Tom Gellie, a structural integrator and former ski instructor, explains his approach to eliminating pain through movement and alignment. He maps your injury history, assesses how you move from toes to head, then uses hands-on techniques to restore proper alignment and function.
Hey guys, my name is Tom Gellie and I run Functional Body, which is a therapeutic practice that aims to get people out of pain and moving a lot better. My journey into this line of work actually started through ski instructing, so I've spent many, many years teaching skiing, coaching skiing to a very high level, and through that sport and my own obsession with it, realized there's a really strong relationship between cause and effect. And so over the years, I decided to delve into learning more about the body, and that, that led me to becoming a structural integrator or rolfer. So the Structural Integration training taught me also, again like ski instructing, to look for good alignment, symmetry, and quality of movement in the human body. And when the human body is aligned and moves freely in, in all dimensions, then a lot of the time pain, discomfort, and problems will just be solved and healed through the body internally. People come to see me usually with aches and pains that they're trying to get rid of. So my process really looks at a detailed injury history because I, I like to believe that everyone's born pretty much perfect. So we don't have anything really wrong with us until we have trauma events that shift the body or push things out of whack, out of our control. So when people come in, I'll look at their injury history to really try and find and piece together a timeline as to whether, uh, something really was impactful enough that it perhaps caused lower back pain to appear a few months afterwards. So that's how the process begins when people come in, and we'll then go into a detailed movement assessment from their toes, through their feet, all the way up to the top of the head. So no stone left unturned. And through that, I'm looking to build a picture of, of how this person's posture is balanced and stacked together. And they're not only statically in their posture, but how they move through walking and general functional movements. And through that, we'll try and figure out what pieces are missing, perhaps through this injury sort of timeline, and putting them back, whether it's through using my hands or hopefully teaching them how to reintroduce, reintegrate movement back into their body, will hopefully see a change in pain, quality of movement, and alignment in their whole body. So if you're interested in finding a little bit more about your own body and perhaps some things that are missing, then feel free to get in contact with me through my website, book an initial assessment, and we can take a look and go through this process together to see if we can find out what is at the bottom of your problem. So I look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks a lot.
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