My name is Paul.

I'm a physiotherapist, with 25 years of clinical experience. I have spent a lifetime chasing an understanding of human movement, pain and injury.

I think it’s fair to say I think quite differently about these things from many my colleagues and the therapists who have tried to help you in the past.

Before we get cracking with UNBROKEN allow me to explain a little about why. I tried literally everything as a kid, constantly chasing new movements and physical challenges. I remember still my fascination with my own body’s lack of consistency across different sports; decent in cross country, terrible at sprinting, a lost cause at football. I found my thing in racing windsurfing boards. At 16 I finished 21st at the Worlds Champs (1996!!) and the only Brit who beat me now has 3 Olympic medals! I didn’t have the discipline, resources or desire to keep it going much after that, new challenges beckoned.

As a grown up I surf a lot, run and ride the local trails, and continue to throw my ageing and imperfect body at any new movement challenge I see. So I have spent a lifetime in sport and movement, but I have also dealt with chronic back and neck pain throughout my adult life. These 2 things qualify me as much as degrees to guide you on this journey.

I didn’t really mean to be a physiotherapist. My first passion was (and in some ways still is) biology, evolution and specifically evolution of us; the primates and humans. Cards of the table I am a child of Dawkins and Attenborough as much as of my wonderful parents. So evolution captivated my wandering mind in my teenage years before physio school had even begun. I fell into physiotherapy through circumstance more than burning passion (full story another time). Throughout physio training and my early working years I struggled with much of what I was being taught; it did not pass through a basic biological filter, or help my sore bits much. To this day I believe much of where we go wrong in physical therapy and medicine is to forget that we are animals evolved for a wild existence.

Thanks

Paul

Physiotherapist Neurally Enlightened Movement Optimist Polymath of Human Movement