May 24th

Today was another early day because Laurie and I went down to watch Igor's morning appointments again in Sudbury.  Two of the clients I watched today I could relate to more than last week's, because they are both ski racers.  One was a 9th grade boy, Sabri, who is working with Igor because he had terrible back pain during the season.  The other was a 7th grade girl, Katie, who broke her leg last August and is now fully recovered but still comes once in a while to work with Igor.  You could tell that Igor understood everything the sport required physically and made sure to do exercises that applied to them.  When Katie was in the pool, Igor even told us that one of the exercises she was doing he created just for skiers.  Both of these kids have been making great improvements while working with Igor.  The third client we saw was one we watched last week, too.  It is the boy who had the stroke when he was 15, and is now paralyzed on the right side of his body.  He has been working everyday with Igor since last Monday, and since the last time we saw him he has made tremendous improvements.  It's inspiring, in fact, how much he has progressed and how hard he is working.  When he first started he had a hard time even walking because of his right side, and we watched him doing movement exercises on land today that some able bodied people would have challenges with.  He did them well, and with a smile on his face.  While we were down watching Igor we also saw my old coach from Waterville Valley Academy, Tom Barbeau.  Tom is master certified in Burdenko, and was the first person that exposed me to it from doing workouts with him when I was at the academy.  He was down to watch Igor and ask some questions.  Laurie and Tom both like to go down and check in with Igor once in a while, to get new ideas and to watch it taught by someone else for a change.  I feel very lucky in doing this research that was able to meet first hand the creator of the method, instead of only learning about him through books and other people.

Tomorrow is that last day of Laurie's classes, and then I will go back to campus to continue reading and start working on my evaluation and everything else to wrap up my senior project!