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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Jumping




Elizabeth is desperate to jump. She frequently is in awe of other children jumping and asks me why she cannot jump too. At her gymnastics it is somethings that we struggle with as a lot of the exercises involve jumping. She has a trampoline at home and she recently has began to jump on her trampoline while she is holding on to the bar. To see if we can help her with jumping independently we are using Ramon's philosophy 'train the brain' and using his CME Medek jumping exercise to teach her how to jump. The exercise mimics what her body would do if she is to jump and with enough repetitions she should have the skill mastered (I think it is 1500). The biggest obstacle for her being able to jump is her uncoordination which sends her limbs flying in all directions when she tries to jump, the CME exercises puts her body through the motions of jumping. She has been working hard with Dad at her jumping and today at gymnastics she jumped a couple of times and actually got her feet off the floor for a brief second. Her gymnastics coach and I were ecstatic and Elizabeth was so proud of herself.

3 comments:

Sherry C said...

Way to go! Feet off the ground that sounds fabulous. Sounds like she will have fun working on this skill too with dad.

Valeria said...

Good Job Elizabeth!!!
I'm looking for medek pt too, but I can't find any here :-(.
Our PT was so poor!

Jennifer Gunter said...

My 6 yr old with CP worked very hard to jump (26 weeker). It took almost 2 years. We bought a small jumpy house so he could feel the lift. I also had him lay on his back and push against my chest (reverse jumping without gravity and balance) and so I could help him coordinate his legs. I remember the first time both his feet left the floor I was in tears!
I would love to connect with you.
jennifer.gunter@gmail.com