Resets are very important for movement.
With Parkinsonism my dad tends to move before he’s ready. It’s like his mind rushes ahead with his movement before his body is ready, and his body attempts to move the way it has his whole life before Parkinson’s. 75+ years of moving particular ways creates pretty strong habits.
The catch with that: nowadays his body doesn’t move the way it has his whole life. His body doesn’t keep up with how his mind wants to move.
Parkinsonism causes quick, small and contracted movements, which leads to parts of his body doing a bunch of quick small things while the rest of his body attempts to catch up, which leads to freezing and unsteadiness, being stuck or potentially falling.
To account for the need of his body to catch up, we’ve found that pausing his movement and becoming present to the moment, then moving forward, one step at a time, has a powerful effect on bringing his mind and body back in sync, allowing him to make beautifully effective movements in a new yet familiar way. We call these times of pause “Resets”.
Fake Resets
There’s something that happens that we call “fake resets”. This is pausing, but not really… not pausing enough to let go of the motion that’s happening inside and just barely enough to appear stopped on the outside. It’s more like freezing all the movement temporarily without the release. This is something I’ve picked up on with working with him, and I can generally spot it right away. To me, or let’s say to the “trained eye”, it’s clear when he hasn’t let go of his momentum inside because his body and facial expression show a tenseness, like the movement is just begging to be let go. When I catch it, I ask him for a “real reset”… it often takes a few times.
Real Resets: Pausing, letting go of motion in the mind and body, taking a breathe (letting the air out, breathing in). Then taking just one present action (one step when walking, one word when talking, etc.)
Walking
We came up with this idea of a reset years back around his tendency to get stuck walking. He would get stuck when in narrow places, or when he felt rushed, or when he was looking ahead to the end of where he wanted to go. He could do stairs just fine though, and when there was a line on the ground 2 feet away from him he could generally take a step perfectly well. Really, any time he was reduced to only the possibility of doing one step he could take that step quite well.
So, when he would get stuck I worked with him to remember to come back to just taking the one step he had to take first. To bring his mind and body back from the rush and the distance and his surroundings and into just taking that one step. This, we decided, we’d call a “reset”, and we’ve used it daily ever since — hence the name of this website and our YouTube channel. 🙂
When my dad resets and focuses on one step at a time, he takes amazing steps… I’ll often call these “Beautiful steps”, and I talk with him about “Beautiful movement”. The truth is, all of his movements are beautiful in their own way… and perhaps this is something to write about some time. What I’m aiming to suggest with “beautiful” here is the grace, balance, and power in his steps when he becomes present to the moment and the one step he’s taking.
This reset, and the presence in each step, is what keeps my dad walking.
Over time, we’ve learned that a reset like this affects all of his movements in a beneficial way: walking, talking, unlocking sliding locks, buttoning shirts, using the TV remotes, pushing buttons, even shooting trash in a trash can. It’s still tricky for him to remember on his own, but when he does, it works.
Other Tricky Movements
Here are few examples of tricky movements beyond walking that my dad experiences with Parkinsonism, and that we’ve found are supported by resets.
Talking
When talking, aside from the quietness, my dad’s voice tends to run away from him, and his words get mumbled, jumbled, inarticulate, or just plain don’t come out.
When he resets, really resets, and turns his awareness on each word and being loud, oftentimes his speech comes out perfectly clear. Even when not totally clear, there’s almost always enough of a shift in his articulation to allow anyone to understand what he’s saying.
Devices
This certainly plays out on devices too: he’ll be pressing and pressing the phone with different angles of his finger, or even his whole finger, either pressing too many parts of the phone or not pressing anything. When he’s able to truly reset, and focus on just the one part of the screen, he touches the area of the phone just how he needs to to make the phone do what he intended.
Shooting hoops (or trash in a basket)
One morning when I was with my dad as he woke up, he was shooting a large, crumpled up paper wrapper in the trash basket. I noticed his arms just shoot haphazardly without really being ready to go for the shot, and the paper wrapper fell to the floor about halfway to the basket.
I grabbed the wrapper and asked him to try again, and he agreed (as he so willingly and graciously does most of the time). I handed it to him and he immediately shot again… no pause, no time to see the basket, just rapid arm movement and release of the wrapper. Again, the wrapper just ended up halfway to the basket and on the floor. I grabbed it again, asked him to pause and reset first, then shoot. He paused, looked at the basket, took a shot… and it was close! It didn’t go in, but it was a great looking shot. We did it again. Reset, see the basket, shoot. Bounced off the rim. Again. Reset, see the basket, shoot. It went in! Again. It went in. Again, it went in!
This was fun for both of us, yet another beautiful and unexpected little moment that brought smiles to both of our faces. And we gained yet another perspective in the effectiveness of his resets. They support him in all movements, and playing trash basketball is no different. 🙂
Resets for Ben
This, like most things (all things) I work on with my dad, provides lessons for me too. When I find myself looking too far ahead, or rushing towards things, I get stuck, I shuffle, sometimes I fall and things get messy. Sometimes very messy.
When I catch myself in this scenario and allow myself to reset, truly reset, seeing where I want to go yet bringing myself back to the moment and the work at hand, I too create beautiful movement, and get where I needed to go. In the right time and in my time. Taking one step at a time, and from there, another step…
…aaand
In case you missed it on New Year’s Eve, check out our Fireside Chat where we discuss Resets and sing Auld Lang Syne:
