The importance of Center Line Theory and the Octagon (and the Responsibility to use them Wisely)

This past mid-April, on the advice of my youngest daughter, I began going to a chiropractor. The decision did not come easily, but I feared I was looking at plastic and steel reconstruction of my right knee and right hip, and so I thought it would be worth it to at least go in for a consult.

At the time, I was not convinced about chiropractic in general.  I used to tease my daughter and son in-law (and four grandchildren) that instead of going to the chiropractor, they should just go to their local car mechanic, as he was probably just as qualified to help them.

But I went in for the consult, and at the end of the first session (or adjustment as it is called) the Doc told me that he thought they could help me and that I would not need the new titanium and high-grade plastic knee.

So I signed up for 3 months of sessions. And here I am, nearly two months later, feeling great and out of pain.  I had been in pain every day for the last two years, but figured it was something I just had to live with. 

I’m old, been rode hard and put away wet, have 50 years of being punched, kicked, slammed down on mats, had my joints twisted, and while in the military and federal government service. Jumped out of way too many perfectly good airplanes.

The pain was usually at a level 8 on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst.

My neck, upper back, mid-back, and lower back are all out of alignment.  Badly so, as I am listed on the charts as being in position 3 out of 4 positions of wear and tear. The Doc was serious when he said there was actually a position 5 but I should hope I never see it. My left leg is shorter than my right, which causes my hips to be out of alignment as my right hip seeks to compensate for the difference in leg lengths.

Now I have an insert for each pair of shoes that I wear, and the hip pain is gone.  Totally gone.

My right knee has quite a bit of wear and tear, and there is bone missing.  It felt, most days, like someone was driving an ice-cold spike into my knee and then leaning on it.  That pain is also now completely gone, due to a technique called “soft-wave” therapy.

I don’t joke about chiropractic anymore, being the typical fanatic who has been converted.

But I watch the Docs every time I go in, working with people of all ages, babies up to really old folks, with every conceivable physical ailment, and how their knowledge of the human body is vast, far vaster than I ever gave them credit for. I also notice a tremendous compassion for each patient. The Docs know each of us by name, whether oldster or babies a couple of months old.

And then it struck me overwhelmingly (like a palm to the forehead), with all the misalignments they work with every day, these are the bread and butter of the martial arts as we teach Center-Line theory and the Octagon.

The Docs know I am a martial artist.  They often ask me questions about the arts or about some facet they have heard of and want clarification.  We have talked about misalignments and how they train to cure and heal what I train to damage. They don’t judge me on this, as I believe what I tell them reinforces what they have already learned. It gives them a different perspective into how things can happen to a person, sort of an inside view of the dynamics of Force equals mass times acceleration, for instance.

Every day I see people with damaged bodies come into the chiropractor (including me) and every day the Docs are working with Center-line Theory and the Octagon.  They work the opposite point of view, of course; that of healing the misalignments and the damage, and easing of pain.

But for me, no more theorizing about what happens when we as martial artists use Center-line Theory in our practice; I can see close up and personal the potential damage we can do.

And I am not saying we shouldn’t use these skills, after all, so much of what we train to be able to do, (while hoping we never have to), is to impact the human body at a level where the opponent doesn’t get to go home intact, and potentially doesn’t go home at all.

It’s a level of lethality that we cannot ignore in our practice.  Its why we take care not to injure our training partners; and why, at the very essence, we must be warriors who control the Ki of the universe for our own good and the good of others. While attaining the highest skill we possibly can in the arts, we must never forget the results of our use of the skills.

Bones shatter, spines shear, muscles tear, nerves are damaged and a hundred other areas of damage that stay with a person the rest of their lives, if their lives even go on.

Soke Jim Lloyd and Maestro Mike Mulconery have both said, often and with seriousness, that a martial artist must also be a scholar, and a true martial artist is one who can heal and not just damage.

These last two months have impressed those two life rules deeply within me.

It would be great to hear from anybody else who sees a chiropractor and how their treatments are working out.