The author of the book “ Osteopathy, yoga and sport. Movement in life, life in movement ”, Giacinta Milita.

His text embraces three disciplines, osteopathy , yoga and sport and illustrates how they can marry perfectly given the same root that unites them: movement, or rather, to be precise, conscious movement – whether macroscopic or internal – which allows us to enter, here and now, in tune with the deep intelligence that dwells within us.

In short, a hymn to health that the author orchestrates by tuning the polyphony of the three voices she deals with with the Movement, source and expression of Life and the intrinsic vital force in the body of each of us.

You have collaborated with various professional volleyball teams: how has this experience enriched you on a professional level? And, vice versa, what do you think are the potential of a figure like yours in competitive sport?

I am an osteopath and as a first university education, physiotherapist , who was already working globally before encountering osteopathy. Knowing about osteopathy and feeling like an osteopath “in every cell of mine”, meant that one of the cardinal principles of this discipline, namely the body’s potential for self-regulation and self-healing, could stimulate it and make it available in every area of ​​my work.

Since 1988 I have been collaborating with the volleyball team, today Andreoli Top Volley Latina, but I shared a very beautiful and important path with another men’s volleyball team, today Altotevere Città di Castello, and a women’s team, Caffè Circi Sabaudia. In sports, however, I do not only follow volleyball but many other athletes from various disciplines.

Today, after more than 25 years of profession, I could enclose with a motto what I love to stimulate and increase in the encounter with the patient, whether sports or not: ” If I listen to my body and move with awareness, I stay healthy “.

If we transfer this concept to sports, we can highlight the abyss, the distance that exists: in the current opinion “moving is good”, let alone practicing a sport, and no one can deny it but it is also important how to move, how much to move so that it can be effective for health.

Any sporting discipline, even at an amateur level, but obviously even more at a competitive level, stresses the body in an unbalanced, unbalanced way and therefore we could say not sufficiently healthy.

Bringing a conscious listening to the body involves an enormous potential for self-regulation for the athlete. Health is not the absence of pain or disease, but balance. Whenever I bring attention to the body, both at rest and in movements, as in the proposed asanas, I implement a transformation by increasing homeostasis, the balance of the body understood not only as physical but also mental and emotional balance.

Transferring all this into working with athletes was not very easy, but for me it was not even a challenge, I could only propose this approach, I am and remain an osteopath.

We must work on prevention and not on injury , especially in the competitive field. In fact, my work with these teams always begins on the first day of calling, first an osteopathic visit and check-up and then we start with the preparation. As I said before, it was not easy to make people understand what potential my articulated intervention could have, but given the results, the evidence also makes us accept what one feels distant from one’s mental and cultural approach.

As far as I’m concerned, work in the sports field, and in particular at a competitive level, has given me and gives me the opportunity every day to ask myself and push myself to improve, what as a therapist I can do to increase the health of other people , it would be better to say, increase their sense of responsibility for their own health.

Despite the positive exception that you represent, in the competitive world, in general, you are not considered a figure like yours with a “holistic” matrix. Why do you think?

In part I have already answered. Cultural training in sports is aimed at reaching a goal. Fortunately, today something is changing and other aspects are also taken into consideration, such as nutrition, the mental aspect, but less is done in evaluating the athlete as he is when he approaches and continues a specific discipline. Being attentive to the starting posture means “reading” the body with its own tensions, postural patterns that are flawed and / or expressly linked to the discipline practiced, mental and emotional states which, as we well know, are reflected in our posture. I believe that much more could be done to help athletes acquire and maintain postural balance,which for a competitive athlete automatically affects performance and therefore the final result.

I really appreciated that in his book, when he describes yoga positions, he also pays attention to the mental attitude to be maintained (something that manuals, even very famous ones, do not do). In your opinion, how can this purely psychic aspect of yoga, if refined (“trained”, we could say), help in the moment of performance?

The y oga means union, body, mind and spirit and at the same time micro and macrocosm . Practicing an asana, or a breathing exercise, pranayama, or reciting a mantra, that is, making a vocal sound, involves being in the here and now. Paying attention to the present moment begins that process of attention, focus which is the basis, the fulcrum for the expression of a quality performance. Being in balance, in tune with one’s self is the source, the origin of a power, of an energy that, it is not exaggerated, anything can. It is not for nothing that every athlete has their own way, their own technique to concentrate and I witness it every time before the match in the locker room with the boys.

You mainly deal with osteopathy, a therapy that is aimed at everyone and not just athletes. But perhaps some of the readers do not know its potential: can you illustrate it to us? In what situations may it be appropriate to contact an osteopath?

Osteopathy is a holistic discipline founded by Dr. AT Still. For osteopathy, as well as for yoga and sport, as I explained in the book, movement is life and Life is expressed in movement .

Still said that the rule of the artery is supreme, which means that every fluid and not only the blood, but also the lymph, intra and extracellular fluid, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) must be able to flow without restrictions. Let me say a few lines about the cerebrospinal fluid that Still called the noblest element ever known .

It is a liquid that envelops the brain and spinal cord and through the craniosacral mechanism carries the Breath of Life in its rhythmic movement , similar to what Prana is for yoga.

Still in his numerous writings still said that where there is a stasis, there is a loss of vitality and the non-irrigated field dies. The osteopath’s task is to help the body to resume its normal work so that the dysfunction, the abnormal functioning, gives way to normality, to health.

It is based on some main cornerstones which are:

1. Movement is life
2. The person is seen as a unit
3. The craniosacral mechanism
4. Structure governs function
5. Innate self-regulation mechanism

It is therefore an art of holistic healing, which sees the individual as a whole and addresses life in motion: this means that one can be of help from the beginning of life, in pregnancy, until life itself it is present, both in infants and in the elderly.

The osteopath listens to the physiology of the body that has an innate intelligence , with a capital “I” said a great osteopath, Sutherland and helps the tissues and all fluids to find that neutral point necessary for physiology to “find “The way home.

The osteopath’s intervention should be an intervention aimed at prevention rather than acting when a symptom arises and this is what I push you to do when I invite you to practice a conscious movement that in itself can be a valid tool of help for our well-being. In any case, it is possible to intervene in all the so-called dysfunctional and non-pathological discomforts but even in conditions of overt disease it can be a valid help and support to increase that self-regulation process that brings health.

Osteopathy is often linked to musculoskeletal problems and in fact this is an area where the osteopath’s “convergence” work can do a lot. Still said that the structure governs the function and whenever there is a structural problem it will also have an impact on the function of the various organs and on the vital functions.

The role of the osteopath, as I live and feel my work, is to be of support, advice and suggestion for all people, including athletes, to become architects of their own health allowing the physiology of the nameless body , such as the he called another great osteopath, R. Becker, to do what he can do very well and that is self-regulation.

Rollin Becker taught his students: You osteopaths think you are great teachers on the body, you are humble students of the great teacher who is the body.