Dive Into The GyroKinetic Expansion System

Alex Kohner Kerten

Thank you for inviting me.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Alex, tell us a little bit about how you became passionate about Parkinson’s disease, and your background, and ultimately wrote your book and developed the GyroKinetics method.

Alex Kohner Kerten

It all started many years ago. Today, I am at the age of 7 to 8, meaning 78. Before, when I finished our military service, I had a center in Israel, where we taught special units. It was a kind of dojo because I traveled to Japan and traveled all around different countries to work and learn martial arts, and I got seven different degrees. Then a black belt in martial arts, which has very high degrees. I had my center, where I thought of martial arts, arts of movement, and the effects of music on our nervous system. With time that came, people did not have solutions to their problems, to their neurologic problems. They came with multiple sclerosis. Parkinson’s, concentration problems, and expression problems had something in common: fear, worry, and stress. When I began to work, I worked through the arts of movement, and I saw that there was something that I understood and they did not understand. But because I did not understand Parkinson’s, Yes. The doctor said that there was a problem with the dopamine within the basal ganglia, etc., etc., with a sense. I thought it was a problem that you could solve with medication. But these people and I am telling it on purpose, continue to come to me, and they say, You know something? But I see that we do not have contact with the doctors. They say something else, and you say something else. Well, I decided that I am going to start investigating what causes Parkinson’s. I worked in a hospital for about three years. I investigated the disease as much as possible, and I concluded that Parkinson’s is a chronic disease.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

If it is a chronic disease, it is a disease that is being programmed into one’s nervous system as a behavior pattern. So if it is a behavior pattern or the brain, I am coming now to the present, and then I’ll go back to the past. The brain has neuroplasticity and scientific codes. It is a placebo effect, and the brain can do so many things that can bring you to the moon. The brain can do anything and the human brain has 125 billion synapses in it, etc., etc. I said that in this stage, I think that is the real problem, not the mean because the medication did not solve and does not solve the problem. It has even worse side effects.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Mm hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Why don’t we enter into neuroprogramming within the brain and through the body? Make body-mind interaction or mind-body interaction, and see what happens if a person changes his words and sentences because a word and a sentence are also neural pathways.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Now we go back. I said, If I can change the behavior patterns, I will not let the programming take over by understanding, and I called it to make your staff meeting. I stopped meeting. I meant that the person with Parkinson’s enters into himself, speaks with himself, speaks with different body systems, and tries to create a situation of synergy where the different systems work together. I began to have more and more and more people coming. People came from all over the world. I saw that I am working more and more with Parkinson’s. I decided to leave the other neuropathic problems like multiple sclerosis, and ALS, I worked with them all and I said, Okay, we are going to reprogram ourselves. How do we reprogram ourselves? First of all, we have to be aware of what is happening, and when do I enter that erroneous zone? The beginning, the name, the Parkinson’s lane.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

If I enter Parkinson Lane, I will behave like Parkinson’s. But what happens if I take you and you play basketball or play ping pong? You do not have time to enter the Parkinson’s lane, you enter an automatic behavior pattern that has another name, and all of a sudden you do not have Parkinson’s.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Right.

Alex Kohner Kerten

It was something very interesting. I was in New Jersey, and they opened the center there with doctors, therapists, etc. I showed them that, through behavior patterns, people even those in wheelchairs can get up. If I change their lane and they enter that lane, something happens to their body and it works.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Works.

Alex Kohner Kerten

We began to make a boxing center and a dancing center, and they put all the things together. Now that I am coming to the present, about two years ago, they called me up again from New Jersey in the States, and they said, Alex, what is the secret that these people are doing their work? Well, when they box, when they do arts of movement, when they dance when they play tennis, or when they play ping pong, why don’t they get rid of Parkinson’s? Why do your clients succeed and they do the same thing on stage, but they do not succeed?

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

I said one secret because you do not program it. Meaning? When I work with my clients, let us say we box or do different movements that I am going to show or conduct, that is why I want to do music. Once you can do it, close your eyes. Like in a computer, feel what is happening. Feel your heartbeat, your breathing, and your brainwaves, feel your expression. If you say that is the right thing say, Yes and Save it. Each time you feel that something wrong is happening say, Delete, delete, and save it. That is what I do. I teach them to program themselves when they do something that is anti-Parkinson. Now comes the question. Maybe it is a philosophical question, but for me, it is not a philosophical question. I asked, What is life? I get nonstop answers. I see life insurance. Life is a movement. Life is rhythmic. Life is expression. Life is energy. That is life. If you are aware of the movement and the rhythm within your movement and know how to express yourself at the same time. 

You feel the energy that is brought about by the way you express yourself, and you are aware of the words you use, you enter a certain lane that you are building and your new interactions within the synapses. We call that neuroplasticity. This is the difference between what you need to do. Now, I am in Portugal and what they did, let us say in New Jersey, Copenhagen, or England, they did not continue to program themselves after they did the correct thing. Well, Parkinson’s people do. They are addicted to worry, to fear, and to being stressed. It is an addiction. It is a familiar zone.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

What happens instead of saying I got it, I can change? They change, and then they go back home. Back home, you see, that is what’s happening to me. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes, right. 

Alex Kohner Kerten

If you are addicted to a large amount of medication, the medication has side effects, and because you are addicted, you blame the medication you use all the time. You see, I need the medication. You take more medication, but it does not solve your problem. What I am doing now, and yesterday also with the big group, I am teaching them how to enter the brain. To speak with themselves internally, to feel the different body systems, and to know how to bring about synergy within the system. Because synergy is always stronger than one by one. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Right. 

Alex Kohner Kerten

You have more control. We begin again. When I say movement; this is movement, but it is not rhythmic. This is Parkinson’s movement, a rhythmic movement. But if I learn to speak rhythmically and move rhythmically, I build new neural pathways until I say, Okay, now save it. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Save it. 

Alex Kohner Kerten

Two. If I express myself, let us say. What is expressing me? I will take a couple of seconds. (Music) Now. This is expressing yourself. Let us say, I do not want to express myself. I want to be the conductor. Okay, I continue with the same song.  (Music) Okay. I can also do it by dancing. (Music) You see. I built on conducting, acting, expressing, and dancing. But this is physiologic behavior. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Because I am using different neural pathways. What happened, now comes the secret. People who have Parkinson’s first in gait, meaning they start like this then, they would be walking like this. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes. 

Alex Kohner Kerten

I say, lift your head. They lift their heads and run. If you want to lift your head, get your buttocks moving and your hands are up. When your buttocks are down, your feet are together, and you walk like this. I had to build a different thing. It is called a triangle. From foot to foot. From your foot to your buttocks. While you use your buttocks,  your head is straight. When you move from side to side, you do not fall. We built a new way of walking and a new way of programming myself. This is the way you must walk with a triangle. I am marking it down, the triangle, foot, foot, buttocks. What happens? People begin to walk on foot to buttocks to stop falling.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Now I have a professor in mathematics. She used to fall every three or four minutes. Today she is ice skating with our daughter-in-law. Granddaughter, not daughter-in-law, I am sorry. Granddaughter. She is walking. She is doing well. They have asked me, How come? How does a person like her do it? We continue, I say, because you continued to say the first thing they thought was Parkinson’s. It is very clear. You close your feet, you walk from foot to foot, you move forward, your buttocks go back, your head moves forward, and you start to run in order not to fall. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Right. 

Alex Kohner Kerten

If you are aware of that and you build that program, walking, from foot to foot, keeping your buttocks and your head high, and you continue to practice, and then you say, That is what I want.  Close your eyes and say this, Yes, that’s it. You see, I am talking now to myself. If that voice within the mind continues to say, Yes, but? What will happen? Yes, but the doctor said it is the voice you have in you. You have to control it. You have to confront it and say, like, a lie, as if you are talking with another person. I know that you were brainwashed. I know that when you met the neurologist, he said it is a progressive disease and it will always progress. You will get medication, but you will have to take more medication. But I did not move on to you. It does not have to be that way.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Right. Right.

Alex Kohner Kerten

That is the work we do.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Wow. So much there. We have to be back in the driver’s seat. Who is in control? The disease or the person with the disease. Remember that you have this big brain, your conscious awareness brain, and those movements that Alex is showing us. We all recognize the Parkinson’s gait, the Parkinson’s movement, the Parkinson’s facial expression, or the Parkinson’s speech. They are all just saved into a hard drive. But you can erase your hard drive. You can reprogram your hard drive. You have to remember, as he says, to save it to the hard drive. Those movements become automatic once again. But there are movements that you want to have. Tell me about the title. Yes, sir.

Alex Kohner Kerten

You have to be aware, and you have to be conscious, because when you build an automatic behavior pattern, when you are unconscious, it becomes automatic. It is like feeling guilty. It feels like having an inferiority complex. It is like losing your confidence. When you are conscious, you can speak directly to your body, and you say, I feel that I am going back 20 or 30 years when I was a kid, and that is the way my parents behaved with me, or that is the traumatic situation I got. But it is been 20 or 30 years. I know that Parkinson’s has progressed during these years. It is not. Parkinson’s came one day. It is the stress, and it is the fear that continued for so many years that it programmed itself as Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s cannot live without fear and stress. Parkinson’s has a language. What will happen? What will happen if I will not be able to and you become addicted? Yes, but what will happen is that people will see what happened before. But when you are aware of your conscience, you see that you are continuing to progress with Parkinson’s. 

Once you are aware, you can change it. Once you change it, program it. But it is not easy because it is much easier to take the tablets and say, Okay, to do the work now that I do not feel good. I will take it another time. It is wrong. It is a message. If your foot is telling you to unstuck and your hand does not move, it is information. It is not saying, You see, I cannot move. You see my hand; I cannot. You see my foot. I cannot. No, it is information, meaning if I start this way and walk this way. I was in Parkinson’s way. No way. If I walk, I am not to move internally. It is a different way of walking. It is not walking like this. It is more like that. I am telling you to reprogram yourself. Now, let us see what happens. I let go of my shoulder, my elbow, and my hand. Now, for a more progressed duration, we call it shaking it out. This is the hardest exercise. Shaking out is when you stand on your feet and start to shake, and you shake out. Look at my hands; a snap, and I see nothing. You see me shaking my mouth and snapping. I put music on, and then I shake it out. Slapping.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Then I shake it out, or, as I call it, a stick. A stick. Now I will try to show you something different. Do you get it? 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes. I love it.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Everybody that you love, it is. I am sorry. Because I changed everything. So it is a whole sentence here. I am sorry.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, we are enjoying this so much. I love the title of your book because it summarizes so much of what you are saying. Hello, Life. Right? Goodbye, Parkinson’s. Hello, Life. Tell me what that means to you.

Alex Kohner Kerten

To say, Hello, you must learn to say, Goodbye. If you want to become an adult, you have to say goodbye to being under the control of your parents, your mother, your father, and your teacher. You say, Goodbye. I am who I am. I am in charge. Hello. When you say,  Hello Life, it is a Hello Movement. Hello Rhythm. Hello, Understanding the rhythm of your digestive system Understanding the rhythm of your heartbeat My clients, know how to regulate their heartbeat. They know to find you. Their breathing. It is not breathing when you are choking. It brings your brainwaves to a higher, better stage where you are developing a fight-flight syndrome. It is understanding using your diaphragm. 

In Parkinson’s, the diaphragm is stopped and it affects your shoulder muscles. What happens when our shoulder muscles are stuck? You begin to bend, or you have scoliosis. But no one relates to the sorts of muscles that relate to Parkinson’s. They give medication. It is your arm. Once you are done with a standard, you say, Well, I get it. I get it. Yes, open up. I am aware of the movement and rhythm within my muscles now. It can be a rhythm of danger. It can be a rhythm of confidence. It can be the rhythm of my heartbeat. You have to know the meaning of movement and rhythm. Now you express yourself according to the sentences and the place you are in. If I say, Do you understand what I am telling you? Yes, I will. You fight? Yes, I will do my best. No way. You will not succeed. Do you understand what I am telling you? Yes. Will you take responsibility and fight it through? Yes, I understand it today.

You will win like this. You will not win because this is Parkinson’s way. Once you get out of it, Meaning you express yourself. When you feel the energy, you get the energy of the winner. You’ve got the energy of a loser, meaning you’ve got dynamic energy and repressed energy. If your energy is dynamic, you gain control. If you say goodbye to Parkinson’s, you have to say goodbye to all these moments when I am sure I shook my shoulders. Parkinson’s people can do it. My people and my clients learn to do it. Once they do it, they have fewer tremors. No, you have tremors. Control the tremors. You bring about the tremors by speaking. Do not keep tremoring. What happens? You are changing your program, and this becomes a placebo effect. You do not understand how the brain does it, but it does it. By saying goodbye and knowing what you say, you are saying goodbye. Uncontrolled movement in my heart; the diaphragm is stuck. I say, Hello, hello, hello to a new pathway. Hello to feeling my heartbeat. Hello to feeling my chest. Hello to being aware of how I express myself. Hello to those energy ones. I have to say goodbye to get out of that erroneous zone and build a new, and build a new familiar zone of well-being.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Then Parkinson’s disease suggests is a chronic psychological disease, is what you are saying?

Alex Kohner Kerten

I believe that 70% of it is a psychological chronic disease, and 30% is medication because we have so many. I think once I remembered, I was told that the brain is equivalent to about 2.5 million gigabytes. I do not understand that. I remember two and a half million gigabytes, meaning if I lost cells in a certain place, I would have enough cells that are unused and true. If I program myself and say yes, I cannot, then I cannot. But if I say I can make a bypass, like in a stroke, I work with people who have been strange over the past couple of months and speak rhythmically. They were able to concentrate and speak. This means that if you are rhythmic, you express yourself, and you are aware of which words you use to achieve that. Nature does it.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Nature fixes it. Are you familiar with a type of physical therapy called constraint-induced movement?

Alex Kohner Kerten

Not the word you said, but most probably, if I see it, I will understand it.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

I mean, it is essentially what you’re saying. If you have a stroke, let us say, and you are paralyzed, your arm is paralyzed from the stroke, historically or traditionally, the old way would be okay. We are going to send you to rehabilitation therapy, and we are going to work with your good side so that your good side can compensate for the side that is not working. We are going to teach you how to do everything with your good side. Constraint-induced therapy says, No, no, no, no, we are going to constrain the good side. We are going to put a glove on. We are going to put you in something like a straight jacket. Now we are going to present you with a pitcher of water, and we are going to ask you to pour that water into a glass with your weak arm. You are going to say, No way, no way. I am going to spill the water all over the table. Of course, there is a lot of spilling initially, but that is okay. We encourage you to say, It is okay. We have a mop and a towel; don’t worry about it. But we do it again. We do it again, and we do it again, and we hit save. After some time, this is neuroplasticity. That bad arm can learn to pour the water again.

Alex Kohner Kerten

I would tell you that I hope you are 100% sure and right. It reminds me of the time when I told you before that after the Army had my studio, I had this guy who entered the minefield and lost his leg, and he came to me with an artificial leg, and I was touching his good leg, and I said, Whoa, it is unbelievable how science does today that it is artificial. It looks like a good leg. He told me, What are you talking about? That is my right leg. The other one is not artificial. I said I am sorry I made that mistake. The other one is a phantom leg. What do you mean, phantom? Like I said, it still exists in your brain. Even your toes exist. And you have so much pain in that leg that you don’t even have it.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes.

Alex Kohner Kerten

We began to work together. In judo, he became fantastic at doing judo without having that phantom effect. No, what you said, I would like to say how I do it—the shaking out. I put them together, and I started to tell them to start treating each other as if they were in percussion, meaning to go (sound). It is as if I am playing percussion. But instead of playing percussion like a punching bag, you punch each other. What happens when the guy is here, here, and the other guy gets all of a sudden angry, and without realizing it, he starts to hit as well? When he does hit, he starts to hit, and he begins to laugh. He said, Look, I am doing it. The guy starts to block it. What do we do? We do call that improvisation through touching the boxing—not the boxing on the boxing back, which is like this—but working on each other. Here, here, here, here. We are in here, and I call it a massage because they hate each other. They say He hurt us. But when I say massage, they say, it stimulates. I feel good.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Right?

Alex Kohner Kerten

Meaning that the brain decides that the time limits are here. I am working well here, and I had the opportunity. All of a sudden, he does it. When he does it, the more he does it, and then you shake it out. This speed, the speed of the outcome, is so fast that in a very short time, the body starts to work like this. This comes from martial arts. This comes from the past experiences I have had until today. I am still teaching martial arts because this is my philosophy, but this is what I do with my clients as well through contact improvisation. You see, they can do it all the time. Yes, you said, but it is limited. I can, I can, I can do this. No, this they can say. Can I say one thing about your body study? You cannot, so do it. Then they start. He does not go. It does not go until all of a sudden it goes. I want to do this. They can do this. They can do better. How does it happen? It is programmed through my back, and it is true.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, Alex Kerten. You are the founder of the GyroKinetics Method. Do you work with people all around the world? How do people reach you? Tell me about their program.

Alex Kohner Kerten

First of all, I looked for the name GyroKinetics because the word homeostatic kinetics did not work. I said, What is a synonym for homeostasis? Then I say, It is a gyroscope. I say that a gyroscope is a kinetic gyroscope. It does not go cycle the GyroKinetics, meaning balancing your movement rhythmically, movement-wise expression, and energy. I called it GyroKinetics. How do people come to me? Well, today, I guess they come to me because they simply come to me from all over the world. This guy does that guy. I started giving group sessions. I work one-on-one or I have classes that are called People with Parkinson’s and Helping People with Parkinson’s, meaning we have a group of 14 people. I teach them what to do, and they help each other. It has become a little community where they let each other know when they help each other, meet other people with Parkinson’s, and ask them how they do it. They start to show them, and they say, Well, who teaches you then? I guess they say, Alex, start and say they get in touch with me. That is what Daniela does because I do not know how to program or how to put all this information together, but that’s what she does. They are in touch with her. They get in touch with her, and then I build the program, and we do it through Zoom today.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Okay. Through Zoom. Do you have a website, or how do they get in touch with you?

Alex Kohner Kerten

We have a website, and they get through the website, and it is, I guess, you know, the Parkinson’s office’s website. I think you’ve got it.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

We will give everyone that URL and make sure they know how to reach out to you. Do you also have a video library or other things that people can watch?

Alex Kohner Kerten

On the website? They can watch, they can see things, and lately, we made a new video showing the clients how they work. But within the website, you have all the information. Okay, it is office @ Parkinson’s, and find a GK at dot com. You see, I am infantile in that. Let me work on your neural I know exactly what you do. You told me something. Danielle handles it, so I think it is better if you mark it. I am sure you have it.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, I am going to see if, at this last moment, I can even possibly share the screen. The Gyrokinetic Method, hopefully, is correct here.

Alex Kohner Kerten

I think what you have is office Strudel. Do you know what strudel is?

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Strudel. Okay.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Strudel Parkinson it is office are at [email protected]

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Here we go. They can leave it. You also have a website that is just your name, AlexKerten.com, correct?

Alex Kohner Kerten

Maybe.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes. Okay. Well, I want to share with the folks too. Because this is very important, what you are sharing is so important here. I am going to show folks this, and here we go. Alex Kerten has the exact spelling and telephone number. We have an email address, and this has just been a wonderful, full-of-energy, and movement interview. I think as we wrap things up, I am going to leave this screen on so folks can write down the information, write down the URL, share it with their friends, connect with you, and learn this very important approach. Alex Kerten, thank you so much from my heart. We appreciate everything that you are doing. I look forward to maybe reconnecting with you soon and in the future.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Can I add something?

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Of course.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Ken, something I saw about you is very special because doctors tend to be very classic. They go that way. But your openness, your ability to jazz about, to improvise, and your ability to see things differently are very important. Very important. It is so important that the client can speak with you, and you see where he is enough that the client comes and you look at the computer, and you tell him what to take medication, and I respect that a lot. I got to know you very shortly, but I see a very open-minded person, so I use the opportunity of being 78 years old and you saying, I want to tell you, thank you!

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Thank you so much. Folks, check out Alex Kerten, founder of GyroKinetics, author, and speaker. This is a wonderful opportunity packed with information. You need to take action and change your thoughts. Once again, this is the Parkinson’s Solutions Summit. We are going to say goodbye for now, but stay tuned for more wonderful interviews to come. Bye-bye now.

Alex Kohner Kerten

Bye. Thank you. All the best