It’s a small planet after all. On Facebook one “meets” people, one has never heard of before, leave alone, met before. In this way I “met” Craig Liebenson from the US and never realized that one day we would be teaching just 2 miles from my office in Holland. A great opportunity to really meet him in real life. I spend some time at his seminar and we had lunch. Nice to see and hear him at work and the “Facebook-person” become a “real life person”. An yes, Craig is the healer, the teacher, the educator and probably most important, the eternal student like some of us, working hard every day to improve ourselves in a never-ending quest for knowledge, experience and wisdom. Great to meet this nice and humble in this way. We’ll keep in touch.
It was time to visit one of my very good friends Filippo and Sonja Ongaro again.
We worked together on some small projects in the past related to stress.
Filippo was working with our vibration-platform when we was the doctor of the European Space Agency in charge of pre-flight conditioning and post-flight rehabilitation of the astronauts at Star City in Russia.
He is an ex-athlete (400 m: 49,5 secs) and originally educated as a medical doctor and doctor in sports medicine (under prof. Conconi). Then he started to work for ESA and we did these projects together. Now, together with his German-born wife Sonja, performance psychologist and expert in performance behavior and biofeedback. She worked for years organizing wilderness and survival training for astronauts. they have one of the best centers for anti-aging and wellness medicine in Europe.
It is the Ismerian Institute in Treviso, Italy, close to Venice. Filippo in the meanwhile also managed to write 5 bestselling books about nutrition, weight loss, stress, lifestyle and wellness and also regularly took part on a TV show about health on national TV.
Space medicine, like sports medicine, is a good springboard for the study of performance and anti-aging sciences. e.g. spending time in space will accelerate aging process like osteoporosis and muscle atrophy.
They also are living examples of doctors who practice what they preach, they look like elite athletes being conscious about diet, supplements and exercising themselves.
They provide a unique combination from their integrated knowledge and experience in elite sports, space medicine, stress and performance management, nutrition, anti-aging, and hormone replacement therapy. If you ever have a chance, go and see and visit them, their wide range and the depth of their expertise is truly unique.
In the meanwhile I am busy preparing my presentation for our seminar on July 1, here in Holland, called “Methodology of Training 2.0”, together with Val Nasedkin and Roman Fomin. It’s about the revision or update of the very foundation of training. That was necessary because whereas the biomedical and technical knowledge exploded since 30 years, this did not find its way to the sports field, where we still rely on old technologies and outdated concepts. I always think that I am not disappointed by the fact that we are doing so bad right now, but by the fact that we could to so much better. I hope this seminar will gives the audience new ideas about is done today and where training should be heading towards in the future.
