Shall we dance?

By Aviva Lori
Tags: israel news
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057839.html
Saturday, January 24, 2009 10:04:38 AM

The atmosphere was magical. Marilyn Monroe was fascinating: "I wanna be loved by you," she sang, and people took off their shoes, stepped onto the mattresses one after the other and were soon swaying with the music. One song followed another, bossa nova and jazz, and the dancers were told to move to the rhythm, back and forth, to move their hands and feet and relax their muscles. "Do stupid things," said the emcee, "go wild."

If not for the mattresses, you might have thought this was a course in ballroom dancing. But when the dancers left the floor for a moment to wipe away perspiration or drink some water, a metamorphosis took place: They became disabled. Their legs barely moved, their facial expressions froze, their hands - mainly their hands - trembled uncontrollably.

There is nothing like the workshop for Parkinson's patients at Alex Kerten's studio in Kibbutz Glil Yam to reveal one of the undeciphered secrets of Parkinson's disease. Muscular chaos on the one hand, and an ability to control the body on the other. Chaos and discipline that exist side by side, or in opposition, in one body, in an inexplicable physical combination. When the patients move onto the padded dance floor, the trembling stops, as with a magic wand. When they leave it, the magic disappears.

Thirty years ago, Kerten, 63, a master of martial arts and former musician, began to study the connection between breathing, heartbeat and movement, and developed a therapeutic method called Gyro-Kinetics. Over the years he has used the method mainly on people suffering from Parkinson's, a disease that is incurable, but "manageable." Between 60 and 80 Parkinson's patients, aged 57 to 68, the vast majority of them men, come to him weekly in groups for dancing and martial arts classes, and report on a physical and emotional renewal that they don't achieve by any other means.

What is a man whose expertise is music and martial arts doing treating Parkinson's patients?

How can that be explained scientifically?

And over the long term?

So why does part of the medical establishment reject his methods?

Instead of grating cheese

How does it affect your family life?

One, one hundred, one thousand

Healthy with Parkinson's

What's the key word or phrase?

What did you find in Kerten that you hadn't been familiar with previously?

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