Monika Volkmar Bodywork

08/08/2025

Please listen to this interview with Jordan Shane Terry

I remember a few things about when I first met Jordan about 9 or so years ago.

One, he got stuck with me as a partner to learn foot mobilizations in an AIM course, and good luck with that cause these feet are like little cinder blocks.

Two, I overheard him having a conversation about fairies, or some type of entity from another dimension.

Three, he knew a lot of things about a lot of things and I was a little intimidated cause I didn't know many things about anything back then (still don't, just more okay with it).

Anyway, the conversation I had with Jordan was full of fun facts about why the body does what it does and how to help it move and feel better from the perspective of someone who has a lot of different perspectives.

Jordan has SO much to share and I barely touched the top of my list of questions for him. In our conversation we discussed:

- How fascia touches everything
- Alternating joint theory
- Potential problems with Neurolink from a craniosacral perspective
- Power vs. Force, the “scale of empowerment”, and how different emotions affect fascia
- How the cranium and our spine move with our breath (and thoughts!)
- How Jordan’s jaw injury and scar was affecting his hip pain
- Injury Recall Technique
- Paired bones and “reactors”, and what is the mechanism behind them

And so much more.

On a sad note, our internet connection was a little shaky, and there is a whole 20ish minute chunk I had to omit because the audio wasn’t usable. Apologies. Hopefully, with my excellent editing skills, you won’t even notice the awkward transition I had to cut (but if you can tell me which minute it’s at, you win a prize!).

As you’ll hear, Jordan clearly has a lot of insight into the workings of the human body, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Here's a little clip from the conversation where Jordan brought up some fun facts about the impact the first Neurolink had on the movement of the brain and it was news to me.

Check out the full interview on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/3wtucc5DKzfUQN4GQM3SQM

07/30/2025

"Discipline"... I asked Dave Hedges about what he thinks helped him the most when he was trying to figure out his various body pains in his 20s, and his answer was his it starts with your attitude: Discipline and a willingness to take responsibility.

Listen to our full podcast episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3wtucc5DKzfUQN4GQM3SQM

I loved interviewing Dave. One of the reasons I wanted to speak with him is because of his intimate, complex, and thoughtful relationship with movement, his body, and how he works with other bodies.

Dave has such a broad scope of thoughts, ideas, opinions, practical skill sets, and experiences, and I loved discussing his story, his key learnings, and his philosophy for helping people improve their performance and chronic pain.

In this conversation we discuss:
- His early movement life and getting into karate
- The risk of identifying with a movement form
- Working with people vs working on people
- The importance of training both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and what meditation actually helps us with
- What it means to cultivate discipline and take responsibility for your body, and why these are so important for getting out of pain
- Dave’s own back injury story and how he dealt with it
- Dave’s experience with Anatomy in Motion
- Why injury prevention as a goal is unrealistic, and what to focus on instead
- Training your “human animal”

And more…

I really appreciate Dave’s depth and honesty, and I found myself nodding along, resonating with what he was saying and how uncannily parallel our journeys were.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Thanks, Dave :)

07/16/2025

Today I have an interview with the incredible dance educator, Esther Juon, to share.

In this conversation, Esther and I discuss her incredible 40 year career throughout which she has developed her method for working to support and educate young dancers transition into pointe shoes safely.

She describes her journey with her body- Being told she’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, and the 7 year journey in which she defied the odds and learned to walk again.

This experience fueled her desire to help dancers so that they would not to have to go through the same thing she did, and she created her education company, Juon Pointe, and the world’s most unique method for mentoring and preparing dancers to go on pointe safely through customized assessments, exercise programs, and an intelligent pointe shoe fitting process.

I consider this interview to be mandatory listening for any dancer, dance educator, or medical professional who works with dancers.

I really wish I had Esther in my life when I started ballet training at age 12, and after you listen to our conversation, you’ll understand why.

She is truly and inspirational, passionate, and opinionated educator, here to shake up the traditions of the way ballet is taught.

I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation and find it inspiring, whether you are a dancer, or not.

Check out our interview here: https://open.substack.com/pub/monvolkmar/p/interview-with-esther-juon-saving?r=p5zo9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

06/24/2025

New gait case study: Making connections between knee pain, spine mechanics, and an old head scar.

A little while back I saw Bayden for a session here in Melbourne and he agreed to let me use his gait video and session notes to create a case study for your learning pleasure.

I thought this was an interesting case to share because of how it tracked back his knee pain history to a head injury when he was just a wee lad.

Bayden's main complaint was right knee pain triggered by knee extension and shifting his pelvis overtop of his right leg.

Interestingly, while his knee did have some mechanics that were suspiciously incongruent, we ended up discovering that a movement limitation in his spine- An inability to access lumbar lateral flexion to the left, was contributing to the reason why his right knee hurt.

Our hypothesis is that his childhood head bonk created a change in his entire spine's resting position and perception of center which, over the decades, affected the mechanics of everything else below, and is now showing up in his right knee pain.

To test this hypothesis we played with mobilizing the scar on his occiput from where he had stitches, and found that it gave him back access to his spine lateral flexion left. Pretty cool s**t, eh?

In the video I've put together some clips from the full gait analysis video noting some of the tell-tale moments in his gait cycle where things look off in regards to his right knee mechanics, and then I've included the after video comparison, after we did some craniosacral work and explored some movements to better access spine lateral flexion to the left.

It is amazing to me the small, positive changes in his whole body (including feet!) after identifying and giving back access to just one joint motion- Lumbar spine lateral flexion left. Not to mention his knee feeling better.

If you want to read the entire case study, check it out on my Substack page, Movement Detectivery, here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/monvolkmar/p/gait-case-study-right-knee-pain?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=p5zo9

I've gotten some great feedback that these case studies have been helpful for at least 2 people in their study of closed chain biomechanics. Hope it helps you, too :)

05/09/2025

Heres a little case study from this week I thought was pretty interesting, starring a man we’ll call “S”.

S had right lateral calf pain and he’d heard that I’m a bit of a movement detective who might be able to help him investigate why his right calf was so dang tight all the time

TLDR: He was unable to pronate his right foot and was just straining his outer calf- putting excessive eccentric load through it, with every footstep.

In our movement assessment here’s what stood out:
- His right calcaneus didnt evert or plantar flex
- His right talus couldnt internally rotate (and knee points out towards pinky toe)
- The medial border of his right foot wasnt opening (forefoot abduction).

All of these missing motions are PRONATION mechanics.

And on top of that, S’s center of mass was positioned way farther over his right foot than his left (see my stick person drawing at the end of vid).

We did two movements to help sort these mechanics out:

1. Pronate his right foot (first clip) in order to change the tissues being loaded in his right lower leg from lateral to medial.
2. Abduct his right hip (second clip), teaching his body to shift his center of mass to the left so that he doesn’t keep getting pulled onto the lateral border of his right foot.

The results? He’s been having a lot less pain in his calf.

Not shown are the parts of our sessions where I’ve done a few manual fibula and foot mobilizations, but I really must give most of the credit to S and his desire to move into unknown spaces, persist at practicing these movements, and not give up because at first his body couldn’t do it.

S then told me how his podiatrist had given him an orthotic in his right shoe to hold up his arch. “It seems silly now to wear an arch support when it is clear that my foot can’t pronate, why would I wear something to block that?”

‘Nuff said 😜

I really love these examples of how this simple movement (pronation), when returned to the body, can have such a positive effect.

I hope sharing this case was useful for you! If you resonate with anything in S’s story, please let me know. Feel free to comment or shoot me a message 🤓

04/23/2025

Back atcha with another gait analysis. If you’re a fellow gait geek, movement detective, or Anatomy in Motion learner I hope you’ll enjoy following along with my interpretation of this video of a human walking. Riveting stuff, I know...

This video is from Haider, a student who joined us in my Toronto Flow Motion Model course last November 2024

This video is a good example for how a body may look like after a relatively recent knee operation (10 months ish post op) and finding strategies to avoid putting full weight through his left leg.

If you are a keener who’s been studying the Flow Motion Model and Gary Ward’s closed chain biomechanics for any length of time, you’ll know that knee valgus and extension should not go together. That was a big red flag for me, and it prompted me to ask Haider some further questions about his knee.

What happened to his knee? What else happened to his body over the course of his life to have influenced how he moves today? What exercises could we use to help Haider change the way he moves and feel less crusty in his body? You'll have to watch the whole video :)

If you'd like to watch the whole video (~25mins) and read a more in depth summary of my findings, and a review of knee mechanics in gait, I've posted a write-up on Substack. Check it out here: https://monvolkmar.substack.com/p/gait-analysis-acl-reconstruction

Got any comments, questions, or abuse to share? Put it in the comments (but not too much abuse plz, I'm sensitive).

And if you're keen to learn more about AiM I'll be teaching Phase 2: Closed Chain Biomechanics in Toronto this June 6-8. Come join me in the classroom if you dig it :) https://bookwhen.com/https-findingcentre-co-uk-aim-education-calendar-2024/e/ev-s0mo-20250606000000

Another day another gait video.

03/24/2025

Who's in the mood for some gait detectivery? This is a little clip from a gait analysis video I did for Xenia, a physio in Toronto who took the Anatomy in Motion Flow Motion Model course with me last November.

A primary standout for me was the shape of Xsenias left ankle. The gnarly looking bowing inward shape of her left Achilles tendon prompted me to ask if anything had ever happened to her left foot or ankle. Her response:

"Yes, I've had multiple ankle sprains bilaterally - some very badly requiring crutches and longer recovery. Most significantly/recently (2 summers ago) I stepped in a hole in the grass and dislocated my left ankle. I have very lax ligaments (all over my body, really) and I think that's the only reason I didn't fracture the ankle."

Well that explains the shape of her ankle... What would we do with it to help Xsenia's body move better for future hiking adventures?

I've made a little write up to discuss a possible strategy to help Xsenia with her body, and more gait observations, for the AiM keeners who want to practice their gait analysis skills with me.

Check out the full gait video/write-up on Substack here: https://substack.com//note/p-159225773?r=p5zo9

For anyone who is planning on completing the Anatomy in Motion accredited practitioner exam in the future, my hope is that this will help you practice the gait analysis portion. Have fun!

03/05/2025

Pretty stoked to be on the teaching assistant team for the Upledger Institute CS1 course in Sydney this week. Best way to learn is teach, and reviewing the foundations never gets old 💀🤓

02/28/2025

Ahhh the sophistication of the simple. Give the PEN TEST a try, and see how well your feet are pronating. No high tech required. Just get a little feely with a pen and a wedge.

One of my biggest take-aways from the Anatomy in Motion course was how to properly assess, experience, and guide others through foot pronation.

Back in my pre-AiM days, in 2015, I didn't really know anything about feet. I was still teaching towel scrunches and generic calf stretches, and telling people to push their knees out while going up the stairs... And I certainly could not have appreciated how foot pronation is a three dimensional movement, let alone a movement that was actually beneficial for the body.

So how do you know that you're pronating well? What should it look like?

Most of us intuitively know that in pronation the arch goes down and the pressure rolls to the inside edge of the foot, but the detail within that movement is incredible and far too nuanced to fit into a quick social media post (which is why teaching foot mechanics takes HOURS and DAYS in the AiM courses).

For simplicity, I wanted to make a video to demonstrate one of the assessments we use in AiM to introduce people to the observation of foot pronation in SAGITTAL PLANE, i.e. looking at the foot from the side and watching the arch go down and up.

Introducing the PEN TEST.

Use the pen as a gauge to see if your foot gets longer when you bend your knee. If it does, there's a good chance you are pronating well. Go you!

In this video I show you how to do the pen test, and then a few examples of how you can use a foot wedge to help you succeed at a good quality pronation.

As you will see, my foot doesn't lengthen and push the pen initially, but I get a lot of benefit from a heel wedge to help it plantar flex. I wonder which wedge position will be most useful for you?

Keep in mind this is just looking at one plane of motion... Not a complete assessment of pronation, but a good place to start.

In the AiM courses, Gary breaks down the motion of the foot into three planes: Sagittal, frontal, and transverse. He also documents what each of the 26 moving bones in each foot o in pronation and supination.

If you'd like to learn more, come study with me! My teaching schedule for 2025 is here: https://findingcentre.co.uk/aim-education-calendar/

02/27/2025

Come hang out with me in clinic Thurs and Sat in South Melbourne :)

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As Monika says, “Everybody’s healing path is unique—there’s no one-size, cookie-cutter approach.”

Curious to realign your body and reclaim pain-free movement?

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02/25/2025

An integral part of the AiM process is to bring awareness to where we feel the pressure under our feet.

I really like this clip that captures my attempt at explaining WHY I care so much about documenting peoples' foot pressures, and why that's where we started with our assessment.

Your foot pressure is a representation of where your entire body may be resting in space.

Gary Ward, creator of AiM, had access to a force plate early in his development of the Flow Motion Model of gait, which gave him objective data about people's static alignment on top of their feet, but he was also curious in peoples' subjective sense of where they put weight in their feet because it provided valuable information that also helped his clients gain self awareness and better help themselves.

I don't have high tech equipment, but I'm always interested in helping people make sense of their foot pressures and how to interpret them in accessible, low tech ways.

If the goal is to have your body as centered as possible so it can access it's movement mechanics evenly on the right and left, in each footstep, then a "perfect" body would feel equal pressure on both feet.

As with any subjective assessment, the data from your own foot pressure scan isn't perfect, but when tracked over time it gives us information to help us understand what mechanics might be missing from your body, why things hurt, and what to do about it.

Have you checked in with your foot pressure lately? What does it say about your body?

If you're curious to learn more I'm always happy to chat, or better yet, set up a movement session online or in-person to be taken through an assessment process to help you understand your body from the feet up.

Shoot me a message if you want to know more, or book in a session with me in Melbourne at EsoLab

02/24/2025

How well do you look up? 🤔

In Anatomy in Motion we place as high of a value on QUALITY of motion- how the person is accomplishing a motion, as total RANGE of motion- the amount the joint can move.

A very common thing human bodies do is to shove the skull forward on their neck in an attempt to look up (neck extension). This is not an awesome movement pattern, however, because all it does is compress the occiput and C1 vertebrae together and can feel pretty gnarly over time.

This is a before-and-after of just that. Can you see how in the before pic her neck slopes straight forward and her skull pushes forward on top? And in the after pic there is a new trace of an actual backwards-bending C-curve, showing evidence of new motion between individual vertebrae in her neck into extension. Oh and no pain with this movement anymore, yeahhhh 💪

This client had described to me an injury around age 10 when she fell whilst skiing and hit both the back of her head, her upper back, and her coccyx. Ouch. Never treated. Never considered. She was curious what could be the root of her on and off again neck pain...

Our session was a combination of craniosacral therapy to decompress the restricted areas at her occiput, neck, spine, and sacrum, and Anatomy in Motion movements to help retrain better quality motion in her spine to more evenly share the movement in her neck and spine, while standing up with her head stacked over her feet (wall cogs). There is more work to do but this is a great start 🥳

Wanted to share this because of how common it is that falls like this are underappreciated causes of so many peoples' neck/back pains years later, and how useful I've found craniosacral therapy as a modality as a tool that can help.

Have you ever fallen on your butt or head? I have. Most people forget or just don't realize how impactful it can be on the entire body. A combo of CST and sensible movement re-education can help :)