In response to requests from several people for information about the BIBH Conference, I provide the following notes. This is a very brief summary done from memory and I'm sure others will provide more in depth comments. I suggest you contact the individual presenters or Jill as the conference host for specific details on a presentation or any other aspect of the conference. As this is brief and anecdotal, I apologise in advance for leaving anyone or anything out.
Many thanks to everyone who attended and helped to make it such a memorable event. The overall efforts in participating and socializing so actively were a key to the overall success. Special thanks to Jill McGowan for organizing and hosting the conference, to Frieda Belakhova for the great job she did with translation (both at and outside the conference), to Mary and Klaus (Secretary and Treasurer) who assisted so much from afar, to the several BIBH members who donated so much time and in some cases extra funds to help keep costs down and to assist others attending, and to Brian Whittle and his conference organizing team from PB Events in Glasgow.
Whilst the conference officially kicked off on Tuesday morning 30 August, most people were in Glasgow the night before and an informal dinner was arranged at Sa Marina Italian restaurant in Paisley Rd. The venue is significant as the proprietor is the mother of a girl (now a healthy 21 year old) who featured as a 12 year old in the QED BBC TV program on Buteyko back in 1996.
Jill opened proceedings on Tuesday by welcoming everyone and outlining the program over the 3 days. The conference had a very international feel with delegates from the UK, the Irish Republic, Italy, Russia, the Ukraine, Holland, the US, Australia. The no. of delegates at the conference varied from about 40 to 55 at any given time as some delegates attended for specific sessions on only 1 or 2 days. It was great to have this 3rd conference on the opposite side of the globe to the previous two, as it made it easier for many people to attend for the first time. As per the previous BIBH conferences in New Zealand (2000) and Australia (2002), the conference was open to anyone interested in Buteyko. The BIBH was again proud to sponsor and host the visit of Ludmilla and Andrey, and we were also very happy to meet their business manager, Taras.
The general format was to have the presentations in the mornings and the workshops, training sessions and more interactive sessions in the afternoons. Tuesday evening featured a Civic Reception for all conference delegates at the City Chambers on George Square. This is a grand, ornate old building in the city centre. We were treated to drinks and nibbles and were officially welcomed to Glasgow by a gentleman from the council representing the Lady Provost. He had done his homework and was well versed with details of Pr Buteyko, the Buteyko Method, the BIBH and the research based in Glasgow. Jill and Ludmilla responded on behalf of the delegates.
The conference concluded on Thursday night with the 3rd Buteyko Institute Trust Charity Ball. All 3 have been organised by Jill and held in Glasgow. Thanks to Jill and to Karen Clark for their work in organizing the ball which included a cabaret and charity raffle. Glasgow BIBH Practitioner Adriana Spina brought her guitar along and performed a few songs from her album (copies for sale and a portion donated to the BIT). What a talent! Following is the list of the presenters and a few brief comments..... These may not be in correct order and provide little technical detail. Refer my comments above for sourcing further detail.
Paul O'Connell, BIBH member from Melbourne - An overview of the establishment and role of the BIBH, along with some of the trends seen in Australia. Also an outline of the codes, standards and guidelines for practitioner members and for teaching clients. Brief background on having BIBH registered as a charity in Australia and developing feedback mechanisms and a privacy policy. All of these are subject to ongoing review by members.
Nikki Jewell and Simon Padden, BIBH members from Plymouth - An informative report on their experience teaching Buteyko over the last 18 months since ceasing work as full time musicians. This included screening a BBC TV segment featuring their work, their experiences dealing with medical practitioners, and many newspaper and magazine features on their work.
Brian Firth, BIBH member from Melbourne - A review of his first 7 months teaching Buteyko full time after finishing work as an IT sales professional late last year. Just over 300 clients, lots of travel, and heaps of satisfaction. Emphasis on teaching Buteyko for sleep disorders in line with the general trend in Australia over the last 2 years. Marketing identified as the key to being able to keep working in this wonderful field.
Kim Upton, BIBH member from London - A report on his experiences working with children over the last few years and some great ideas for making the course more interesting by working with an expert in children's training.
Concurrent sessions were held on Tuesday afternoon for: - Jill conducted CPR training (required for BIBH practitioners). Certificates were issued. - Clare Hobsley presented on her amazing work in applying Buteyko to horses (she did a major presentation the next day) - Ian Finch, Peter Litchfield and David Beales from Better Physiology (www.bp.edu) introduced the Capno Trainer - a diagnostic instrument for measuring various parameters of breathing and the body incl. CO2, temperature, respiration rate, heart rate, heart breath wave
Dr James Oliver from Plymouth, GP and BBA member - gave a presentation which he had previously given to the British Thoracic Society. This interesting and informative presentation included his experience in teaching Buteyko to 73 of his patients, and provided an outline of the role of nitric oxide production in the body in relation to Buteyko theory.
Claire Hobsley from Henley on Thames - After recovery from many years of CFS, Claire has spent significant time in the last few years developing a method for applying the principles of the Buteyko method to horses, the Equine Breathing Technique. This amazing work was presented in a beautifully choreographed manner including pictures, video clips and soundtrack which graphically showed the recovery of diseased horses and the methods she has developed to help them retrain their breathing.
Ludmilla Buteyko from Russia/Crimea - an overview of the history of Pr Buteyko's work, explaining the difference between treating symptoms and disease and outlining that there is still so much more to learn and so much more work to be translated and made available. She also spoke of the relationship between the health of a mother and her developing infant.
Andrey Novozhilov from Russia/Crimea - an expansion of some of the points made by Ludmilla with extra insights into working with children, incl. how breathing habits are often learnt by children from their parents, and a recommendation against overeating and being too warm for children.
Wednesday afternoon mainly featured a presentation on the Capno Trainer which opened with an overview of the physiology by Peter Litchfield. Some past Buteyko clients from Glasgow were assessed using the Capno Trainer and due to the level of interest and the no. of people, 3 Capno Trainers setup concurrently in different rooms and most people were able to either have their own breathing analysed or observe the process in others. A large part of Thursday afternoon was also devoted to the Capno Trainer. I think all 10 available Capno Trainers were bought by conference delegates.
Claire Wooldridge, BIBH member from Yorkshire - With a background in corporate Human Resources (HR), Claire gave a very professional and informative account of the many issues facing individual Buteyko Practitioners and the BIBH as an organization. These include issues relating to professional behaviour, record keeping, privacy, confidentiality and the law. Whilst many of these issues have been addressed in Australia where we have members with similar experience and have received pro bono legal advice, it is great to have someone on board in the UK with this experience.
Taras Shechtinkin from Moscow - He has been working as Business Manager for Ludmilla and Andrey over the last 3 years, and gave a presentation outlining the plans to build a memorial to Pr Buteyko in the Crimea. Several possible monuments were shown in a high quality slide show. The total cost is anticipated to be US$75,000. A request for donations was made and several people offered suggestions as how best to go about the process. We can expect to hear more on this later.
Dennis Champion, BIBH member from Newcastle - An overview of the background to the awarding of the £50,000 sponsorship grant to the Buteyko Institute Trust by Dennis's former employer, the St James Place Foundation (formerly Rothschilds). Dennis's commitment to raising funds after personal recovery from asthma with Buteyko has taken him around the world. (I first met him when he came to Australia in 1999 to meet with and joined the BIBH). The due diligence performed by St James Place Foundation before the grant was approved will make it easier for further such applications.
Jill McGowan , BIBH Member from Glasgow - An overview of the history and establishment of the Buteyko Institute Trust, including some of the milestones along the way - the beginnings in the UK in 2000-1, the 3 Charity Balls, Asthma Relief Day, and a breakdown of the details of the St James Place Foundation sponsorship for teaching financially disadvantaged children and training practitioners.
Brian Whittle from PB Events (former Olympic runner) and Jill McGowan were involved in a lively debate about nose breathing under duress in sport. This was informative, entertaining and involved much audience participation.
Jill McGowan , BIBH Member from Glasgow - presented case histories of 2 children (sister and brother) with asthma. She outlined in point form the medical recommendations for both children over many years and sought comments from a panel of delegates incl. a Doctor, a Buteyko Practitioner, a teacher, a parent, a BIBH rep, Ludmilla and Andrey. Also present were a young boy and girl (who were similarly severe and medicated as the 2 in the case studies) who are both now thriving after learning Buteyko with Jill. Many of you will be aware of the tragic case of 5 yo Emma Frame who died in November 2001. Only when her older brother Callum was admitted to hospital 2 weeks later with adrenal suppression due to from flixotide overdose (he fortunately recovered) was the cause of Emma's death understood. A BBC documentary on this was shown a couple of years back.
Inspirational comments were made by both children, the girl's mother and the boy's grandmother. The responsibility on all of us to continue our work was reverberating around the room with increasing intensity as this session progressed........
An Australian television segment on Buteyko and Sleep Apnoea was shown in Australia on Tuesday 29 August. We had it recorded and sent by email so we could all see it at the conference on the Thursday afternoon. It ran for about 7 minutes and followed a client who learnt the method at a course I conducted in Hobart, Tasmania in April this year and who subsequently came off CPAP. David Waddington (film producer from Melbourne) was also at the conference filming some of the highlights. I have asked him to add this latest TV segment to the second compilation DVD.
Simon Padden, BIBH member from Plymouth demonstrated the multimedia presentation he has developed on introducing Buteyko to the public. This glitzy, hitech show is used by Simon and Nikki in their introductory seminars and they are looking at making it available to other members.
Kim Upton arranged a group photograph before the Charity Ball, had it framed, and then presented it to Jill with a huge bunch of flowers to express everyone's gratitude for a wonderful and inspiring 3 days in Glasgow.
Well it has been a busy week since the conference with many farewells, working long hours over the last 5 days teaching 4 Buteyko courses per day and helping to induct 3 trainee practitioners here in Glasgow. It has been raining in the cricket today, Saturday, so I have had the chance to write these notes before heading back to Melbourne at the end of the week.
Cheers
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Paul O'Connell
Buteyko Health & Breathing
PO Box 2409 Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia
Tel 61 3 94194211 Mob 0411 225731 Fax 61 3 94193911
Member of the Buteyko Institute of Breathing & Health
www.buteykoairways.com
www.sleepingallnight.com