In primary ( junior) school, I was a teacher’s worst nightmare.

Amongst peers and

teachers I was renowned for being particularly scruffy and impossible to control. I was on
houselist 3 times a term. Four house lists equaled a detention – which is a week of
community service during breaks ( recess). I was often a model on “how not to wear your
uniform”. Teacher’s constantly reprimanded me for day-dreaming, handing in food-
stained, doodled-on assignments, losing items and never meeting deadlines. However, I
wasn’t known as deliberately rebellious or lazy, just utterly disorganized.

Academically, I excelled in math and creative writing; I achieved below average in

subjects like geography and history and I failed all language, transactional writing and
literature assessments in both English and Afrikaans. I attended remedial classes from
the age of 5 to 13 and was exempted from writing in cursive script. Nevertheless, I was
an enthusiastic learner and ended grade 7 with a 79% aggregate.

If I just managed to hold everything together in primary school, everything fell apart in
high school. I couldn’t concentrate in class or at home. Even more of my assignments
were handed in late and I was constantly exhausted. My marks fluctuated, every few
terms I swung between top set and bottom set and back again.

More than anything, I wanted to achieve. But, both aural and written information either
passed through me or evaporated as I desperately tried to hold it in my mind. My best
friend, Olivia, achieved high “A”s and I admired her persistence and hard-working
attitude. Unfortunately I ended Grade 9 with 50’s and 60’s, and 71% for maths.

Then in January of Grade 10, I was diagnosed with ADD. For two years I took 60mg of
long acting Ritalin long acting every day, including weekends. Ritalin revolutionized my
life: after constantly running in a watery limbo, desperately tiring myself out, I
accidentally stepped on solid ground and shot up beyond my peers. I worked extremely
hard to re-teach myself all the grade 8 and 9 work I had missed; while, learning to pay
attention and respond in class. After 6 months I moved from every bottom set to top set
and ended grade 10 with a 76% aggregate.

However, Ritalin had negative side effects. I had constant tremors in my hands,
developed a twitch in my neck, slept 5 hours a night and was constantly on edge. Grade
11 amplified these symptoms as work became life or death to me. I took notes to parties
in case there was a spare moment I could learn. No second was ever wasted; my brain
was blasted with information from the moment I awoke till the end of the day. If I
stopped I became hysterical, drawing into my primal instincts.

I began Brain Gym® about 5 weeks into the 11th grade. Isabel began the process by
identifying un-integrated infant reflexes, then developing and integrating these using my
goals and various Brain Gym repatterning balances. These and Brain Gym movements –
PACE, The Energy Yawn, The Footflex, Arm Activation, The Calf Pump, Earth
Buttons, The Thinking Cap and others – helped me to feel more organized and focused
my thoughts. I often felt that after a session dormant neurological areas were suddenly
brought to life and my sight was clearer and sharper. My world felt less like it was
spinning around me . Isabel and I have worked with a large variety of Brain Gym and
Vision Gym® balances and movements , but it felt to me that integrating my infant
reflexes helped to facilitate long term shifts for me.

The evening after a Brain Gym session was the only time I could relax. My mother and
Isabel both noticed that my face radically changed from the time I arrived to when I left.
After about 7 months I remember being pleasantly surprised that I could bob my head to
the car’s music – an act otherwise impossible in my daily terrified survival mode.

Brain Gym mentally prepared me for large assignments and relaxed my mind when it was
bombarded with work or information. In the second term of Grade 11, I spent 20 minutes
doing Alphabet 8’s, The Cross Crawl, Double Doodle, Thinking Cap, Energy
Yawn, Arm Activation and Footflex before a creative writing test. Usually the time
constraints severely limit me and I panic- reducing my marks by up to 20%. Yet this time
the words flowed and I came second in the grade. Still today, I have only written one
other story at the same level.

In June my three and a half hour Afrikaans and English “Creative and Transactional
Writing” exams were directly after each other. After 5 hours and 5 stories my brain was
so tense that headaches ran across my skull from my forehead to my cranium. I picked up
a pen and did Alphabet 8’s; first with my right hand, then my left and then both hands.
With each circle I felt the tension release and information flowed again. After that I
continued the exam and began with my last story.

Without Brain Gym in that moment, my mind and body would have collapsed –the last
story would have been barely possible.

Not only writing, but all my subjects improved with Brain Gym. I came first or second in
every class, often by over eight percent. Before grade 11 my dad would give us R10 for
every percent over the class average but after my first report he had to change the system.
I was up to twenty percent above the class average in all my subjects!

At the time I did ballet, modern, tap, musical theatre, pilates and headed a school charity
club. I was terrible at cancelling classes when inundated by the work load, however, in 2
years Brain Gym is the only extra mural I’ve never cancelled, even if I am unprepared for
an examination the next day. I know the benefits of an hour of Brain Gym outweigh the
benefits of an hour of studying.

At the end of the third term, Grade 11, I moved schools. During this transition I
completely crashed – taking off two weeks, before I began the new school, to sleep and
wean myself off the high Ritalin dosage.

By now, Brain Gym was completely integrated into my studying process.

My new school was much less mark orientated which helped me relax. From September
2009 to June 2010 I used only 10mg short acting Ritalin. I rely a lot on Brain Gym
techniques to focus without the Ritalin.

Since moving, my priorities are different; I’m less work orientated and my aggregate has
dropped to about 89%. In June, the Ritalin dosage reduced to only 5mg short acting and
some days I feel entirely able to work without the drug.

Brain Gym and refining my own studying techniques has slowly reduced my studying
time from every spare second to 2-3 hours a day, while still keeping me at the top of the
grade.

Augusta Wicht
Cape Town
South Africa