Reflexes and Stretching

To go with my letter home: Lessons learned in a basement classroom

#1. A lesson in reflexes:


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We expected to see different reflexes at different ages in the children we were observing. During the lab we asked the parents to do what might seem weird to other parents (if you've never taken your young child to physical therapy, youtube infant reflexes). One such reflex is the ability to right oneself or orient themselves to what direction is up. We see babies do this as they are tilted in the air side to side. They try to bring their head upright and vertical. This reflex grows and develops as a child learns to right themselves while lying down, in sitting, on all fours and in standing. Their instinct becomes such that they know it is safer to be upright and straight. These physical reflexes persist throughout our life time. As a child I assume that I too had these physical reflexes but thanks to the teaching of my parents and church I had moral reflexes, reflexes to know there is a right way to be no matter what situation I was in. I was taught early in life these principles and like the children we observed I learned to adjust to each situation to remain morally upright. Its safer that way. But these reflexes only became automatic responses because I was taught to chose before hand, to act and not simple be acted upon. To make a plan to say no now and stick to it when the going got rough. These reflexes started as lesson and persist by choice.

#2 A lesson in stretching:
Our practical exam on this Friday will include a stretching portion so we have spent sometime talking about different techniques to find what muscles need to be stretched and how we should go about stretching them. In our discussion our professor said the research suggests that the stretching we do in the clinic and the stretching people do after an exercise were only temporary lengthening of the muscle. That's not real change. Real change only came by keeping the muscle in a lengthened position for a long long time. Only then could the muscle be lengthened. Same with the shortening of a muscle. As it is kept in a shortened position for a long long time it adjusts to become short. Real change in my life has come much the same way. If I'm only casually thinking about change and not consistent in my plans to carry it out, my change is only fleeting and temporary. Real change is much harder, takes much more time, and requires a Mediator whose power and patience are beyond measure and who is mighty to save. (There is still academic debate on the whole stretching issue...so you'll hear other opinions; the state of real change stuck with me though)