American Bowen Academy

Welcome to The American Bowen Academy, the only internationally recognized organization in the U.S. that offers certification, provides standardized, high quality training, and supports current and future Bowenwork® practitioners.

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All Hat and No Cattle?

by Nancy Pierson

Some time ago, a nearby practitioner asked me to come by to consult as he was working on a client who had been complaining of deep lower abdominal tension and achiness.  

As I strolled down the driveway, I noticed a dusty, white, dually pick-up parked next to the house. As I approached the vehicle, I could see a saddle-bronc decal on the back window, and two bales of hay in the bed of the truck.

Hmmm:  This girl seems for real!

That impression was confirmed when I stepped into the house and saw her footwear:  scuffed-up, lace-up boots favored by cowgirls riding dressage under Western saddle.

The client was already supine.  The practitioner had tried all the usual suspects for abdominal issues, in this and in previous sessions, and was stumped.  A quick look at her feet showed me that her toes were turned in.

Can you imagine having a client complaining of abdominal issues, and you contacting an instructor or fellow practitioner and asking what else you could try for such issues?  Without expanding your field of observation, you can miss essential cues and quite likely fail to address the problem.

How do dressage riders need to “sit”?  With their heels under their seat, and keeping their legs close to the horse.  What muscle is most called into play for those actions?  Adductor magnus.

We address adductor magnus if we don’t give an anemic three-finger wall on low back 5a and 7a but instead press slowly and firmly:  slowly so that we do not cause the tissues to seize; firmly so that we stretch not only hamstrings but adductor magnus as well.  The hamstrings are part of the superficial back line of fascia; adductor magnus is part of the deep front line of fascia.  By putting in an effective three-finger wall, we are in essence giving a 3-D input into the body.

We also address adductor magnus when performing Hamstring move 1.  When we take lateral slack from the hamstring tendons, with the point of the elbow, there is that “magic place of rightness” between the hamstring tendons and the femur.  Sinking, sinking, sinking, slowly, we stretch adductor minimus and nearby fascia; keeping our depth as we move medially, we address not only the hamstrings but adductor magnus as well.

There is, however, a portion of adductor magnus that is left out when doing the three-finger wall and Hamstring 1:  the ischiocondylar portion – the portion most medial.  Fortunately, SP2 (modules 11/12) has a procedure, named Adductor Magnus, for that neglected relative.

Back to the supine client.  It was only by luck, or fate, that I was close enough to consult in person rather than over the phone.  For I’m not sure that the essential, defining details would have been communicated; neither would I have probably made inquiries that would have elicited that information. Suffice it to say that I did Adductor Magnus on her (yes, supine), which alleviated her abdominal discomfort.

The moral of the story is that there is no detail unimportant.  Use all your senses.  Intake forms can only take us so far.   Get stories:  stories of day-to-day life; of life lived yesterday, or in yester-years.  Sports: use your imagination to place yourself in the body of a particular sort of athlete to feel the stresses. Ask questions:  You rowed?  Sweep or sculling?  A client presents with pain in his anteriorly rotated left shoulder?  You talk, and find the sadness and fear held from a heart attack, which is being protected by the shoulder.

Take a moment to be quiet with yourself and see what inspiration wells up from your deep knowing. Trust yourself  and the work.  Tom Bowen asserted that we are not healers; yet kind words, a gentle smile, a listening heart, and appropriate touch can nudge the body toward self-healing.

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Bowen Testimonials:

submitted by Ronaele Thorpe

In 2012, my daughter Chandra had an ovary removed due to a large mass. Recently, she started feeling the same symptoms with her other ovary. She made eight or more trips a night to the bathroom, had hot flashes, and experienced tingling/pinching sensations in her ovary region. She was tired, depressed, and anxious - her emotions were on a constant roller-coaster.  At first, she resisted going to the doctor, hoping that it would go away on its own. However, another month went by and there was still no relief.  The doctor confirmed in December 2014 that it definitely was a cyst, with what looked like another mass building beside it. Her grandmother also had these tumors, which prevented her from becoming pregnant until she was 35, and the tumors continued to grow alongside the baby.

The doctor noted that it was not looking well, however he still wanted to wait another month to see if it would increase in size before doing surgery. (The other mass had started to rupture when the other ovary was removed.) Being in the first two Modules of Bowenwork I immediately did BRM's 1-3 as well as the kidney move. The kidney was hot above left side as well as slightly swollen on assessment.

When I did the moves, Chandra felt warmness throughout her back area and tingling down her legs. She was very relaxed, and said she'd love to stay in that 'state'. I continued to do the Bowenwork weekly. Her nightly trips to the bathroom diminished to once or twice a night. Her emotions seemed to level out, and the hot flashes left. She said that she no longer felt the tingling/pinching in the ovary region. 

On January 19, 2015 her follow-up confirmed the cyst and mass had shrunk down to 2cm. We both wanted to jump up and down with the great news! I'm confident that Bowenwork has intervened and saved this ovary and her emotional state!  We continue to do the Bowenwork weekly, and are hoping to completely eradicate anything that remains.  

She was scheduled for her last two years of nursing school just when she thought she'd have to have the ovary removed. Now she is in school full swing and a HAPPY Camper!!  

Kudos to the Power of Bowenwork!

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Bowenwork and Post-Concussion Syndrome

by Vicki Mechner, Bowenwork Academy USA Instructor

You can’t go far these days without hearing about sports-induced concussions. Frontline’s October 8 "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" documented the long-term risk of often-fatal chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) among NFL players suffering multiple concussions. The media continue to cover stories about concussions in many other sports, in athletes of both sexes and from elementary school through college as well as at the professional level. The emphasis so far has been on the need to prevent concussions, e.g., by designing better protective gear, changing the rules of the game, and changing the sports culture, which often leads players to hide injuries whenever possible.

  The recent report by the Institute for Medicine and National Research Council on sports-related concussions in youth called for the NIH and Department of Defense to “support research to establish objective, sensitive, and specific metrics and markers of concussion diagnosis, prognosis, and recovery in youth and to inform the creation of age-specific, evidence-based guidelines for the management of short- and long-term health consequences of concussion in youth.” According to the report, “there is little empirical evidence for the optimal degree and duration of physical rest needed to promote recovery or the best timing and approach for returning to full physical activity.”

  I italicized certain words in the two quotes above in order to emphasize the absence of awareness of any intervention that might resolve concussions more quickly than merely observing and “managing the consequences” until rest and inactivity would allow a natural recovery where possible.

  Long-time readers of Bowen Hands know that Bowenwork can lead to quick and lasting resolution, often in a single session! In the September 2005 issue of Bowen Hands, California practitioner Craig Mattimoe summarized the results of his Concussion Resolution Protocol in 33 consecutive cases of medically diagnosed sports-induced concussion over the previous nine years. (The males, aged 19 – 29, were concussed playing football, basketball or soccer; the females, aged 15 – 21, playing basketball or soccer.) 78% of the concussed athletes were independently medically cleared to play by their trainers or doctors within 72 hours of the single Bowen session they received.

  More recently, Bowen practitioner Marianne Beacon, of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, was featured in a November 2011 article by Stephen Stamp about her use of the same Concussion Resolution Protocol to facilitate the recovery of a promising lacrosse player who had suffered three concussions within two years. Interestingly, Marianne learned the concussion protocol from Jenna Howe, one of the very few practitioners who contacted Mattimoe after his article appeared in Bowen Hands.

  It took almost two years for that article to come to the attention of BAUSA instructor Sandra Gustafson. In the next annual meeting of our instructors (November 12 – 14 in Las Vegas), among the ways to improve our trainings and materials to be more supportive of students and practitioners, we will be discussing a new program that will harness the skills and talents of our practitioners to generate research worthy of publication in peer-reviewed journals, and to make sure that the news gets to those with a need to know.

  Replicating Mattimoe’s research on concussion resolution will be an easy first step. Many other projects will follow. And best of all, you will find it easy to participate in these efforts because integrating the simple research practices into your ongoing practice will not require much additional effort on your part.

  Stay tuned for more information.