Part of the genius of Naudi Aguilar’s development of Functional Patterns is its scalability. We can use the principles he has developed, the vision of the human gait cycle, and apply a range of slow/static to more dynamic exercises to any human body to help it regenerate its movement. What’s needed is commitment, reflection, and focus. Exercises can be progressed and regressed in relation to what the person in front of us needs. Functional Patterns has a case study of a woman with stage 5 Parkinson’s: she was told she would not walk again and was bedridden in the hospital. Her family got her out of there, started her with an FP specialist (Oscar Favaro), and within months she was walking outside on her own and living life with functional movement capacity. The systemic myofascial training of Functional Patterns is powerful indeed.
In my personal experience, I was grateful to help alleviate the intense migraines of a young man who was born with Kabuki syndrome. His sensory processing was different from others, and he struggled with movement for various structural reasons. We were able to engage him with a process of myofascial release (self-massage techniques) and slow integrative corrective exercise to begin training his system to move with more balance and efficiency. Josh was often challenged though was also excited about the training, and hopeful for his own future in improving his movement capacity.