Jill Miller - The Roll Model: A Step-by-Step Guide to Erase Pain, Improve Mobility, and Live Better in Your Body

First Published in 2014 by Victory Belt Publishing Inc.

Copyright 2014 Jill Miller

Excerpt from Move Your DNA copyright 2014 Katy Bowman. Used by permission from Propriometrics Press.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-628600-22-3 (paperback)
978-1-628600-74-2 (ebook)

This book contains advice and information relating to health and physical well-being. It is not intended to replace medical advice and should be used to supplement rather than replace regular care by your doctor. All movement programs pose some inherent risk. It is recommended that you seek your physicians advice before embarking on any movement-based program, treatment, or exercise. As with any movement-based program, if at any time you experience discomfort, stop and consult your physician. The publisher and the author disclaim liability for any medical outcomes that may occur as a result of applying the methods suggested in this book.

Victory Belt is a registered trademark of Victory Belt Publishing Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.

RRD 0114

With deepest gratitude for my husband, Robert, who saw me as a Roll Model for my students, encouraged me to bring my work to the world, and helped me create a business that empowers people.

I wrote this book while pregnant with my first child, Lilah Iris Faust. She was my muse, she filled my dreams, and she is now a loved and loving manifestation of my commitment to self-care healthcare.

May you live peacefully and playfully in your body forever and ever.

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.

Hippocrates

The doctor of the future will give no medicines, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes and prevention of disease.

Thomas Edison

Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.

Moshe Feldenkrais

ROLL MODEL SUCCESS STORIES

Diane V CapaldiHealthcare Reform Begins in Your Own Body /

Greg ReidThe Backbreaking Story of a Bodybuilder Who Rebuilt Himself /

Jennifer JenningsFinding Her Way Back to Normal After Breast Cancer: Sidelining Side Effects /

Lori WiederThirty Years of Numbness Reversed in Two Weeks: Healing from Knee Reconstruction /

Jennifer LovelyI Was Lupus, Now I Am Empowered: From Self-Medication to Self-Care /

Elizabeth WipfFrom MRI to Competition in Six Months: An Athlete Restores Her Slide, Glide, & Stride /

Eric JohnsonFlipping the Switch on Pain and Proprioception /

Kelly StarrettHold Your Breath: A Blow-by-Blow on Beating Asthma /

Helen McAvoyThe Wrath of Scar Tissue: An Organ Donor Stitches Herself Back Together /

Tiffany Cresswell-YeagerThe ACL Tear That Wouldnt Heal: When Surgery and Recovery Dont Resolve the Issue /

Rebecca MossRolling Away Stigma, Shame, and Pain Down There: Pelvic Floor Self-Massage /

Carlton BennettA Soldiers Losing Battle Turns Victorious /

Karen KrollShe Shoots, She Scores! The Pain-Free Gold Medalist /

Lee CallansPushing Past the Breaking Point: A Hockey Scout Scours Out His Own Pain /

Amanda JoyceStaring Chronic Disease in the Face: Stalling Scleroderma /

Joanne Spence /

Emily SonnenbergRape, Recovery, and Reclaiming Center /

Sarah CourtA Lesser-Known Depression /

Carolyn PhillipsA Public Defender Learns to Advocate for Herself /

Lisa Highfield /

Sharon AlkerstedtReversing the Course of Obesity, Chronic Pain, and Diabetes: A Nurse Becomes a Patient of Self-Care and Movement as Medicine /

Krystin Zeiger and ChloeExtra-Special Subject: A Ruff Roller /

by Dr. Kelly Starrett

When you finally get to meet Jill Miller in person, you begin to understand what people mean when they say someones eyes shine. To be more exact, her eyes burn brightly as if lit by a great and wondrous fire. And they do. For Jill has discovered a great secret about us all: that we all have the innate capacity to heal ourselves. She knows that each of us has the right and real ability to rid ourselves of pain and the terrible, self-made shackles of our own immobility.

Have you ever read the fantastic novel Narcissus and Goldmund? What? When you are searching for an appropriate metaphor to describe Jill as the brilliant teacher she so clearly is, you dont reach for an esoteric Hermann Hesse novel? Indulge me for a moment and Ill elaborate. You see, Narcissus and Goldmund is about two young best friends who take radically different life paths toward enlightenment and ultimately self-knowledge and understanding. One chooses a seemingly ideal, straightforward, formal, and literally cloistered path. Narcissus (whose name is not to be confused with a narcissistic personality) clearly knows his life path and purpose. His contemporary, however, lives a more ragged and uneven life as an adventurer gypsy-poet. He is slower to self-awareness and is filled with terrible self-doubt and the need to discover his own compass, which he does, beautifully. They end up in the same place at the end of their lives, of course, having taken radically different paths. This is one of my favorite points of the novel and serves as a backbone of my Jill Miller/Hermann Hesse metaphor.

When you encounter Jill and her work for the first time, you are struck by the profound feeling that she has always known how to do what it is she doesthat from the moment she opened her eyes, she was on a Narcissus-like mission to change the lives of the people she met with her teachings. And yet that carefully crafted, step-wise grooming of skill fails to account for her incredible Goldmund-like commitment to self-discovery, self-improvement, experience, and humility. Lets be honest: Jill is just about the oldest soul you or I are ever likely to encounter. Jill is empathy and experience meets hard-fought clinical expertise and ability. She is the embodiment of Hesses two heroes.

One of Jills favorite sayings is We have to seek out our bodies blind spots. This could sound like a throwaway quote in a book about self-healing and self-treatment. But when you realize that it is delivered by a powerful teacher with the life experience and mad skill to back it up, youd better listen well and believe it. And it was under these circumstances that I first met Jill Miller. A mutual coaching friend set us up and claimed the encounter would be like two long-lost siblings reuniting after being separated at birth. True fact. And when she highlighted areas for me that were being neglected in our care in the highest domains of sport, like down-regulation, diaphragm and breathing efficiency, and pelvic floor dysfunction, I realized immediately the truth of what she was saying. Common practice and base knowledge to her was literal gold to the thousands of athletes, soldiers, and average moms and dads we work with.

One of the things I regularly write about and say in interviews is that as modern humans, we are not the first people to have taken a crack at both improving and solving the problems of the human condition. On the contrary, Im sure that for as long as there have been people, we have been taking our best swing at fixing ourselves. For example, my wife and I were traveling for work in Korea recently (Juliet, also my business partner, is the co-founder and CEO of San Francisco CrossFit and MobilityWOD.com) when we found ourselves in a small, very traditional neighborhood in the old part of Seoul. On a side-street vendors table was a pile of horns and bones. In two seconds I knew what they were for. When I called Juliet over to see, even she recognized that pile on the table for what it was. It was a pile of homemade hand-scraping tools to treat fascia, junky tissue, and adhesions. When we picked them up and starting scraping ourselves, the elderly Korean woman was delighted that we knew what was up. People have always known what is up. We just dont always connect the dots, revamp old concepts, or innovate based on what we have already learned.