Kase's Corner
Special Media Retrospective v2
This issue of Advance Healing features pictures of just a few of the well-known athletes who enjoy the benefits of Kinesio Taping. If we tried to print a really complete list or collection of photographs that included all the Kinesio Taping enthusiasts out there, it would be too heavy to mail!
When I developed the Kinesio Taping Method, I was looking for a taping treatment to use in a medical setting. Kinesio is still valuable for all kinds of medical uses, and is used by hospitals and therapists all over the world. When it comes to media attention, though, it is the athletes who really stand out. I can’t say that I am surprised at all the ways Kinesio Taping is used in sports, but I am certainly gratified.
I have treated athletes as part of my patient base from the very beginning. At this point is good to see evidence of how Kinesio Taping and Kinesio ideas seem to spread organically by word of mouth. As successful professional athletes continue to rely on Kinesio, more and more everyday people are becoming aware of Kinesio Taping as a benefit in their own lives.
The media and the public see the athletes with the tape on and having success, and staying in the event. Behind those athletes are teams of sports medicine professionals, many of whom have trained painstakingly for hours and days in workshops and seminars getting certified in the Kinesio Taping Method. Real professionals not only use Kinesio, they train in Kinesio.
Every time we see Kinesio Tape in a sports or news photograph, it stands for not just that user, but also for a hundred or more anonymous patients, as well as the many athletes who keep the tape under their uniforms. It is really coming true that we are taping the world for life.
Update Summer 2011
It’s hard for me to believe we just completed the 26th Annual Kinesio Research Symposium. Time is flying. The turnout, presentations and workshops from all over the world were amazing. It was a lot of work for everyone, but it turned out to be a great event: a great opportunity to share the latest information and to catch up with Kinesio Taping professionals representing at least 26 different countries.
This year we got to talk about many different issues pertaining to fascia. Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains, shared his experience and the theoretical framework around his concept. The Anatomy Trains methodology examines fascia at the microscopic level, and Mr. Myers treated the Symposium attendees to a lively introduction with “From Skin to Bone: The United Fascial Web.”
It is nice to see so many people in so many different fields continue to recognize the importance of fascia. In the last five years I have concentrated much of my research into the dermis and epidermis at the cellular level. This has given us methods of describing the treatments and taping methods that we already knew to be effective in a way that is clear to both medical professionals and the average person. At this symposium, different approaches to treating, assessing and describing fascial issues stayed at the forefront.
We were also able to share the newest precut taping options with our larger Kinesio Taping community. We’ve designed them as an introduction for those who have not yet experienced Kinesio Taping, as well as a supplementary tool for patients and practitioners alike. As always, the Symposium gave credit to the work done in the past, while placing our line of sight firmly into the future.
It has been interesting to follow the evolution of the precut concept in Kinesio Taping. The current options represent the 5th generation of Kinesio precut tapes. Over the years I’ve had plenty of questions myself about making the tape convenient and accessible to a larger group of people. From an end user perspective, precuts were developed to offer an experience of Kinesio Taping, a hint at the possibilities.
Of course, fan cuts in a precut form are a natural fit for health professionals. Therapists will find all the precut tapes, but the fan cuts in particular, an efficient tool for their practice. One hope we have is for the precuts to be a bridge to allow more people to use at a simplified level and drive them to seek professional help for more complicated issues. We’ve noticed the consistent attention that our therapists, patients, and even the media afford to the methodology as Kinesio Tex Tape appears in more areas of sports and other healthcare activities.
I look forward to seeing the ideas in action from this symposium and from all the Kinesio research going on internationally.
Kinesio Springs Forward 2011
Now that spring is upon us, a lot of people are making plans for spring and summer vacations. For me a vacation might be being able to stay in one place!
It is a good thing I love to travel. When I started Kinesio, I never realized it was going to make me into a globetrotter, but that is just a part of my schedule these days. In the past five months I have been in Europe, North and South America, and several countries in Asia. There is a good reason for all this traveling I’ve been doing; Kinesio has become a global presence in the healthcare universe.
This is the 26th year that the Kinesio Taping Association gathers for its professional research symposium. Since that first meeting in Japan, Kinesio has held meetings all over the place, including Japan, Italy and the US. The symposium this summer is going to be in Orlando, Florida, a town that is set up to offer visitors a fun time. We will feature presenters from all over the world, including myself and Mr. Tom Myers, renowned author of Anatomy Trains. This will be an opportunity for Kinesio people from all over to share research and professional experiences. I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.
Kinesio continues to expand worldwide. In fact just recently we have trained new instructors from many countries, including Brazil, India, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and Thailand. We are expanding our educational program and distribution capabilities in every part of the globe, including Colombia and Bahrain. We’ve doubled the number of Certified Kinesio Taping Instructors in the UK. And every time we expand in one direction, we draw more attention from other places and groups.
Kinesio has become an extended family: we may not be literal brothers and sisters but we are as close in spirit as relatives might be. This became very real to me at the time of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as colleagues and supporters from all over the world reached out to us with their concern for us. My family and I have been relatively unaffected by the upheaval, but we surely appreciate all the good wishes.
At this point in my life, some have expected me to slow down a little. That isn’t my style, and with all the hard work and support I can get from the KTAI it doesn’t even make sense. Don’t ask me my age, because my strength is from you and I’m going like I’m 42. See you in Orlando, or wherever in the world we next happen to be!
Update Fall 2010 (November 2010)
Ain’t nothing like the ‘Real Thing’. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, there is no doubt we feel flattered. On the other hand, using our name and history to promote other methods or tape is just desperate and embarrassing.
In developing and teaching the Kinesio Taping® Method, and designing and engineering Kinesio® Tex Gold over the last 30 years, my main goal was to provide patients with relief and natural healing. Although I’ve been delighted to see the therapy spread through the world, I am puzzled to be referred to in contexts that have never involved my input or my preferences. Following suggestions of flattering manufacturing companies, under-trained and sometimes self-indulgent therapists have been crediting me with the creation of what they term Kinesiology Taping. Gee, wonder where and why they came up with this term.
However this is not only false, but it is an insult. Giving credit to associate with us in order to sell product is unethical at the least. But, we will keep it ‘Real’.
I do not pretend to be anything or anyone that I am not. I am still active working with the real Kinesio tape, which is Kinesio Tex Tape Gold, and the real Kinesio Taping Method as represented by thousands in the Kinesio Taping Association International.
We are the innovators, not the imitators. Other products and systems claim to be based on our research, or more original, or more this or more that. Any language they use can’t change the fact that we are Kinesio. It is not a generic or a historical product.
We are the ‘Real Thing’.
Update Fall 2010 (November 2010)
By the looks of things the athletic world has made us famous. I continue to be humbled by the worldwide media attention, by the fact that I am recognized in countries as different from one another as Lebanon and Canada, Finland and Korea, Argentina and Australia. I am so impressed by the groundswell of activity and support that we have gotten from our dedicated instructors, practitioners and patients. It is no small thing when a few phone calls are all it takes to find a French CKTP to assist an ESPN photo shoot in Paris, or to get an American CKTP out onto the beach in Florida to prepare volleyball players for a major catalog shoot.
Still, it is important to remember one simple fact: Ninety percent of those who utilize Kinesio Taping rely on it for non-sports uses. I didn’t make it for the athletes. I am delighted that sports professionals are able to share in the benefits of Kinesio Taping, but they remain a small portion of our mission. I didn’t originate Kinesio Taping for sports, but to enable patients with lymphoedema, rheumatoid arthritis, cerebral palsy and a host of other medical issues to find pain relief and healing between treatments.
It makes me happy to see strips of tape on the knees of tennis and volleyball players, on the necks and shoulders of football stars and on the legs of elite runners. Of course I feel proud when I see a successful, well-known athlete wearing Kinesio® Tex Gold. But like most of you it makes me feel even prouder when I hear about all the patients and clients who are using the Kinesio Taping Method to get through their normal lives with less struggle and pain.
I am proud of the efforts of a young mother who has her lower back taped so she can finally lift her toddler onto a swing at the park, of the middle-aged executive -- an ex-athlete who has been sitting at a desk for a few years too many - who gets his elbow taped and qualifies for his health club’s tennis tournament. I smile to see the lady whose knee problems may have kept her stuck at home, who is now back to her daily walk with friends.
Even more, I am proud of those patients and practitioners who are able to work through serious medical and neurological pediatric issues thanks to the aid of Kinesio Taping.
It is these almost invisible benefits, the ones that may not appear on ESPN or get written up in The Wall Street Journal, that have really made Kinesio® a world-wide phenomenon. Without our ever-growing community of healing professionals, and without the patients and clients who refuse to give up on themselves, Kinesio Taping would just be a theory.
Thanks to our worldwide community, it is an international reality. Let’s go team!
