November started pretty intense!
Hamburg: I had a double course in Hamburg: finishing one 2a course with my colleague Steffen Klittmann, as well as Level 1 course. With the level 1 course we had a spontaneous “after course pizza party” at the study centre. Time to talk about history of IMTA and other details for which there’s no room during the course. I like these moments, it’s also a chance to get to know the students better.
Gdansk 1: A finish of Level 2b course with a strong team: Thomas, Ralf (for the 1st time as a co-teacher with me on this course; was excellent!), Massimo (our Italian treasure) and Daria. And of course – the wonderful group, as the main player in this game! It is priceless to be the guide and the witness of your incredible development towards being open-minded, wise physiotherapists. With many of you we will see us again on the Level 3 course 🙂
Gdansk 2: The clinic: sure, during the days in-between (or even parallel!), we also took the best care of our beloved patients. Without them, the whole teaching wouldn’t have much to do with reality, and most of all – we want to stay clinical!
Łódź: 1st polish conference of manual therapy
To this conference, organised by Arek Szmitka, Daria & me were invited as speakers. We arrived quite late on Thursday, just in time to take part in the last hour of the evening banquet. We met already there one student from the 2nd level 1 course taught by me in Poland in 2008. Long time ago, but some faces you simply don’t forget 😉 And finally I met in person a well-recognisable character in the polish scene of physiotherapy – Asia Tokarska. At 27th of February we will be guests of her podcast again, this time talking about “Kettlebells for Physios”:)
Friday morning after the coffee break, Daria & me were speaking about the core meaning of modern Manual Therapy, about past and current trends in Physiotherapy, about pain mechanism and – of course – about what makes the approach of the Maitland Concept so special and different from many other concepts.
Unfortunately, there was not much time to go deeper into discussion with other speakers as well as with the visitors of the conference, because Daria had to start at noon the next day another course week of the Maitland Concept in Warsaw.
We liked the friendly atmosphere, Arek did a great job! The Better Physio will join this event again in 2024 🙂
Warsaw 1: so, Daria started week 2 of her Level 1 in Warsaw with a young, motivated and funny group. We could now start working truly in the Concept, having mentored sessions with patients during the course.
Warsaw 2: in the meantime I joined to give a free lecture for the students and workers of the Medical University of Warsaw. More than 40 students joined the 1 hour speech about AMI (arthrogenic muscular inhibition). Thx to Michał Czajkowski for arranging it.
Cracow 1: straight from Warsaw I headed next morning towards Cracow, where I started another 2a course with my co-teacher Matthew. New group, with a new character. This is what we like in this job:)
Cracow 2: I finished my course week at noon, and just after this Daria started a completely new Maitland Level 1 group in the same room. Maitland newbies taking places on the still warm chairs of the already more experienced colleagues… they don’t know it yet, but we do: some of them will become good friends in the future, as this course is much more than pure manual therapy! It is a common journey, exchanging personal experiences, sharing rooms, discussing till the late evening hours, laughing together, supporting each other… our courses build up sophisticated physios, but also strong communities! Isn’t it just great?!
Berlin: Beginning of December a certification for the German Manual Therapy diploma was held by Jürg and me.Supported by Talisa, Karen & Nico; and of course by Achim, the responsible Dr. Since 2008 Jürg & me doing these exams together, almost like a ritual. And we had a pretty successful day; congrats to all new Manual Therapists!!!!
Gdansk again: December. Back to headquarters 😉 …and another finish. This time Daria’s Level 1 course came to an end after 4 intense weeks taking place in the course of this year. To Daria and her fellow assistant Sebastian this last course week brought a pleasant surprise. Not only has the entire group practiced really hard before the exam, but all of them performed very well, too! To us always the most important part is the patient’s sessions. Real patients, real life situations confronted by real physios with ready real solutions! That was superb! And also the hands of our participants were powerful, but soft, while performing the techniques on us. And this is a true skill.
Congratulations!
… and right after that Daria has put a tiny X-mas tree in our clinic and we started counting down days till the end of this year together with our patients again!
It was a busy, but a good year for us. Many new projects, many challenges, a lot of work (too much to be honest ;), and a lot of satisfaction, too!!!