“Unstuck” E-book Available for FREE Today!

I’m thrilled to announce the FREE release of my second ebook today: Unstuck. Check it out on Amazon!

I’ve been hard at work on this project for many months, and in many ways it is actually the work of a decade. In Unstuck I describe the trajectory of my last ten years of physical activity and exploration, breaking down specific tools I’ve cultivated in a wide variety of sports and physical activities.

Unstuck_small

 

Here’s a condensed version of my History of a Compulsion
1998 – I began as a runner by attempting and failing to keep up with family marathons
2000 – Competed in my first cross-country race
2002 – Achieved Varsity Cross-Country status, high status among runners but not in high school.
2003 – Began juggling, which did not elevate my social status but did introduce me to the world of circus arts

Gymnastics

November 2003 – Walked off the cross-country team at my peak, began rock climbing, fencing, enrolled in dance classes, discovered gymnastics
November 2008 – Landed on my head on a trampoline, thereby ending my aspirations of a career with Cirque Du Soleil
November 2012 – Hesitantly reentered a gymnastic gym
2013 – Mastered my gymnastics giant, front and back flips, handstands, and more

Blues Dancing

2011 – Hesitantly walked into my first Blues dance venue
2012 – Co-founded Fuse, a social dance performance company
2013 – Took multiple trips to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study tango

Martial Arts

1995-1998 – Repeatedly bullied in middle school
1999 – Helpless in the face of a pit bull attacking me and my dog Sandy
April 2013 – Attempted to learn 12 martial arts in 1 week
2013 – Continued to study and compete in Muay Thai, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, despite leaving sessions shaking with fear and adrenaline
2014 – Wrestled with a pit bull, fearlessly

2014 and Beyond

December 2013 – Took my first ballet class since 2009
January 2014 – Abandoned gymnastics, jiu-jitsu, Blues dance, and all the rest in favor of classical ballet
August 2014 – Joined a pre-professional ballet training program 30 hours/week
April 2015 – Contracted to perform with the San Francisco Opera

How to Do a Handstand List of Resources

This week continues to be a wild ride! On Monday, I published my first book, “How To Do A Handstand” which hit the #1 Fitness Ebook on Amazon! In case you missed the excitement, here’s the description and cover photo. Below, you will find a ton of additional resources, including a Slideshare I created to teach handstands, and 36 short videos which detail all of the incremental steps. You can download the book for FREE on Amazon through Friday.

Handstand Ebook Cover

Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering Handstands in 20 Days

Handstands are a common exercise that are almost never learned correctly. Balancing upside down is something most people tried as children, but which adults have long since given up on. When handstands are attempted by adults they are done so in just one way: push up against a wall and hope for the best. Handstands need not be learned through this method of repeated failure.

Why Everyone Fails

Those who do attempt to learn handstands as an adult do so through throwing themselves up and hoping that they’ll be able to manage to balance. The result is discouragement, embarrassment, and pain. No one has been taught the simple steps necessary to learn to balance, or the mental and physical impediments they will encounter along the way.

In How To Learn A Handstand Robin teaches all of the steps necessary to go from novice to expert in 20 days, and shares the 3 reasons most people never master a fearless handstand.

How To Learn A Handstand includes a day-by-day breakdown for learning how to balance a handstand in 20 days. The book includes 36 videos, 50+ images and a worksheet which details every step.

Would You Like To Know More?

You don’t have to fail repeatedly in order to eventually succeed. Follow this 20-day plan and make gradual progress to master your own fearless handstand. You will come away with the concrete knowledge of how to progress from where you are to the next level, overcome any fear you have of being upside down, and have fun! Download now, and begin to practice your own fearless handstands.

 

Slideshare presentation on several of the most important topics covered in the book.

The “How To Do A Handstand” YouTube Playlist.

Where’s Robin? Join me for weekly (free) movement lessons.

There are a lot of new and exciting changes in my life. Over the last 2 years I’ve gone out social dancing 6x nights a week, training gymnastics until 10 or 11pm some nights, and working early into the morning hours. It was a not uncommon occurrence for a flatmate to be getting up for breakfast and find me fixing myself a 5am pre-bedtime snack. Well, that’s changed…

I am currently organizing the biggest event I’ve ever put on. We are organizing a thousand person workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area for The Son-Rise Program®: Essentials workshop – a transformative three days workshop for parents and professionals with children with autism. There are some free upcoming talks, here.

Additionally, I’ve switched from dancing Blues/Fusion and Argentine Tango to ballet. I am currently taking ballet class at LINES ballet six times each week.

These changes make me harder to find than I was just a couple of months ago. I am used to seeing a lot of people regularly on dance floors around the Bay Area and won’t be, for the foreseeable future. So I’m instigating a new, weekly (free) event. I have been certified to practice the Anat Baniel Method, a modern variant of the Feldenkrais Method, and a gentle style of movement education that I’ve used to overcome some severe injuries. This is the same sort of thing I do with autistic kids. I’ve done a lot of movement in my life – from founding a dance company to trying a dozen martial arts in a week. I have studied with some amazing teachers. And I’ve never met someone with a more thorough applied understanding of human motor learning than Anat Baniel. I want to continue to learning with you…

Why Movement for Special Needs Children – Robin Discusses Why Movement for Autism

Movement has always been at the center of my pursuits and practices. I now have the honor and privilege of taking more than two decades work of experience and applying these skills to children with special needs. Through an understanding of the basic science of human motor learning acquisition – or how people learn to move better – I apply the skills I have acquired to help children learn to move better.

Try Something New – Robin Discusses Working with a Tantrum

I recently gave a lesson to a little girl with autism. Part way through our series of lessons together she had a tantrum. She is normally very calm. I hadn’t seen this before and I asked her mother if this behavior is usual or unusual. Her mother said that she didn’t really know what was going on so I suggested we try something new. Right there I applied variation. When something isn’t working, try something new! What we tried was stepping out of the room, leaving the girl to tantrum. There wasn’t any way for her to hurt herself or anybody else in my office. So we just waited. It is fascinating to watch this on camera. I have this footage recorded. At first she continues to kick and scream. And then after maybe a minute when she realizes that no one is paying attention anymore she got really quiet. And then, two minutes later, she opened the door, walked out, and said clearly: “I want to continue my lesson,” closed the door. I walked in and we continued our lesson together.

Interested in learning more? Robin works with children with autism in San Francisco and around the world. Learn more at http://moveautism.com.

Children with Autism Improve – Reports from Parents

“What is the Anat Baniel Method?”

“How does it work?”

“Does it make a difference with children with special needs?”

These are among the most common questions we hear. To begin to answer some of these we’ve compiled stories from the March 2013 Free Children’s Clinic of parents and children discussing their experience.

FREE Autism Workshop in San Francisco – Oct. 13, 2012

I’m really excited! I am going to be teaching an autism-focused experiential workshop. I’ve been looking for ways to teach parents the principles of the Anat Baniel Method and the Option Philosophy when I am not seeing their children. I also want more practice teaching groups! Thus, I am offering a ninety-minute workshop on the principles of learning applied to autism. There will be movement for you to do, exercises to practice at home, a unique combination of the Option Process and the Anat Baniel Method, and time spent addressing your particular challenges and questions.


What:
Autism Workshop incorporating Option Philosophy & Anat Baniel Method
Where: Metronome Dance Studios, 1830 17th Street, San Francisco, CA
When: Saturday, Oct. 13th at 4pm
Who: This will be a workshop for parents so this time please leave your children at home. Do invite anyone and everyone you think might be interested. Parents, practitioners who work with special needs children, new parents (the tools offered will be relevant for neuro-typical kids, too), and the general public interested in Option Institute and/or Anat Baniel Method. Have you been looking for a way to teach your friends and family about your special child? Bring them!
Cost: Free!

I hope you can make it! I will be teaching more workshops in the future and I’m not sure how many of them will be open to the public. (Plans include teaching at UCSF and Google!) Do you know of other organizations or groups who might like for me to teach similar workshops? Please let me know! Call if you have any questions.

Regards,
Robin

Movement with Attention for your child

Note: this post is intended for parents of children with special needs. If that isn’t your cup of tea there are lots of other posts that may be.

Anat Baniel’s first essential is Movement with Attention. The question is how to apply this essential with your child. What’s one new way?

1. Touch your child with curiosity. What does it feel like to touch along his/her spine? Towards the top of the spine vs. the bottom of the spine? What differences do you feel? As you begin to feel differences you awaken your child (regardless of age) to the possibility of experiencing and learning differences too!

2. Join them. Do what they do. If they roll on the floor, sit up, crawl – try doing that too! As you join them in what they like you’ll bond with them, get more engaged with them, and come to see aspects of what they do in a new way!

3. Lie on your back on the floor for 3 minutes and scan yourself. Notice the contact of your feet with the floor, your head with the floor. As you begin to feel yourself more you wake up your brain to the possibility of new experiences. This will then powerfully transfer over to how you are with your child, how you touch your child, and how you attend to your child!

4. Who’s next? What’s another area you apply Movement with Attention?

Anat Baniel Interview

A very authentic interview of Anat on the Anat Baniel Method and Kids Beyond Limits. I love how straightforward she is in sharing her wonder at everyone’s capacity to change. Anat clearly and concisely discusses the difference between mechanical systems and the human brain, which is a learning, information-gathering system. She uses the metaphor of fixing a flat tire: the idea being that we simply cannot fix a person like we might fix a car. Humans are built to grow and learn, not to be solved. Her discussion of teaching the usefulness of “I wonder” is just as I experienced it in her training. As an aside, it is the same way I was taught to not presuppose and to approach questions with an open mind in science. All in all this interview is a loving, open-minded and fascinating glimpse into Anat’s thinking process and the Anat Baniel Method. Delicious and useful!