Our Mission

The mission of the Foundation for Movement Intelligence is to address widespread concern with loss of mobility, posture, and bone strength by providing practical strategies for optimal weight-bearing movement, as embodied in the Bones For Life® training protocol.

Our Vision

We envision a world of quality aging, where, through intelligent movement and ergonomic posture — mastered autonomously — people value, cultivate, and achieve strong, healthy, resilient Bones For Life.

Founder’s Statement

“What excites me about Bones For Life is the alchemy of people transforming their compromises into hope, and trusting themselves to restore their own well-being.

“I am especially moved by everyday people, not just those who are at the height of success and winning life’s race, but those with hardships who have forgotten their right to feel good about themselves.

“I would like to see the Bones For Life program growing popular, offering an intelligent culture of movement and perception that takes life beyond the blindness which deals with fear and limitation through aggression, rather than by learning how to gain strength and dignity through a new, well-organized, and naturally meant way of moving.”     — Ruthy Alon

Description

The Foundation for Movement Intelligence was formed in February 2007 as a Maine non-profit corporation.
Our central purpose is to foster public awareness of alternative approaches to osteoporosis prevention and reversal, specifically as presented in an exercise protocol created by Ruthy Alon called “Bones for Life.”

It has been well established that weight-bearing activity in general is conducive to bone strengthening, but, due to the sedentary nature of modern society, not much is widely known about proper body mechanics for withstanding increased loads. If not carried out safely and intelligently, exercises to improve bone strength, rather than helping osteoporotic conditions, can actually lead to further skeletal damage and deteriorization.

In answer to this state of affairs, the 90 processes in the Bones for Life protocol effectively comprise a training in optimum human biomechanics, teaching, as a precondition to adding weight, natural and ergonomically precise ways of sitting, standing, walking, falling, reaching, etc., i.e. the “best practices” of human posture and locomotion. Challenging bone-building activity is not engaged in until the skeletal frame is first securely organized into a resilient weight-bearing structure.

Approximately 10 years ago Ms. Alon began formulating the Bones for Life program, for which she carefully deciphered the details of movement patterns of indigenous cultures [including squatting, climbing, running, jumping, and carrying loads on their heads] and then synthesized these patterns into a sophisticated yet highly teachable experiential program in the activities of daily living. In the Bones for Life program, though weight is added only after one’s body is properly aligned, and only in relatively small increments, pilot studies conducted several years ago showed significant increases in BMD (bone mineral density) among trainees after only four months of participation in Bones for Life classes.

Ms. Alon’s approach is gradual, safe, and gentle and hence applicable to a broad range of the population who are concerned with avoiding injury and improving the quality of their lives. We thus feel that Bones for Life deserves wider attention, and it is our mission to make the principles of Ms. Alon’s work more recognized by
— and more readily available to — the general public.
 

FMI ° P.O. Box 694 ° Portland, ME ° 04104