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Dustin Willis PT, DPT, PhD, OCS, FAAOMPT(@dwillofthe9)'s profile avatar HD Profile

Dustin Willis PT, DPT, PhD, OCS, FAAOMPT

@dwillofthe9

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@willistheway.ptp
sports performance physio
PhD/DPT professor
residency/fellowship trained x 3
@doriankahlil
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What a wild ride gettin’ to help this guy stay slim reapin’ on the slow grind back to competing in these Olympic Games 🏀🥇 don’t know how we stayed sane going from Vegas, to Abu Dhabi, London, Lille, & finally Paris yet still somehow my spirit is shining golden as the medals they now forever drape around their necks 🙌🥇 can’t thank you enough, Kev for trusting & letting me tag along & feel apart of this amazing squad 🙏🥇 (shout out & congrats to these other GOATs on their gold as well!) 🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐 #Olympics #Paris2024 taken in Paris, France by @dwillofthe9
131
2 years ago
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*Adds “Video Vixen” to the top of resume*… 😂💀 For real tho such a dope experience getting to play a small role in the “Won’t Stop” music video 🙌😎 Love to Gunna his whole team production everyone behind the scenes & of course my Move Lab fam for the chance to be a part of it 🙏🫶 taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
34
a year ago
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For me this past year’s been a wild ride filled with the highest of highs & equally low lows & right after one of the lowest my SC fam welcomed me with the openest of arms bringing me along for the ride of a lifetime with this special group of guys that clawed & climbed their way to a state title I had lost sight of all I have to be grateful for until they reminded me all I do this for it ain’t the rings trophies or glory but rather the stories pieced together along journey it’s the working as a part of something bigger than me while helping others achieve their dreams as I gleam with pride over the heart they’ve shown to propel them to their goal I also glow in gratitude for getting to be a part of it I started with Bronny here for 2 years now Bryce for another 2 & the truth is not lost on me that the James family could easily have had anyone they want take care of the boys all these years so I’m feeling extremely blessed just to be here 💯🏆💍🙏 taken in Sierra Canyon Gym by @dwillofthe9
88
2 years ago
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N I N E !? damn time flies at a speed that seems fast & slow at the same time some nights my hands forget to trust their touch a digital brush of the monitor’s numbers muffle the signal of analog love minutes hum to the rhythm of the machine helping him breathe & I have learned the language of every beep what means rest & what means run I am undone & collected all at once it’s never discussed that you can feel emptied & full in the same breath seconds congest as the awe doesn’t arrive after exhaustion has left it lives inside it uninvited unbothered whole so much has held him here that isn’t me while the trials may leave us scarred the tribulations make us believe not in a God who fixes the tired but one that sits side by side with me & him 💜🙏 9 spins around the sun for this little wonder almost double the number of years the statistics said he’d be here my eyes swell with tears thinking of all he’s persevered through living proof of the human spirit’s awe & that God is a verb living in all of this world 💯😭 Happy Birthday, my lil’ miracle 🎉🥳 taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
0
2 months ago
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Dear doctors well, all healthcare providers can we be honest for a second? I need you to not only hear this message but to feel it deep in your bones with the white coat still being sewn into your being comes threads silently creeping into every interaction you’ve been taught to base action solely on the trust of numbers to run your detached gaze along the surface & call that knowing to the closing off right when the skin says stop only listening to echoes of the actual boy & the body he lives in there is a thing “medicine” does when it cannot fix it searches for a script promising an ending ignoring all it cannot label it calls the suffering stable & reaches for the door but stable is the floor not the actual thing being reached for in measures the numbers & letters are only symbols thin as the paper they ride in on & he is not paper he is the whole no sum of parts can carry I know human tendency buries uncertainty’s worrying weight under a feigned sense of control & the toll of vulnerability can feel too frightful to offer but it is vital to the core of healing currently curtailed there is no scale for the magnitude of his tears no range wide enough to hold the shape of who he is when he is well you can feel the indent pressed into his small hand I have held since it was smaller exhausted now from all it has been forced to fit its fingers around so set down the chart it was never him but rather the rumor of his soul a paper ghost you could read without once having to look look not at the monitor mounted above not the note you scribbled with gloved touch at him the whole of him the heart still keeping its stubborn time beneath ribs reduced to a rhythm strip put your hand where the machine can’t reach & stay not to fix fixing is the flinch you hide behind stay to let it cost you the idealized “because” stay to be undone enough to recall the reason you ever put on the coat because the body knows what the chart can’t capture & somewhere between the fractured connection is a boy needing his laughter & you blessed with a chance to help bring it back if you stay curious long enough to earn it taken in Children's Hospital Los Angeles by @dwillofthe9
0
3 months ago
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Here we are another holiday in the hospital dreaming of things outside these walls an all too familiar scene I can see with eyes closed machines beep to the rhythm of their own beat monitors beam fluorescent statuses from their screens while I sit here trying to name what it all means a conscious stream flows from pen to pad with words that can’t capture it my ability’s earned praise for the way I turn the IV line into a thread that monitor’s glow into a horizon his pain into a metaphor about survival I’m skilled at giving titles to these highs & lows it’s why many of you follow along on this wild ride I can take any night inside of this building and hand it back to you as something beautiful which is just a fancy way to say I leave the room so that I may describe the room urgency consumes me to find something moving as a way to shake up the stillness of my fears but he is here actually here eyes ears mouth and hands warm and small and not a symbol truth trembles through my escapist way of leaving that beeping is only beeping and I keep reaching for the pen when the pen is not what he needs held so tell me what is the word for staying? not the poem painting its image but the visceral act embodied I don’t have it inside me so am writing this to find out why I am writing this instead of quietly just resting my hand where his hand is so the plan is to be better at gifting the present with presence Happy Father’s Day to all the other Dads doing their best to live out that message taken in Children's Hospital Los Angeles by @dwillofthe9
0
3 months ago
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I was recently asked what I’m most proud of professionally, & paused for a second to reflect. The silence of those seconds smacked me in the face with a furious shame. I knew the answer was & always will be framed in fatherhood & the way it’s shaped everything about me, especially the way I approach my profession. But the fact that there was any second guessing present made me realize how far I’d drifted toward the hunger for recognition & the hollow prestige that comes with working with elite athletes. Spaces I’m packed with gratitude to even have graced. Spaces I won’t ever take for granted as I push forward. What I couldn’t ignore in the pause was how much those spaces fed a deep wound in the pit of my stomach. Not just the work itself, but the rooms. The bodies in pursuit of something larger than themselves. The way elite competition sanctifies ordinary moments & makes even silence feel like it means something unifying. The camaraderie that only exists when stakes are that high & everyone is using it to drive the pursuit of performing past what currently feels possible. I lost myself in what it all made me believe about me & I’d be lying if I said I don’t still crave the chase of greatness ingrained in being a part of something bigger than yourself. As my mind swelled with desire to ramble off achievements in my answer, his light danced in my eyes illuminating a truth that was actually never in question. A sentiment that was never lost because he never let me forget what the work is actually for. The camaraderie I didn’t have to chase because it was already mine. The stakes that make any other high stakes feel like practice. The common thread unraveling in all I’d been desperately grasping for was sewn into his heart the whole time. He’s always been the true prize & no peak will ever change that. taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
0
5 months ago
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Everyone lies in the bed of their own bias but numbers know the truth that women root inherently and men bear the duty to honor not beauty as permission but power as origin not existing to be seen but standing to be counted and counted and counted and counted and counted and counted by @dwillofthe9
2
7 months ago
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Connection precedes correction. 🧠🤝 In this EP-SIG webinar, @dwillofthe9 of @willistheway.ptp emphasized that clinical excellence isn’t just built on knowledge — it’s built on relationships. Before patients can understand your plan, they must feel safe. Before they trust your expertise, they must trust you. As early professionals, our ability to lead, influence, and improve outcomes starts with presence, authenticity, and connection. What’s one thing you’ll change in your next patient interaction? 👇 #AAOMPT #EPSIG #LeadershipInPT #ManualTherapy #ClinicalExcellence by @dwillofthe9
2
7 months ago
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As salt and pepper sprinkle my beard may I openly revere the taste of change seasoning my face flakes of a full-plated life dance on my palate with pride inside gratitude pours through me pooling at my navel I am blessed to still hold a seat at the table savoring & still salivating content inside but never satisfied firmly in my forties & finally acquiring the taste taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
37
7 months ago
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I tend to lie a lot— not maliciously but to shield others from the difficulty of sitting with their discomfort my life provokes where I lie is embedded in deceit— cozily blanketing them but leaving me with cold feet people seem to struggle bearing witness to naked truths no hands can hold no prayer can revoke so I swallow it whole for them call it kindness? maybe mercy? whatever it is splits me in half & keeps them intact “How is your son doing?” nauseating truth claws at my throat I softly gulp, “he’s fine” while my mind’s fault lines quake the same way his body convulses with seizures that stalk every moment like the promise of The Big One looming over our city “Did he have a good Christmas?” images of him laying listless play on repeat while I struggle to speak, “Yeah, it was good” knowing they can’t understand unless they stand here watching his eyes stare off somewhere else while his small frame revolts against itself I tend to lie a lot carrying fault lines I think are mine alone but what if we’re all standing in a field of the same unspoken tremors flowering feelings that take root in all of us? what if we stopped tending separate plots & recognized we share this soil? #TheDorianDaddyDutyDiaries Entry CLXVI #DorianKahlil #BoyAndArrow #WhatsNormalAnyway 💜💎🏹🌷🌻🩵 taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
26
9 months ago
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Being a Dean was never something I saw as a fit for me I mean returning to a machine I already raged against because of its systems- why would I think I alone could make a difference? especially as an interim? & this wasn’t even that since I didn’t slash my other responsibilities still I stepped in willingly hoping to be an instrument of change from the inside out despite the doubt surrounding the arrangement I gave it my all & faced what is both my fatal flaw as well as greatest gift- trying to always give everything to everyone all at once after months of the heaviness beating me down I’ve found that giving my all means nothing if it is to a structure that can’t hold the weight of all of the care that I carry even while buried under mounting concerns I flirted with the idea of permanence but they couldn’t work with the constraints tied to me personally & that’s when I knew what I had to do so I’m choosing a focus on my wholeness no longer spreading too thin or splintering to fit in to spaces not built to hold people like me- the ones who lead from the heart train in the trenches & refuse to separate who we are from what we do to the students I’ve had the honor of teaching the faculty who fearlessly followed my leading and admin staff that faithfully believed in me when I couldn’t see myself in the role- thank you for letting me be exactly who I am while I struggled to be everything you needed now I hold highly what is inside me as both my problem & my power turning like a sunflower to face fully my son my athletes & my students at SCU letting the truth of my limitations rest in the places where I can give all of me & still stand taken in Los Angeles, California by @dwillofthe9
217
10 months ago
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