The Bonner System of Structural Reprograming ®

Presents the Vance Stance ®

About The Vance Stance®

What
The Vance Stance® is the body/mind learning system developed more than 35 years ago by alignment pioneer Vance Bonner Ph.D. Structural Reprograming ® is of interest to a variety of disciplines including all athletes, teachers, dancers and those working in the traditional health fields. This process reeducates the body to achieve optimal alignment which corrects posture and increases flexibility. As a result, pain disappears.

Who
Vance Bonner Ph.D. originator of The Bonner System of Structural Reprograming ® is the author of The Vance Stance ® (Workman, 1993). She has been teaching her work of balanced alignment for more than 35 years. Her clients include Olympic athletes, professional sports teams, business corporations, and all those in pain. She has appeared nationally on many shows, including CBS This Morning.

The Primary Purpose
The primary purpose of Structural Reprograming ® is to activate the innate ability of the body/mind to work together for maximum efficiency and ease of movement. Alignment and carriage affect the working of the body. Stress, tension, pain and injury are the results of operating a body on "automatic" for too long. It may seem that we were designed to be dead by about age 30, the natural expiration date of the caveman. If we are to live to three times that, we must learn to tap the extraordinary power that is not unconscious in us - that of using gravity and balance, instead of automatically being at its mercy.

The Primary Purpose
People learn to stand and walk as they learn to talk and write - by imitation, trial and error. The 18-month-old wants to progress to do what he sees others doing - moving upright. The brain works by negative feedback. It tries different movements until it finds the one that "works" - so the child locks his knees and he's off. This thrusts his pelvis out behind for balance, shortening his spine, pushing his head forward in compensation. Unfortunately, this is how he will continue to walk, with little modification, except perhaps to try to "stand up straight" (by throwing his shoulders back or lifting his head from time to time), but to no avail. This early shortening of the lower spine is the crux of all later troubles: sway back; rounded shoulders; pronated (rolled in) ankles; bow legs; flat feet; loss of muscle tone in hips and thighs (resulting in fat) and jutting chin. The classic complaint protruding abdomen - is linked inexorably with improper use of the spine. From this automatic locked knee position, gravity has the upper hand. It can, and does push down on the spine, causing compression and strain. Eventually, the back will "go out," often after a seemingly harmless movement like tying one's shoes.

Who should learn The Vance Stance ®
Anyone suffering the pain of misalignment as evidenced by bunions, hammertoes, fallen arches, knock knees, bow legs, sciatic pain, low back pain, scoliosis, upper back or neck pain, round or frozen shoulders, tight neck, TMJ. Also anyone while not yet in pain seeing the day come that flexibility is not great and strength is beginning to wane.

What is the premise?
We are all standing in the way we learned as 2 year olds (with our knees locked and our pelvis tilted.) While this way of standing was helpful, it was never meant to last a lifetime. That our body is willing and able to accommodate to this wrong, original premise past the age of 25-35, is the wonder and the horror! We see the results of this accommodation in the conditions that we take for granted as a normal part of aging: poor posture, specific ailments, increased stiffness, weakness and escalating pain we have found to be caused by misalignment. Being on your feet incorrectly pulls your spine back out of the flow of gravity, preventing the spine from lifting effortlessly as it was intended, freeing the neck and head.

Postural Assessment
We will do a postural assessment identifying your particular individual unique way of standing out of gravity, possibly based on family patterns, or the results of accidents. We will check for asymmetry in the body. Is one hip higher, or one shoulder rounder forward more. We will then teach you the Vance Stance ® beginning at the feet and moving throughout your body, giving you specific new commands to use at each joint along your body. This will result in a straighter spine, unfettered by being in the wrong place in gravity, thereby allowing it to lengthen and decompress.

We will then do specific exercises to make the Vance Stance ® become less awkward, and more familiar. We will learn to sit, walk, and sleep in this new strange, yet wonderful way. Chronic conditions such as, sciatica, scoliosis, and the aftermath of accidents will be processed through.