Almost a century in the making
I first met my father in 1981: my chiropractic father, that is. My earthly father and I started our relationship many years before that.
Richard Van Rumpt (who preferred for me to call him "Van") and I were close until his death in 1987. "Van the Innate Man" showed me that many common chiropractic assumptions were flawed or incomplete. One of those assumptions is that chiropractic adjusting needed to be physically forceful to work.
Van illustrated this with a story: When he was in the National Chiropractic College clinic during his internship, he had a patient, Rosie Falconi. He was performing his palpation (feeling with the hands) examination on the patient's spine, and ran out of time.
The next day, he saw her again at the clinic, and she was bragging to anyone who would listen about what a wonderful job Dr. Van Rumpt had done!
In his mind, he had just been doing an examination. No heavy pushing or popping, and yet, she felt like she had been given a highly skilled and effective treatment that greatly relieved her symptoms.
Back then, in 1923, Van realized that strong, forceful adjusting was not necessary to help his patients. He started combining this knowledge with other observations and understanding he had gained. The foundation for what was to become D.N.F.T. (Directional Non-Force Technique) was established.
Dr. Van Rumpt was my second mentor. Prior to my first phone conversation with him in 1980, I had become interested in Dr. George Goodheart's Applied Kinesiology. I studied his muscle testing methods when I first started chiropractic college in Pasadena, Texas in early 1976.
While the muscle testing revolutionized my thinking and way of treating people, it wasn't until Van immersed me into his way of thinking that I realized that light stimulation was all that was required to get vertebrae and other structures to move.
It's now almost a century since Dr. Van Rumpt "accidentally" discovered what was to become the common ancestor of all non-forceful chiropractic methods.
During the last few months, I've been working on birthing the next generation of non-forceful methods of changing the structure and function of the body.
The initial results from these new methods are exciting and encouraging to me and my patients, and I'm looking forward to developing learning platforms for my colleagues as I decide how to teach it.
This new way of working (which I think of as "The Easy Way," when I'm talking to myself) requires no instruments and no forceful maneuvers to be performed on the body. In fact, I've used The Easy Way(TM) on babies, the elderly, cancer patients and pregnant female patients. I have a feeling you'd like it if you'd try it.
I enjoy sharing a little of my "life and times" with you, and hope you enjoy these visits with me as I reminisce. Let me know whether you like hearing such stories.
Wishing you well, and willing to work to keep you that way.