I went to see Art last week for the first time. He was warm, kind, and professional. I have had chronic pain for years and tried everything. Art’s session is different from all the therapies I have had. My body did feel better right in the session. I feel he has holistic views on health and healing. I am going back this week again.
Teaching in New Mexico 2017
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WHOLE WHEAT: NOT SO WHOLESOME
In the 1960s, American farmers started to use a revolutionary hybrid wheat. It was a shorter stalk, averaging 16 inches high instead of the classic 24 inches, and they could grow 3 or 4 crops a year! Not only was it prolific, but it was also resistant to bugs. That’s how the United States became known as the “breadbasket of the world”. The only thing is not only is this wheat resistant to bugs, who have trouble digesting it, but so do people.
According to Dr. Mark Hyman, who I’ve met several times and who serves as Bill Clinton’s physician, a groundbreaking physician famous for what is called “functional medicine”, wheat causes inflammation. We should stop eating wheat. To paraphrase Dr. Hyman as he spoke on his PBS special, he said he doesn’t mean inflammation like a swollen finger. He means inflammation like leaky gut syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, and autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. That whatever you put in your body that you can’t digest causes inflammation. That’s just the way it is. In that talk, he said that approximately 10 percent of people have celiac disease. But it’s not about celiac disease or gluten. It’s about the wheat itself. Especially this new hybrid he calls FrankenWheat.
The paleo diet has become very popular. Our bodies are essentially the same as they were one hundred thousand years ago. Evolution happens slowly. So we don’t have any trouble digesting foods from a hundred thousand years ago. We don’t have any trouble digesting cooked foods, which have been around for eons. But farming is relatively new in the evolutionary scheme of things. And grains, because of that, are more difficult for us to digest. The American hybrid wheat is especially difficult to digest because it has been bred to be difficult to digest. It is having a very negative impact on individuals’, on virtually everyone.
I would like to tell you something from my personal experience. For years I was suffering with arthritis in my hands. I’d wake up in the morning, and I couldn’t make a fist. My fingers were so stiff, and I had trigger finger in one of my fingers. And then during the day, little by little, I’d get more usage back. I was fortunate enough to meet a life coach, and through her, I met Dr. Hyman. She and I used to do exchanges, and I think I got the better of the deal. She put me on Dr. Hyman’s diet, and that meant no white food including grains and especially wheat. Not only did I lose a bunch of weight, but I became more energetic, more resilient, could exercise without getting sore, wasn’t pulling and straining things like I used to, and the arthritis in my hands went away. I’m still not eating wheat and the arthritis has not returned. This inflammation, produced by wheat, is not just in the digestive tract. It is implicated in a whole host of diseases including those of the brain and nervous system. See the book “Grain Brain” by Dr. Perlmutter, famous neurologist and biochemist.
You can’t sit down to a meal without being offered wheat on the table in the form of bread or crackers. For free! Because it’s so cheap and plentiful. And it’s so satisfying to the palate. It’s satisfying to the palate because our genetic makeup is such that pleasure hormones are triggered by high-calorie foods. And bread is definitely one of those. So it gives us the same kind of satisfaction as alcohol or drugs or sex – it produces dopamine. Which is a pleasure hormone. For more information, read on!
So I would suggest you seriously consider cutting down on or eliminating wheat consumption and realize how pervasive it is. We can work together to get rid of this inflammation and other challenges that may be plaguing you.
When a new client comes to see me, I can usually tell if their diet is really poor because of the amount of inflammation that they have in their bodies. I can help them get rid of inflammation, but I cannot stop them from recreating it – I can only help them maintain, and advise them in a healthy direction. I see my job as helping people return to full function. That’s the aim of these newsletters.
Teaching In New Mexico 2016
I spent my birthday in the beginning of June in New Mexico, with a group called Wings of America. They’re an organization of Native American running coaches who have developed programmes over the last 27 years to go to multiple reservations around the country and teach kids running skills and games and healthy outdoor activities. The programmes get them to connect with each other in healthy ways and help to nurture values that promote a self-supportive and self-reliant culture. Native Americans are traditionally some of the greatest long distance runners in the world, and have been for centuries. These young coaches work very hard. They have a grueling schedule, traveling in groups all around the country to Native American reservations. Some of them are star college athletes, due to their participation in this organization as children themselves.
My first introduction to this group was through a documentary filmmaker named Sanjay Rawal, whose last documentary was the award-winning ‘Food Chains’ about the striking migrant workers in the tomato industry in Florida and their efforts to raise their feet from one penny per pound to two pennies. He is in the process of creating a documentary on traditional long distance running cultures around the world. He invited me out to the Four Corners Navajo Reservation where I was working with runners and others in the annual Canyon De Chelley super marathon. There I met the field director, Dustin Martin. I worked with the top two runners when they finished – Dustin was number two, an amazing runner. As a beneficiary of this program himself, he studied at and graduated from Columbia on a runner’s scholarship. Then he returned out of a well developed sense of responsibility, devotion, and gratitude to help other people in any way that he could. (It may be of note that he just led a team of runners up to Standing Rock, where he said he used the skills I’ve taught him on many people there. And considering the immense hardship these Brave people have taken upon themselves and endured, Dustin’s work must have been sorely (and I mean that in the literal sense) appreciated.) I started to train Dustin in my work and he invited me to come out to their annual meeting and train a group of his coaches and do some limited training at their annual meeting to help them to keep each other fresh during the grueling travel and work schedule throughout the summer. I said to them that ‘you use your legs and feet to such a great degree – now I’m going to show you how to heal with your legs and feet.’
I’ve long held a strong desire to teach my work. It shouldn’t be kept like the secret teachings of the Shaolin temple, for only a very few to know. The work is ideally suited not just for places like New York where it can heal people who although have everything imaginable at their disposal, have not been able to find other ways to recover outside of the unique effectiveness of this work. It’s ideally suited for third world countries, because it requires no money or specialized equipment – only a trained practitioner and someone desiring relief. I only was able to spend four days with them, during which time I must have treated over thirty people and gave around a dozen hours of instruction, which I am sure some of those students will be able to use to great effect with those around them. I’m anticipating returning and teaching them further in the future.
David McCallum
Art is simply one of the most gifted holistic massage therapists I’ve encountered anywhere. His spiral technique of softening, lengthening, and loosening the fascia relieved pain and tension and helped me regain a much greater range of motion in a single visit. He is incredibly skilled in working the deepest levels of muscular and fascial tissue and is so intentional in helping the body relearn its own wisdom and suppleness. Because his level of competence is so high and the technique he uses so rare, I think he’s a simply a master. He needs to consider opening a school to teach this method!
David McCallum SJ, EdD
Teachers College, Columbia University
Annie A.
When I came to Art, my neck was frozen and couldn’t move it to the left or right. It was so painful before he touched me. As he started working on me I felt my body started to melt. He uses his body weight along with his forearms and gently goes in deep like he’s ironing out all the kinks. I liked that he asked me to breath and cough out my pain. He asked me to use my sounds to release the pain.
All I can say is that it’s two days later and I have no more pain in my neck which is amazing. I have been carrying that pain for a long time hoping I would find someone like Art to heal me. Art is a very experienced body worker and really knows what he is doing. I know this because I have had so many people work on my body through the years but never had anyone that I can call a body sculpturer!
Joyce Falkowski
Art Jaffe has an intuitive gift for relieving pain and restoring function in the fastest time possible. He took me from walking on 2 canes with 8/10 pain level (and great difficulty) to walking freely,pain decreased to barely noticeable 1/10. My first session with Art occurred 2 months after I’d had a serious accident on icy pavement (with a C5-6, 6-7 neck injury and traumatic brain injury). I had had energy work, massage, chiropractic care and steroids to reduce the brain swelling. Art works miracles with his technique. My life and function was restored by his competence and caring. That was in 2003 and I’ve been an avid fan of this work ever since. I no longer live in NY, but I still see him as often as I can.
Joyce Falkowski
Retired RN, CCRNe and Reiki Master
Sam P.
I have been seeing Art over a number of years and he has addressed a number of painful challenges beginning with neuropathy in my feet in 2004. Sessions with Art provide relief when traditional medicine has only offered drugs to treat symptoms or possible surgical approaches. As exhausting as a session can be for the amount of physical work performed is extensive, I have never felt better than when I leave his office. In addition to the neuropathy, Art has used his technique to relieve extensive lower back pain and stiffness as well as shoulder and rotater cuff area stiffness and swelling.
Homework assignments of various exercises have proved invaluable in allowing me to overcome out of balance stance and the type of secondary stiffness and pain resulting from overcompensating for various changes in my gate and posture due to to neoropathy, hip wear and ankle deterioration.
Stephanie Fiallo
After going to an acupuncturist, chiropractor and massage therapy to get the right treatment for my leg finally I met Art.
I had a sharp pain in my left leg and I could not bend it completely and I was unable to do yoga. I was very surprised when Art Jaffe worked on my body for 10 minutes and my leg went back to normal. I told Art that I just experience “magic” and he told me “this is science”. I was so glad to put my body in his hand to receive the miracle of restoring my health in a matte of minutes. I had this pain for over two months and nothing was working.
I am very grateful to Art Jaffe, he is a warrior of love, health and vitality. Art, thank you for helping me and for the contribution you are making to the planet.
Namaste,
Stephanie Fiallo
Stephen Brock
Art goes DEEP! I’m a working musician with a chronically bad shoulder and he helped me in a way no other doctor or healer has been able to. He got in there, got results and kindly took the time to show me stretches and exercises to keep my positive momentum going.
Art has such a welcoming way about him, both strong and gentle, that he instantly put me at ease. During our session, he gave me an in-depth descriptions of his techniques, my issues and their possible roots, and the legacy of his teachers and students.
I’ve been to physical therapy, massage parlors, yoga classes – you name it. Art is the first guy to actually CHANGE my shoulder, not just relieve the pain for a moment. For that, I am eternally grateful! Thanks Art!
Stephen Brock
Musician