Oblique curving, looping, winding, oscillating and turning – 

If we take the pathways suggested by our joints, we will lengthen and strengthen several muscles in one movement, so we can actually do away with many other “exercises”, which target reduced areas, single ligaments or muscles. Isolating muscles educates those muscles to work separately from the others. This is not what we need as we move through life.

Our bodies function best as collaborating systems, not isolated systems that we call up one by one.

If we work with movements that curve through plane and angle changes, we can avoid crashing, lose our fear of falling and instead enjoy making a fun, practical practice of getting to the floor and back, with or without a dancing partner, in as many ways as our skills and fantasies allow.

The Axis Syllabus – Moving as Designed

The Axis Syllabus is essentially antiauthoritarian.

Although made from the same materials and subject to the same physical laws, each body is slightly different and has slightly different needs. The wide variation makes effective blanket medical treatment, diet or training impossible.Expert counsel is important as a reference, but the best way to manage is for each person to assume full responsibility for their own well being. Your gender, sexual orientation, skin tone or ethnicity, medical status, religious or political convictions are irrelevant to the study of the AS. No legitimate teacher of the AS will arrogate themselves the right to exclude participants for any of those reasons, nor to insist that participants hold their point of view. That is outside the legal bounds of our authority, and frankly, not our concern or job description. A useful physical education that enhances awareness and increases self-reliance is key. The best thing your teacher can do is to gradually make their assistance obsolete.

Frey Faust (De/It)

Born with a fractured skull and a brain injury from forceps used during his birth, Frey’s early life presented many challenges. Throughout his childhood and young adult years, he suffered from chronic illness and physical abuse. Suicidal and homeless over a stretch of many years, Frey found that somatic and movement education dramatically improved his life, reversing much of the trauma that most might think was irreversible.

Studying dance intensively as a young adult who was learning technique later than many others, he suffered many injuries and learned that a surprising number them were common to the trade. He undertook an independent study of anatomy, physics, and biomechanics and learned that many of the ways he had been taught to move work against the body’s design and were damaging him.

He has not only danced professionally for over 40 years but he still moves like a child at a graceful, playful 60 years old. He teaches use and care of the body that creates a longevity for dancers and athletes that is extremely uncommon because it invites the student to actively guide their learning process, honor their body’s uniqueness, and avoid authoritarian dogma.

He created the Axis Syllabus book and the Axis Syllabus Research Meshwork to share the principles of sovereign, self-respecting ways of being. Frey is passionate about health freedom and our right to choose what happens to our bodies. He currently lives in Puglia, Italy.