Experiences with Bernie Falk Correspondence

Some Correspondence regarding Bernie Falk’s programs.

When I began writing about Bernie Falk’s methods, I wrote to several people, some of whom had experienced the work of Bernie Falk. I received several letters in return. I have excerpted a few of these letters. The letters offer another perspective of his work.

A KNEE PROBLEM:

The first letter is from Terry Harper. If you are a hockey enthusiast, you may recognize the name.

May 18, 1983

Dear Mr. Ledgard:

I am going to relate my story to you… It has always amazed me how the following chain of events happened and the coincidences that led to my meeting Bernie and discovering some of his secrets.

It began while I was playing professional hockey for the Detroit Red Wings. Early in the game I injured my left knee. I left the ice to be examined by an orthopedic surgeon. He diagnosed I had an injured left knee, felt it should be placed in a brace for the trip home, and said that I should see out orthopedic surgeon when I got home. I saw another orthopedic surgeon who said, “If you want to ever play or even walk without dragging your leg, you will need to have your medical collateral ligaments surgically repaired.” He scheduled the operation.

That night I happened to meet a couple of nurses who told me about Bernie. I called him and the next day started working for six hours continuously. We spent very little time working directly on the knee. He explained to me that although I was very strong and an excellent athlete, my great weakness in some muscles was hiding some weakness in others. The resulting imbalances were like a time bomb waiting to go off with devastating results.

I had an extremely strong build and looked like a perfectly trained specimen to the non-Bernie trained eyes. I was generally considered in the hockey world to be one of the best conditioned athletes playing at my profession. I have always been interested in athletic training and had been involved in research at the University of Montreal and the Ottawa National Fitness Center on training athletes. Through my research, I had discovered the benefits of stretching exercises and compared to most hockey players I was much more flexible and spent an average of 15 minutes a day stretching. Yet, I still was injured.

You can imagine my shock when Bernie told me I was, by the way I trained, actually masking my weakness and setting myself up for the type of injury I had just received where the overly developed muscles literally tear your body apart. Then he told me, we will have to relax the tight muscles first and strengthen the weak muscles second so that the body can heal itself.

The first two days we spent a great deal of time wearing out the strong ones. I would do an exercise till the muscles quivered with fatigue, and then he would do a deep penetrating massage. It hurt like mad, but we were undoing years of ignorance. Sometime the third day, he said “There, your muscles are finally relaxed now and the injury will heal itself. It’s as if it is in a natural cast.” My mighty quads, the envy of many a player, were like jelly. They literally flopped all over the place with the slightest touch.

The time spent with Bernie those three days were spent working on the whole body, and as you say in your book it is a holistic approach that he uses. He easily shows how a deficiency in one particular group of muscles can cause problems in another part of the body altogether. The human body is an amazing thing. It compensates for all sort of neglect, deficiencies, abnormalities, until something has to finally let go.

I felt it was time to tell the doctor I was not going to have the operation. I insisted he examine my leg again, he did it very gingerly for fear of hurting. When he finished, he said, “If this was the first time I was seeing your leg, I don’t think I would order an operation, but would like to wait a couple more weeks to see if it got any better.” He called the specialist and cancelled the operation at least till I got back from my trip to Vail.

Starting the next week, Bernie worked with me a couple of hours every day, back shoulders, hips, ankles, trying to relax other very tight muscle groups and built up weaknesses. We skipped, crawled, bunny hopped, walked the balance beam, wore a patch on one eye, worked on eyes, feet, I think every part of my body except the ear lobes and maybe even them without me knowing it.

Thursday of this following week, we left for Vail. I couldn’t believe how good I felt! I was skiing better than I had ever before and spent the next seven days skiing hard from opening to closing.

Upon our return to Detroit, I went directly to Bernie and never did go back to the orthopedic specialist. I spent most of the summer seeing him regularly doing thousands of repetitions of many of the same exercises you talk of in your book. I believe directly because of what Bernie accomplished I was able to play another three years and in fact I could still play easily if I still felt like playing.

I am thrilled you chose to write this book, it is something I felt was needed yet didn’t feel capable of doing myself. My big hope is that your book will, through its spread of knowledge, lead some bright young people to come study under him so more of mankind can learn how to correct our deficiencies. We, as you and I and a few others have learned, do not have to go through life hopelessly accepting pain and immobility of our bodies.

Sincerely, Terry Harper

Terry Harper’s letter certainly highlights one of the cornerstones of Bernie Falk’s views. What does it mean to be strong? A weakness in movement, if undetected, will ultimately surface and shape one’s life.

His letter also touches the issue of orthopedics, a valuable part of the medical profession. The orientation of orthopedics is toward the skeletal system, looking for structural problems, signs of degeneration, and other signs of weakness. Elaborate medical tests may be used to isolate pinched nerves, slipped disks, and abnormal structures. This is important, for it helps explain why some individuals are much more likely to experience pain. For me, standard exercises, medication, and bed rest were prescribed. In the end, I simply learned to avoid movements that directly led to pain. The detailed movement patterns, which I was doing every minute of the day, were not deeply recognized.

Looking back, it is easy to say that my back hurt because the curvature of my spine was not correct. That is certainly true. Or that the arthritis-like pain in my hands was caused by deterioration of my joints. But is it really just a matter of growing older? Must pain just be accepted? Is one’s life permanently curtailed?

HIP DISLOCATION:

The next letter brings up areas that are not at all discussed in this work. I include them for they suggest the scope of Bernie Falk’s knowledge and the general importance of movement and movement-directed exercise.

Dear Mr. Ledgard:

I can’t tell you how delighted I was that someone is finally writing about Bernie and his methods.

Bernie has assisted me and my family and friends with our problems. I would like to tell you briefly, what happened with out granddaughter.

Sara was born with a partial hip dislocation. When she was two months old, the pediatrician insisted she be x-rayed for the tightness in her hips. After five pelvic x-rays, it was determined that she had a partial dislocation. The doctor insisted that she be taken to a orthopedic surgeon and that he would cast both legs from hip to ankle with a bar in between to keep her legs spread angled for at least six weeks.

We said that we wanted to take her to Bernie first and if he couldn’t help, we’d consult the surgeon. After a very heated discussion, we went to Bernie. The doctor assured us that he couldn’t help and was a ‘quack’ if he said that he could.

To make a long story short, Bernie gave my daughter simple exercises to do every time she changed Sara’s diaper. She is now 19 months old and running around. She is not crippled like the doctor said she would be, she does not have a limp, nor uneven hips like he said she would.

I would like to see a section on movement for newborns. I think it’s extremely important. I would like to see illustrations showing these simple rolling and stretching exercises, as well.

Let’s start out kids the right way.

Sincerely, Barb Campbell

TENNIX ELBOW, BACK PROBLEM:

The following letter reminds me of my own case…

January 5, 1983

Dear Mr. Ledgard:

I really enjoyed your book and the way you present things. The most important teaching I have absorbed from Bernie is that pain usually indicates a need for more movement. My prior experience with doctors was like yours, an admonition to stop movement in order to relieve pain. I had a double fusion of lower back vertebrae years before I met Bernie and for back pain I had been taught to go to bed and rest. He taught me to use pain as a signal to start movement because I was getting cramped up from too few movements.

He helped me to get rid of tennis elbow by doing push-offs from the rail of the trampoline with hands pointed toward each other. He often stressed that pain was due to stress on muscles that weren’t strong enough for the job they were doing.

It is important to convince people that pain is not something to fear and avoid but useful information. Often the way through pain is to start using the body more, rather than less. I used to feel pain was an indication that I could be damaging myself instead of an indication of under use.

Sincerely, June Agarwal

FATIGUE, VIRUS HEPATITIS:

The next letter shows the wonderful variety of cases Falk has handled successfully.

January 20, 1983

Dear Mr. Ledgard:

My experience with Bernie was to me a miracle. One day in June, several years ago, I (40 years of age), became ill with Virus Hepatitis. While I did not require hospitalization, I spent almost six months in bed.

The hepatitis had cleared long before the end of the first six months but I still suffered great fatigue, the main symptom of hepatitis. After another year of barely being able to get around and seeing a number of doctors, etc., I found Bernie. By the time I found Bernie, I had developed lower back pain that the doctors called arthritis. The quality of living was quite low.

Bernie recognized that my body had atrophied and the neurological system had learned fatigues. The first session turned the entire condition around. I learned how to avoid the fatigue and control my back pain.

Today I live a life of high quality with energy and no pain. I do not believe my story to be unusual for Bernie. During the time I spent going to see Bernie I witnesses one miracle after another, including my wife who had been directed to wear orthopedic shoes and now regular street shoes.

Sincerely, Robert R. Tyler

LEARNING DISABILITIES:

Bernie Falk has worked with many children and in many ways vastly different from others. Children relate better to movement than words. This is an early letter from Falk’s files.

Dear …:

This letter is in regards to the exercise therapy studio operated by Bernard Falk at 14940 Kercheval.

Like a lunar-bound rocket which slowly, almost imperceptibly, rises from the launching pad and then begins its swift ascent, the benefits to Scott, both direct and indirect, were hardly noticeable on the first visit. Each subsequent visit, however, has resulted in a vaster amount of apparent progress than the preceding one.

The benefits are an intangible but yet very real product; i.e. confidence. Mr. Falk’s program has not created a star athlete; nor was it even intended to do so. The exercise program, however, has given Scott greater confidence in his athletic prowess, thereby increasing the willingness and desire to learn on an academic level. The latter, in turn, along with Scott’s increased sense of co-ordination, in definitely increasing his ability to learn at an accelerating pace. This makes him more willing to try other ventures, academic and athletic. A cycle has this been set in motion which must inevitably reduce, if not entirely eliminate, the perceptual problem, thereby leading to a more adjusted and consequently a happier younger adult.

Success has begotten success.

Mr. Falk’s exercise program, therefore, must be considered an indispensable component of the professional team helping Scott. Incorporating this program in the Gross Pointe public schools would benefit the huge portion of children who do have various learning disabilities.

ASTHMA:

The next letter shows, again, how specialized exercises, based on movement deficiencies, can turn a problem around.

Dear Henry,

It seems totally inadequate to just say ‘thank you’, but it is the best things I can say. Thank you very, very much, from the bottom of my heart.

Tim is so relaxed and happy; the change in him is unbelievable. At the moment, anyway, he has lost the tense, irritable and snappy way he has been, particularly being so ill the last year. He has not mentioned his inhaler at all, and certainly has not used it, or made a big fuss about having it close by him, as he has done for the past year, in spite of my efforts and his doctor’s efforts to wean him away from it.

Tim is very enthusiastic about doing his exercises; he says that he will go and do them when he is ready, which I think is how you want his attitude to them to be. I will not pressure him at all, just encourage if I feel it necessary, as you have done. Tim has shown me the proper way to walk, and breathe, and is also very enthusiastic about his food, and eating so much better. It is just marvelous. He has so much self-enthusiasm and appreciation and respect for you, that I am sure he will never look back again. I can honestly say, that I never expected to see Tim so relaxed and happy again, after all the problems over this last year.

Love from Margaret

BACK PROBLEM:

This next letter was written before I met Bernie Falk.

October 6, 1977

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been under the care of Mr. Bernie Falk since July, 1976, when I went to him for treatment of severe lower back pain, on the recommendation of Dr. Edith Sterba of Grosse Pointe. At the time, I had been partially immobilized in a ‘chair-back’ brace for six years, on the advice of an orthopedist who had diagnosed my condition as a ‘damaged lumbarasacral disc’ aggravated by a congenital spinal curvature.

Mr.Falk, after careful study of my condition, began a series of exercises designed to re-strengthen my entire musculature, especially the lower back, which had become severely spastic from the brace. Within three months, I was able to remove the brace, proceed to an orthopedic corset, and be relieved from that several months later. There has been continuous and considerable improvement since then.

Presently, I am able to walk and sit for long periods without pain, and wear no back support whatever at any time. Despite various medical opinions to the contrary, due to Mr. Falk’s knowledge of musculature, his innate talent for treating each symptom systematically through exercise and developing physical and psychological stamina, and his genuine concern for his patients’ care, I am able to foresee a return to a normally active life. Without this treatment, I could well have remained semi-infirm for life.

Sincerely yours, Eleanor Lipkin Schwarz

DEDICATION:

The next letter is from Dr. Nowak, a chiropractor whom I saw many times, often in duress.

Very good Henry!

If this book will get people to think about the way they move, it will be a blessing. The only problem with the human being, is laziness, and lack of dedication. You had a chronic problem and wanted help. I’m afraid that the average person will not be as dedicated unless they are sick and tired of pain.

God Bless, Edward Nowak, D.C.

Dr. Nowak brings up a good point. It may take a deep level of pain before one will consider a change. To miss so much of what life can be like is, indeed, unfortunate.

Falk’s Methods:

Dr. Grinstein’s letter is next. It, more than any other suggests the limitations of any book about Falk’s methods.

December 16, 1982

Dear Mr. Ledgard:

I think it is a fine idea for someone like yourself to spell out in detail Bernie Falk’s exercises that are helpful in achieving a body that permits a good deal of relaxed and healthy physical enjoyment.

The task you set for yourself is indeed a very difficult one. Bernie Falk’s teachings and methods are complicated. They involve the training and improvement of the ‘normal body’ and the ‘cure’ of the body that is not functioning normally from a musculo-skeletal standpoint. While the two goals are interrelated, they obviously involve different techniques.

Your manuscript leans heavily on a description of various exercises. In many instances, the success which Falk achieves goes far beyond the sheer mechanics of the specific exercises that he uses. While you describe certain ‘standard’ ones, the actual number of variations and changes he uses from one time to the next are virtually unlimited. Working with him from week to week for more than twenty-five years, we have been continually impressed by his ability to observe changes in one’s body that require different exercises. Strengthening of one set of muscles brings out the weaknesses in another set, which he then immediately corrects by devising other appropriate exercises. Moreover, in some instances, strengthening of certain muscles brings out a loss of flexibility which must be compensated for by various types of stretching exercises.

Falk is a genius for getting an idea across in simple terms, making it possible for the individual to grasp what is really a complicated concept and to utilize it to the best advantage.

With regard to the whole area of pain and malfunctioning, which results from muscle spasm and imbalance, and the specific problems that led you to Falk, his therapeutic efforts are much more complex than your description would imply.

Your description of the exercises and programs that Falk prescribed for you is very impressive. They were, of course, specifically tailored to your particular problems. In this respect, I do feel that your presentation may be somewhat misleading. From my experience, Falk does not deal with pain with exercise alone. He definitely uses other things in his armamentarium, including massage, passive exercise and stretching the various muscles, none of which you describe. In addition to these, he has the uncanny ability to isolate those muscles that the individual can use without any pain and then gradually move to those which involve pain.

In addition to Falk’s ability to alleviate pathological functioning and pain in the musculo-skeletal system, Falk’s various techniques for education help the individual learn the fundamentals that enable him to pursue those sports or activities that he would enjoy. His ability to analyze the source of some muscular inhibitions and his ability to impart an understanding of the relationship between the individual’s conception of his body and the world around him are some of Falk’s fantastic skills. His ability to identify children who have reading disturbances on the basis of their ability to do the ‘puppy race’ is certainly most impressive.

Sincerely yours, Alexander Grinstein, M.D.

Let me say this…

Words can never be a substitute for feeling. Bernie Falk’s views of movement can only be understood by practice. To understand how one actually does move, to feel the shoulders relax, to know when the back is light, to have energy, these cannot merely be talked about. They must be experienced.

Moreover, learning any important idea almost requires a teacher. I had many difficult moments in my recovery. We all need gifted teachers.

By Henry Ledgard

Based on the work of BERNIE FALK.

The Author:

Henry Ledgard holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT. He has previously published several books on computers, with Addison-Wesley, Vintage/Random House, Springer Verlag, and SRA. Read More about Henry Ledgard…