Monday, December 7, 2009

December Spinology Class Summery

It was a big weekend for the Spinology students this past weekend (5-6 Dec.)as they had their massive comprehensive exam. Some students thought it was ok, but others felt it was 'insanely difficult'(direct quote). It covered EVERYTHING taught in their first year of classes. They are now nearly halfway through the course.

I can't begin to express how impressed I am with most of them and their dedication to Spinology. All of them are a bedrock of philosophy and are cruising along in technique. We had two perspective students observing classes this weekend and it was fantastic to sit back and listen to the current students talk of the virtues of the course and explain the challenge of the Spinology Technique. Both perspective students have decided to begin the course in Jan. 2010.

We began to cover the nervous system in detail this weekend as well. They learned osteology first and moved on to myology, but now they learn the Master Control System. This, to me, is the most exciting part of the class. The foundation they built in philosophy regarding the wisdom of the body will now come to fruition with the understanding of how the body wisdom utilizes the nervous system to control all functions of being human.

All in all, it was a great weekend. When we finished we bid them all safe home and happy xmas. The next time we meet will be a fresh new year. God Bless.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Spinology-- Just plain ole maintenance for the nerve system

SPINOLOGY…Non-therapeutic maintenance for the spine.
By- Michael Meyer, Certified Spinologist
Director of the European School of Spinology, Ireland Branch

Non-therapeutic??? How in the world does that work? Those were my thoughts in that order when I was first introduced to the philosophy of Spinology in 1995. I was a practicing doctor of chiropractic at the time and I was having tremendous clinical results treating the aliments and injuries my patients came to me with. I was extremely open to any information concerning the spine and anything to preserve it. I was open because I have two severely herniated discs in my lumbar (lower back) region, and every few months my back would force me to close my office and seek chiropractic manipulations for a week or two.

I was open to new ideas because I recognised that each time my spine went into an acute state it was worse than in the past and the time between episodes got less and less. I began yoga due to the fact that it is intended for daily practice to keep everything in proper working order and that was fantastic, yet my lower spine just didn’t feel as it should. I felt as if my spine was keeping me from getting the best physical benefits from my yoga practice. The damage from years of neglect to my spine had caught up with me and I needed long term assistance for my spine specifically.

Enter Spinology…

Spinology is a fairly new profession, having been founded in 1980 by Dr. Reginald R. Gold from London, England. He began the profession in the United States when he noted a complete lack of attention to maintaining the spinal column on a regular basis. And, his observation also included the fact that very little emphasis was being placed on the function of the nervous system in relation to the spine. This, he thought, was the most valuable information we can share with the general public and nobody is sharing it.

The emphasis in Spinology is not on ‘fixing bad backs’ as that is not possible with years of damage. The emphasis is to assist the body in proper spinal alignment on a regular basis. It may take a decade or longer for a spinal misalignments to cause enough damage to cause pain. That type of damage will never be fixed good as new. The choice becomes one of continued neglect or maintenance.

Message of Spinology…

The brain controls bodily function by receiving and sending impulses over the spinal nerves to and from all cells of the body. This is how the body regulates itself in regards to proper hormone levels and vital chemical balance necessary to function properly. When there is interference along a nerve pathway this communication between brain and body is adversely affected. Every cell of the body depends on the nerve system for life.

When a spinal bone, via some type of force, becomes misaligned the holes between the vertebrae, where the nerve roots exit, become altered and this affects the delicate nerve root tissue. The body will attempt self correction using the small muscles that attach to the spine. If successful you resume normal function. If unsuccessful you have what is known in Spinology as a Spinal Occlusion. The tiny muscles attached to the occlusion will continue in their attempt at correction for years and decades.

Our childhood sees us take more knocks, falls and spills than we will have throughout our entire adulthood. This is when we first acquire spinal occlusions. Only after years of neglect and reduced function do we seek some sort of treatment and expect miraculous results lasting the rest of our lives. Spinologists aren’t interested in treating symptoms. They will explain how the body works, what happens to the body with spinal occlusions, and then begin the process of spinal maintenance.

A Spinologist is specifically trained to palpate or feel the spinal muscles and detect these muscle fibres that are pulling or working to realign this vertebra. When the spinal occlusion is detected a Spinologist will not be concerned with what specifically caused it, how long it has been present or what type of symptoms it may be causing. The body is failing at an attempt of self correction and the Spinologist will simply assist.

The Spinology Technique

The Spinology technique is non-manipulative. A manipulation is performed by a doctor or therapist to force a bone or joint into a position that the practitioner thinks it should be. A Spinologist will not claim to know where the bone needs to be, but will be certain that the wisdom of the body knows. The muscles attempting self correction simply need some assistance. Therefore, a Spinologist provides an assistive thrust to allow the muscles to realign the occlusion. Since this type of thrust causes no manipulations, Spinology, like yoga, is something that you can add to your life every day if you wish.

Since maintenance is the motto it isn’t crucial for the bone to move itself very far at all. The process will be repeated throughout the spine as often as one would visit a gym to stay fit. It is just so simple and logical that I nearly missed out on a wonderful profession. You see, since Spinologists are not doctors and I was at the time, my ego very nearly dismissed the profession as something beneath me. Now, I have clients that are doctors and when I explain Spinology to them they are as amazed as I was at the simplicity and effectiveness of regular spinal maintenance.

Spinology Currently…

I operate The SPINE Centre (www.thespinecentre.ie) in beautiful Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, and see hundreds of families from the community and surrounding areas. The European School of Spinology is preparing for the first intake of students to begin the two year part time training program to graduate as Certified Spinologists. Please go to www.spinology.org for more information on the school.

Spinology and Human Performance

The following is an excerpt written by the founder of the Spinology profession to attempt to explain the impact that maintaining the spine and nervous system has on humanity and the ability to express oneself at one’s fullest potential. Non-therapeutic spinal maintenance is simply common sense when you understand. Please read and re-read the following several times. Even today, while typing this, I noticed things I’d missed in the past. It is truly remarkable.

“The communication and control system (brain, spinal cord, nerves and chemical messengers) coordinate and run the entire human being. Damage to this control system must inevitably result in failure of the parts to interact properly. This, in turn, causes a lessening of the ability to express full potential in both tangible and intangible manifestations.

The magnitude of human potential will never be fully understood. It defies imagination, for imagination itself is but one small expression of the very potential it would seek to envision. Certainly, human potential is multifaceted. To even begin to appreciate it, one would have to consider such manifestations as:
• The ability to adapt to an ever-changing environment, agreed by most biologists to be the essence of life itself.
• The ability to convert food into walking, talking, flesh and blood.
• The ability to manufacture and balance, in perfect quantity and quality: insulin, cortisone, adrenalin, and every other hormone, enzyme and chemical needed for normal life.
• The ability to reproduce.
• The ability to resist and prevent disease.
• The ability to recover from disease and to repair injury.
• The ability to engage in creative thought and analysis.
• The ability to compose music, prose and poetry.
• The ability to draw, paint and sculpt.
• The ability to adapt to emotional stress an to develop appropriate emotional responses.
• The ability to remember some things while relegating others to the “inactive” file.
• The ability to maintain balance and to simultaneously coordinate a multitude of different muscular skills for work or play.
• The ability to study and learn.
• The ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
• The ability to solve problems and to organize.
• The ability to make decisions.
• The ability to love and trust.
• The ability to accept and respond to the spoken and unspoken needs of others and to share the responsibility for the shaping of our world.
• The ability to shut off conscious thought, to relax and meditate or sleep.

These are but a few of the tangible and intangible expressions of human potential. What a tragedy it is for any part of this potential to be unfulfilled.

In a society committed to specialization, we tend to lose sight of the fact that all of these potentials must interact together in harmony if any are to reach their full expression. The human being is not a collection of dis-related parts, but an integrated whole with each facet dependent on every other.

Spinologists are committed to unleashing full potential by maintaining the integrity of the body’s control and communication system.”

--Dr. Reginald R. Gold