Life on Land: The Story of Continuum, the World-Renowned Self-Discovery and Movement Method [Paperback]

Emilie Conrad's book is a stunning masterpiece. Her deep intelligence, caring heart, and passion for life permeate every page. And she writes like a wizard. By the end of the book the reader knows what Continuum is down to her very bones. There is also a section explaining basic Continuum movements in a way that anyone can understand and practice at home. I think the ultimate joy would be to experience a workshop with Emilie. I also read Bonnie Gintis's Engaging the Movement of Life: Exploring Health and Embodiment Through Osteopathy and Continuum and must imagine that Emilie Conrad is exceedingly grateful that she had no "medical training" to muddy her experiential waters. Bravo, Emilie!!

If you have an interest in new and innovative ideas in health, spirituality and the origin of life itself . . . order this book. Emilie Conrad has spent over 40 years developing her exquisite body of work called Continuum Movement and this book reflects her journey. The message she shares is truly fresh, innovative and gives us great possibility for our development to become "variated humans" . . . adaptable and open to much more than we know now. Emilie's writing is descriptive, eloquent and paints a picture of movement in a completely new light. Her story is inspiring. I recommend this book very highly.

Often a founder is too close to their work and cannot write clearly about it to audiences who do not have the benefit of the same history or internal references. Such writing tends to be terse and often circular. Such is the case with this book.

In the foreward Dr. Valerie Hunt takes delight in floating the grammar of her degree and sputters an almost random collection of words. She is trying to present the findings of alternative medicine and metaphysics but does not have the languaging adept for the task. Her allusions to these metaphysics would require a safari and in depth interviews to grok. Example:

"On the way up the cord, this energy affected all ascending and descending sensory motor nerves migrating in and out of the cord with a higher level of tissue instruction than the actual fluid. There were floating ideas that this magnetic energy first came from the Earth but expanded to encompass celestial vibrations."

For example, what does she mean by "tissue instruction". And who and by what process were these ideas about earth and celestial energetic action (aka vibration) formed and where are they documented (citations). So you end up feeling that through the book Emilie and Valerie are talking to each other having a shared point of reference and history. But for the average reader a legion of Sherlock Holmes would be required to follow them. Even the experienced metaphysician will not get the core messages of Continuum without a lot of headache and slow going. This is NOT what the experience of reading a good book is supposed to be about.

Here is an example of Emilie's writing style from page 317

"In using the term "Broadband Virtuoso" I am pointing to the immensity of the internal abundance that is available to us, and what we could become if we tapped into it. I am implying that depending on what is necessary at the moment we can shift our structural thought and tissue simultaneously in order to enrich the world we inhabit and, consequently, the world we are creating. The local/non-local capability we might develop could create a completely unique human being."

First, the editor should have taken a wide swing at Emilie's writing style and reworked these run-on-and-on sentences. Second there are many concepts in this paragraph that are not well defined, even within the full previous context of the book. What is "structural thought"? What process allows thought and tissue to shift? What enrichment? A good book should be able to be read with luciditity throughout. The words in a paragraph should be able to stand somewhat alone and provide enough meaning that you don't need the entire rest of the book to understand them.

So in the end I must conclude this is not a book. This is a collection of thoughts that has not yet been crafted into a book. Perhaps for Continuum someone largely outside of the genesis of it will need to come forward and re-interpret Emilie so that others can really understand what she is talking about.

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