5DefinitiveVorsprung

Anarchy Must Be Organised

For the last thirty years we have been asked to describe Vorsprung. Each time Vranek has said: ‘it took me thirty years to devise it, it’s going to take another thirty to explain it’. However, we have realised, that we should stop explaining it in spiritual or emotional terms, but, in physical terms. Because, if you engage with Vorsprung in physical terms you will inevitably gain the spiritual and emotional benefits too.

Vorsprung is, in simple-terms, a neuro-dynamic influenced practice. In more complex terms, it amalgamates numerous (endless) other scientific, philosophical and cultural elements. All, to the ends of enhancing the brain-to-body and body-to-brain communication pathways. Which, in-turn, will enhance and improve physical and mental performances.

Vorsprung takes certain parts of any science and feeds them through a neuro-dynamic process to reveal a more holistic approach to training, exercise and body / mind awareness. The primary objective is to extract the best parts of any science, that will aid Vorsprung’s design of programmes for people with under-lying health issues; a more holistic approach to physical activities; enhancing elite sports peoples performances; or alleviating symptoms related to Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Depression, time or anger-management.

How It Works

Three main ‘tools’ are used in a fifty minutes session: assessment; diagnostic; and treatment. The assessment is, also, the diagnosis, which is, also, the treatment: an all-in-one. It is as simple as that. However, human beings have an innate need to put more value on cost and time. The more something costs and the more something lasts, the more value they put on it. So, Vorsprung sessions have had to be ‘strung-out’. Giving value in a human dimension.

Assessment

Part of the process is to break-down the brain’s hi-jacking of our senses. Through the Vorsprung process we learn to take control of our senses - to highlight our lives and expand our consciousness. Embedding a more workable body and mind functionality allows us to work with physics, gravity and our senses depending on the activity one is under-taking. To what degree each individual is being held to ransom by their brain, depends on the initial assessment process.

This assessment will give an idea of how developed or under-developed the individual’s body-to-brain and brain-to-body communication pathways are. It will, also, reveals indications of Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Autism, Aspergers et al.

Diagnostic

The assessment will give a diagnosis. Maybe, there is a gait or postural issue; an abnormally lateral loading issue; a balance issue; and so on. The diagnosis, then, gives an idea of which tools would best suit the individual’s treatment.

From this point on, we are working with the individual’s unconscious brain.

Additionally, aspects of the individual’s personal situation will, also, determine the nature of the treatment. Whether you need more McKenzie treatment, more Butler treatment, more PNF: all of which will be tinged with the twist of it having gone through the neuro-dynamic process. So, in some way we might say neuro-dynamic biomechanics, neuro-dynamic PNF, neuro-dynamic kinesiology, neuro-dynamic pilates. And so on…

Any number of elements from science to cultural and art may play a part, or be subjected to the neuro-dynamic twist. There is a degree of alchemy, if you like. Adapting the proportions of the ingredients to suit each individual, whilst applying the one constant ingredient: neuro-dynamics.

And it is this, that makes it Vorsprung.

Treatment

The ‘treatment’, is as much about self-discovery as being offered tools to improve or enhance oneself. After-all, it is only once we are more aware of ourselves, that, we can then begin to realise our potential.

Of course, part of the assessment is knowing when-to, and when not-to intervene. This will inform the treatment.

Although, Vorsprung is about helping individuals to work with their innate responses and senses, we have to be intelligent about what we offer.

When we look at Michael Johnson running, we would immediately look at him and want to address a few postural issues, because he doesn’t seem to conform to the running 'norm'. However, multi-Olympic and multi-world champion, two-event world record holder, it is safe to say, we should leave well alone! Something is not right, but, whatever it is that is not right, is working.

Similarly, our work instinct when assessing Rafa Nadal (and part of an assessment is getting to know the full history of the person and personality) would be, that, he is not getting the most out of his body-brain / brain-body communications. He is naturally right-handed, but, was taught to play left-handed as a way of enhancing his chances of beating right-handed players, who are more dominate in tennis. However, we are not going to ‘work our magic’ and make him play right-handed at this point in his life or career, because whatever advantages he has lost in not working ‘with’ his innate signals, he has clearly made-up-for in other areas.

In the most part, treatment will mean the individual repeating, and repeating, and repeating, and repeating the main three exercises, which you would have been introduced to as an assessment tool and as a diagnostic tool prior to reaching the treatment phase.

The re-trained signals will become embedded. However, we are not embedding ‘alien’ signals. We are identifying the individual’s true innate signals and embedding them. Most of the time, we do not work with our body-brain signals, hence, we lose a huge amount of performance from our brains and bodies.

Vorsprung worked with a ‘leftie’ sprinter. After an initial assessment we saw he was actually a ‘righty’. Therein presented a delicate balance. We knew he was not ‘in-tune’ with his innate signals. But, was he getting enough out of what he was doing, to not change anything? As the assessment included his personal details and history it made us decide to offer him a change. The significant element was, that, he had autistic tendencies. Vorsprung has been successful in alleviating certain negative aspects of autism, so, we knew there was a greater degree, that, ‘messing with’ his left / right preferences would ultimately be an advantage to him.

So, we switched his lead leg out of the blocks, and although he admitted it felt uncomfortable, his reaction times and first-phase times were significantly faster.

Knowing when to treat and when not is a delicate balance.

The Benefits

The difficulty we have had in explaining the benefits of Vorsprung is, that, they only become apparent when you engage with it. Only after an assessment and the diagnostic evaluation can the treatment evolve (or not), and Vorsprung's work manifests. No one person will have the same treatment process or even treatment disciplines (to practice). Some might need more of a bio-mechanical influence; some more of a pilates-influence; some more of a PNF-influence; and so on. Which means, each and every treatment, clinic, workshop, training session is unique to that particular person, team and moment in time.

As such, there is no way of defining Vorsprung beyond the initial introduction.

However, everyone who has gone through the Vorsprung process has benefitted (whether knowingly or not) from it and have seen a reduction in brain and body disfunction, an increase in communications between the body and the brain and the brain and body, and an enhanced physical and mental performance.

Influences Are Abundant

Both in the formation, foundations and continuing practices of Vorsprung, influences are abundant. Ask for the three most influential people or pieces of work today, the answer will be different tomorrow. In-part, because Vorsprung is continually expanding its horizons and adding to the jig-saw.

There are the obvious physiological and medical ones (Par-Olof Ästrand, Kaare Rodahl, Neil Armstrong, Meinir Jones, Richard Domiguez, J. P. Muller); the treatment ones (David Butler, Robin McKenzie, Mel Cash, Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt); the science ones (Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton); the psychological and philosophical ones (Alice Miller, R. D. Laing, Siddhārtha Gautama, Jean-Paul Satrè); the sports ones (Peter Coe, Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff, Vitor Frade, Bob Bowman, Joe Douglas, Brother Colm).

There are the not so obvious: the cultural ones (John & Yoko, John Berger, The Beatles, Lenny Bruce, Spike Milligan, Calvin & Hobbes, Tony Schwartz, Utah Phillips, Jelly Roll Morton, Andy Warhol, Hugh Masekela, Viktor Papanek); the business ones (Anita Roddick, Peter Drucker, Ricardo Semler).

Just like the Fluxus movement, which was an interdisciplinary community of artists. Vorsprung is an interdisciplinary community of science and art practices. Notions, that, one should embark on an artwork without a conception of its end are similar to that of Vorsprung having no end to its disciplines. It is a fluid movement.

Just like Bob Dylan’s song, ‘Positively 4th Street’, Vorsprung doesn’t conform to any creative rules. It has no mention of its name in the actual exercises. Vorsprung is, primarily, a collection of other people’s exercises. Just as, there is no mention of the title of Dylan’s song in the lyrics, you never talk directly about Vorsprung. It is a circle, a black-hole, an infinite jig-saw puzzle expanding-out, where elements and influences drop-in (and sometimes drop-out) at any given juncture of its relationship with the world.

Just as astro-physicists talk of the Universe and dark matter as defying our earthly parametres of scientific judgement, Vorsprung too doesn’t conform to any earthly rules.

We talk around Vorsprung to understand it. We talk about neuro-dynamics or bio-mechanics or kinesiology or pilates or physiology or whatever, to make it easier for others to understand: because the ‘understanding’ comes to us from within, not from without, when you practice the physical aspect of Vorsprung: not from talking about it.

This is as close a definition as we can get.

5. Definitive Vorsprung