will be best for you.
One thing that is always beneficial is water.  Drink before, during and after Brain Gym.  And just sipping on it is better than downing a quart and then not having any for 4 hours.

SOE: I would like to share some other Brain Gym exercises with my visitors.  Which ones do you recommend?

Using both hands simultaneously, start at the top of each ear and "unroll" the curved part of the edge of the ear. Continue all the way to the bottom of the ear. Do this a total of three times.

Place your hands shoulder-width apart against a wall. Lean your body at a 45 degree angle to the wall. Place your right foot in front of the body and extend the left leg out straight behind you. Exhale, pushing forward against the wall while also pressing the left heel against the floor. Inhale, while relaxing and raising the left heel. Do this a total three times, then switch legs. The more you bend the knee in the front, the more stretch you will feel in the back of the calf.

©2009 Brain Gym International. Brain Gym is a registered trademark of Brain Gym International/Educational Kinesiology Foundation, Ventura, CA.  For information www.braingym.org (800) 356-2109  

Thinking Caps is a good one.  We have approximately 400 acupressure points in the ears that relate to different areas of the body.   If you look at the ear upside down (the shape is the shape of the human fetus) , the ear is a hologram for your whole body.  As you massage the ear, you are stimulating these acupressure points that affect your whole body.
 
Another one is Calf Pump.  Lengthening is very important. I think that is why yoga is so prominent now in our society.  When you lengthen the body, it relaxes the system.  And when you relax the system, you can get unstuck from the reptilian, “fight or flight brain”, and connect to the frontal lobes or the higher thinking brain.  Relaxation and safety are the first things that have to happen in the system, in order for learning to happen. One of the Brain Gym’s, that releases the primitive fear reflex, called the “tendon guard reflex”, is the Calf Pump.  When you are doing the Calf Pump, you are pumping your heel up and down and when the heel is in the down position, you hold your heel down for about 8 seconds and you breathe.  And this releases the tendon guard reflex.  It pulls you out of the back brain and gets you unstuck.
  
So if you have a 1) lengthening Brain Gym (Calf Pump) and an 2) energy  Brain Gym (Thinking Cap) and then a crossing the midline Brain Gym, either 3) Cross Crawl or Lazy 8, whichever one you are drawn to, and then the 4) water, you cover important connections in the brain with those four. 
  
SOE: When they do Brain Gym exercises, will people be able to notice something right away?
  
If they do the Thinking Cap, or any Brain Gym (for about a minute or more), it is important to stop and notice what feels different.  That’s what you want to do after each Brain Gym is stop and notice. Different people will notice different things. They will start to become more aware that they are present to life.

One of the most important things Brain Gym does is, it allows your system to learn to stop, to pause and think and choose before you act.   So many times we get stuck in  old patterns, knee-jerk reactions, and as you start to do Brain Gym, it starts teaching the body how to stop and pause so that you can choose, instead of just react.  You can respond appropriately.  With Brain Gym people get in the habit of stopping and pausing and noticing what feels different.  They will start to notice that they feel more confident, happy and more at ease.