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"Your feet are easy," Vance Bonner said to me, and I wondered
if she were insane. I'd only just met the woman who had created the
Vance Bonner System of Structural Reprograming ®,
and here she was pointing to the bone that jutted awkwardly at right angles
where it was supposed to be straight, saying, "this is only crooked because
somewhere else is crooked. We're going to change that somewhere else."
"Oh yeah?" I smirked. "Without surgery?" "Don't think of
surgery!" she pleaded. "It's totally symptomatic! It doesn't correct
the cause of the problem."
The cause of this problem in my case, Bonner said, was that I
lock me knees and have a weak, pro-nated foot (one that turns in, without
much of an arch). This position puts such strain on the big toe joint,
she said, that not only can't it do what it's supposed to do, but it had
to form a bump to protect the soft place hit by its awkward setup.
Of course, a 40-year problem of bone and flesh doesn't change with one session,
Bonner added. She warned me that correcting the problem will take
a significant change in my stance, along with exercises focused on the supporting
muscles in my foot and leg.
The idea of straightening bunions may seem magical to me, but
Bonner has tested her system with far more challenging problems. There
was a man with multiple sclerosis who'd spent six months at a Veterans Administration
hospital unable to walk, a skier who had had surgery twice on each knee
and was told he'd never ski again, and an Idaho farm woman who, when her
arm was reattached after a buzz saw accident, had lost the ability to crochet.
And then there was the 88-year-old in New York who said to Bonner, :you
must work on my boyfriend - he's 93 and starting to walk like an old man."
"More length is always the answer." states Bonner, whose system
of re-patterning is based on careful observation of the compensations our
remarkably adaptable bodies create in order to fulfill the tasks we give
them. You want to ski bowlegged? Okay, the body says, you can
do it - until years of deep bending, putting the thigh and the lower leg
at an unnatural angle, wears down the knee joint. It's likewise ineffective
to demand that someone "stand up straight!" if the body is hunched over
to keep itself from falling backwards due to an imbalanced pelvis, flat
feet, locked knees, or compression of the lower spine. "Gravity,"
Bonner points out, "has the upper hand."
The Bonner System of Structural Reprograming
® first spotlights the muscles and positions
that have been overused, then offers the body a "new range of options" by
using previously underused muscles. Bonner sprinkles her directions
with memorable images: "if you keep San Francisco and Sausalito lined up,
the Golden Gate Bridge has a chance to be a bridge," she says is reference
to my feeble attempt to form an arch. Referring to the ache I feel
in my legs as I try out a new stance, she says, "If you walked through a
train station for three hours holding a suitcase up, and finally put it
down, your arm would ache as you're letting go of the pain."
I've read the enthusiastic letters from hockey-team and figure-skating
coaches, from a trekking-company president in Sun Valley, Idaho, and a member
of a religious order in Albany, New York. I've heard Bonner's own
summation of her results: The man with M.S. walked after one session.
The skier needed 20 sessions before he was back on the slopes. In
three 20-minute group sessions, the farmer released what was preventing
her from making subtle finger movements, and resumed crocheting. After
five sessions, the old man loosened the tight ankles that were to blame
for his stooping spine and replaces his shuffle with a more youthful gait.
I'm, almost convinced.
Bonner says that if I "open the raccoon eyes" behind my pelvis
and "keep the pail of water from spilling" out of my waist, I may lose the
little paunch that spoils my figure. That does it. If any part
of me gets truly reprogrammed I'll be ahead. And what if I really
can stop hiding my feet!
Structural Reprograming ®appeals
to the innate desire of the body to be aligned, Bonner says. For those
of us who are neither athletes nor suffering from any affliction, it appeals
to something even more innate: vanity.
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