The Infinity Walk, developed by Dr. Deborah Sunbeck, is a simple, but profound tool for brain integration. This tool, also known as the power walk, is also very helpful for increasing an individual’s self-awareness of body and movement. At the most basic level, the infinity walk involves walking a figure eight pattern while keeping the gaze at a 90-degree angle from the path you are walking. This movement pattern actually reflects coordinated shifts between neural activation of the left and right brain hemispheres. This can be referred to as bilateral neural priming, and it is a state that is highly beneficial for enhancing a student’s readiness to learn.
As a student becomes more comfortable and proficient with the basic pattern, cognitive challenges can be introduced. Dr. Sunbeck likes to engage students in a game of “how many things can you do at once” to keep them challenged by the exercise as they progress through infinity walk training. Here at Pathfinders, we find the infinity or power walk a useful warm-up exercise to get our students’ brains integrated and ready to work through the full range of cognitive training tasks that comprise each of our sessions. We also encourage parents to adopt this technique at home as an effective pre-homework warm-up or movement break, or to pair it with studying vocab words, spelling words, and/or math facts.
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