Finding The Primary was a slow birth of a process of the quest to provide the most impactful adjustment. From years of travelling to see some of the best practitioners in the world – from Dr John Bergman in California to Dr Nelson Vetanze in Colorado, from Dr Terry Schroder in Thousand Acres, to Dr Simon King in Berkhamsted, and from Dr Donald Grant in Vancouver to Dr Donny Epstein,– each of their philosophies and application of technique have been bundled into Finding The Primary to provide each practitioner with an ultimate evolution. Through experience, learning and self-development – anyone who embarks on the program is not a weekend seminar attendee. They are embarking on radical and wholesome changes to their identity as a practitioner.
During the development of ‘Finding The Primary’, we have been challenging ourselves on our definition of an adjustment, and what our intent is when applying one. Initially this was a major struggle - so much of our philosophy has been challenged to the core but having a partner to joust with and contest different ideas has been invaluable to our evolution and consequently attendees, which often leads to major breakthroughs over a weekend.
The key concept I’d like to challenge you with today is “through an adjustment, do we force or facilitate change within the body?”.
For anyone reading this, the obvious answer is to say; ‘I facilitate change within the body. I am working with the body to allow it to change.’
If we take a step back though, is this actually true?
When we examine someone, what is it that we’re actually looking at or feeling into? Are the changes dysfunctional, (which a lot of chiropractors annotate as a diagnosis – ‘pelvis dysfunction’, ‘facet dysfunction’ etc), or is the body in fact functioning in the most appropriate way it possibly can do – at that time, in that environment?
Tom and I think the answer is actually the latter. The body’s organisation is governed by intelligence, which will adapt the body to its environment in attempt to survive and thrive in the most efficient way, for as long as possible. So, when challenged by the environment, the brain facilitates change appropriately with every response it makes.
What if we could work out how to help it? Should we even try to help it at all, given it’s so intelligent in how it’s operating?
Well, everybody needs help sometimes, although, nobody likes being dictated to. What if we could offer specific help (in harmony) to support at the level to what the body can cope with, in addition to the demands of the environment?
To work out the needs of a body, we must ask it what its requirements are. This is done by slightly increasing the environmental demands on the body in specific ways and measuring how it reacts. We have observed if our specific art of chiropractic can help move a body towards balance, you can equally and most certainly move it away from balance. Can it cope with this additional external input?
By increasing input into the system, the body will then have to adapt; if the stress is enough to create a positive change without overwhelming the system, a higher order of function occurs due to the phenomenon known as “Eustress”. The definition of EU-stress is a form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being. The epitome of eustress is Flow (ultimate eustress experience). However, if the stress outweighs the capacity of the body to adapt, (AKA distress) the system cannot adapt quickly enough, and the response will be negative.
So, the key question; facilitate or force change?
In finding the primary we test the requirements of the body by simply challenging movement. We are not testing strength, but the movement quality and capacity of the brain to “connect the dots”. Where a lot of current protocols look for ‘weakness’ and then address that area to try and bring the system back to strength; we have taken a slightly different view. We test the brain by adding input, (stress), and IF this input stabilises the way that it connects the dots, we apply more of that input as an adjustment!
Finding The Primary teaches us to find the underlying reason why this area has had to adapt in the first place – pointing us to the area of the body that is open to an impulse. The brain literally tells us what help it needs when we know how. Then, when we add a
stimulus and facilitate the open area, we can observe innate intelligence unwind the adaptations through the nervous system.
This concept will be counterintuitive to a lot of us who have been taught the exact opposite - adjust where you find the body is NOT functioning properly or to adjust into the restriction. It was alien to us at first also, but we have found consistency and clarity in results when operating in this way.
Hopefully this has sparked a few ideas for someone out there and started to challenge your viewpoint of where and how to direct your adjustments; and we’ll try and help anyway we can to facilitate changes in your ideas and philosophy too.
And for more information on Finding The Primary, click here.
~ Tom
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