In January of 2013 a SUV crashed into the driver's side door of my car. Over the next two years I would undergo multiple surgeries and procedures followed by eight long post-op and recovery periods before relearning how to walk.

I was continually told by my surgeons that I had unreasonable and unrealistic expectations regarding my long-term prognosis. What almost everyone including my physicians, surgeons and physical therapists didn't understand was that I didn't believe, nor did I expect my surgeries, procedures, and PT to return my broken, twisted, disabled body to the way it was before the accident. I expected my surgeries and procedures to give me an opportunity to use my decades of martial arts training to regain my body's alignment.

When the body maintains alignment as it moves, it maintains balance and engages and strengthens the core muscles responsible for the body's upright posture, balance and stability.

I am a Black Belt in the martial arts styles of Kung Fu, Wushu and Escrima. In martial arts there is always a Plan. That Plan is what allows you to start as a White Belt and become a Black Belt. I understood the day I started relearning how to walk that it didn't matter how strong I once was or what I could do up until the day of the accident.  What mattered was how I was going to develop a plan that would start at the weakest point in my body and then rebuild my body's alignment.

 Inside the Dojo there is no such thing as a weak side and a strong side and every exercise is done on both sides of your body allowing you to generate stable, balanced, movement and motion that maintains your body's alignment and engages and strengthens your core muscles as you move.

Every exercise I did at home and at PT I did on both sides of my body and not just the injured side. Because of my martial arts and Qigong training I understood that the two sides of my body needed to be rehabbed together from the weakest point to regain the alignment of my twisted, damaged spine and leg.

I didn't have a weak side and a strong side like I was continuously told. I had an underloaded injured side and an overloaded side. My overloaded uninjured side was becoming weaker and weaker from being continuously overloaded and my underloaded injured side was stopping the two sides of my body from engaging my core muscles that could regain and maintain the alignment of my spine and my twisted leg.

To chart my progress I created a Movement and Motion Journal that helped me understand how to adapt the standing, walking, sitting and stretching rehab exercises that I created from my decades of martial arts training. The same Movement and Motion Journal that I created for myself I now teach to people who use The 3rd Foot Cane to chart their progress.

You can eat the best food and have the best healthcare, but If you walk with your head down looking towards your feet. Or you walk with your arm or arms extended away from your sides using a traditional cane, crutch, walking stick or walker to maintain balance, your spine will lose alignment and your step and stride will become too small to engage your core muscles that maintain your upright posture, balance and stability.

When you walk with your head up and your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you the way you drive a car or ride a bike your body will be more stable. Your balance will be better and your feet will be able to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage your core muscles that maintain the body's upright posture, balance and stability. You will become more upright and stronger with time because you're moving your body the way it was designed to be aligned and moved.

Try walking across the room with your head down and your line of sight towards your feet. Feel how the muscles around the top of your spine and shoulder blades that keep your head and shoulders upright stop engaging. Notice how your walking stride becomes smaller and that your weight is now distributed more on the front of your feet making you less stable.

Then keep your head up with your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you on the other side of the room and notice that your body is more stable. That your weight is more evenly distribute over your hip, knee and ankle joints and that the muscles around the top of your spine and shoulder blades start engaging. When your feet contact the ground from heel to toe with your head upright and your line of sight ahead of you towards the ground not only do you engage your core muscles you also have enough time to stop or step around anything that you might otherwise trip over causing you to fall.

Procedural memory is a form of muscle memory from which the neural pathways in our brain that make motor behavior automatic are formed. When movement is restricted, changed or altered for a continuous length of time without interruption the neural pathways that make motor behavior automatic are changed. To quote Dr. Davis, an orthopedic surgeon, "Use it or lose it." In other words, practice, good or bad makes permanent. You are the way you walk!

When my surgeon finished my leg surgery he made sure that my left leg was straight, aligned and the same length as my right leg. For the next three and a half months I used crutches with my left leg bent, locked in a brace with my foot off the ground non weight bearing. During that time the muscles between my hip and knee lengthened and the ones between my knee and foot shortened including my Achilles tendon. The crutches forced my head and neck to be aligned in front of the rest of my body. The top of the inside of my arms were positioned away from my sides and my shoulder blades were forced up and outward. My left leg and spine were misaligned, positioned and moved in ways they was never designed for.

When I started relearning how to walk without crutches on April 1st, of 2015, my left leg was bent, twisted and an inch longer than my right. My Achilles’ tendon had shortened from being off the ground for three and a half months and because of that my left heel didn't touch the ground when I stood or walked. I had a different length step, stride, and gait on each side of my body. Every step I took was painful and awkward. My head along with the top of my spine and shoulders were rotated forward. This was not a result of the car accident, but the result of the crutches that failed to keep my healing body upright, aligned and moving the way it was designed to be aligned and moved.

I developed drop foot from my foot being off the ground and from the nerve damage in my leg from the car accident. The front of my left foot didn't bend normally and there were places on the outside edge of my left foot that I couldn’t feel when I walked and when I was on the stairs.

Traditional mobility devices, canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers let you maintain balance. What they don't do is maintain your body's natural alignment or engage and strengthen your core muscles. The longer you use them the more bent over and disabled you become because you're forcing your body to be misaligned and moved in ways it was never designed for.

After all of my surgeries and procedures I would complain to my physician husband that the crutches, leg brace, arm slings and other mobility devices were bankrupting the opportunity that my surgeons had given me by forcing my healing body to be continuously misaligned, moved and positioned in ways it was never designed for. I would tell my husband almost nightly that traditional crutch feet made a poor foot substitute because they couldn't support or maintain balance, upright posture and the alignment of your body like a foot. That the crutches were creating injury and secondary physical disability with each step that I or anyone else took.

When I briefly used traditional canes and walking sticks after I started relearning how to walk, I would complain to my husband that we don't walk on our heels and we don't walk on our toes. That to maintain balance when using a cane or walking stick tip or tips you had to extend your arm away from your side misaligning your spine and causing your walking stride to become too small and too short for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage your core muscles. That no one had ever developed, maintained or regained an upright, stable heel to toe walking gait by continuously forcing their body to be misaligned and moved in the ways that traditional canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers force the body to be misaligned, moved and positioned.

 When I told my husband after I started walking that my surgeon had told me that I would never walk upright or normally again.  He asked me what I had said to him? I told him that I said,  I wasn't born walking and I wasn't born a Black Belt. My husband said you know more about human biomechanics and how the body needs to be aligned and moved then I do and I'm a physician. Stop complaining about the crutches, canes, walkers and walking sticks and use your knowledge of human biomechanics to build a new kind of mobility devices. Ones that move with the body on the outside of the leg with the arms next to sides and can maintain the body's natural alignment and stability when walking, turning, and stepping backward. That can help you and other people regain, maintain or develop an upright, stable walking gait

I walk upright with balance and stability and without a cane despite the prognosis I was given after my car accident. This is because of great surgeons,The 3rd Foot Cane that I invented and the rehab plan that I created from my martial arts and Qigong training. The 3rd Foot Cane allowed me and now thousands of other like me throughout the World to regain an upright, stable, heel to toe walking gait that maintains the body's alignment and engages the core muscles. Allowing the body to move the way it was designed to be aligned and moved when walking forward, backward and turning.

In 2021 I was included in Think and Zoom Future of Disability — Global list of Disabled Innovators for the cane, cane foot, crutch, walker and wheelchair that I invented and Patented.

I have been granted nine Patents for the mobility devices that I invented. This includes seven Utility Patents and two Design Patents in United States. As well as Patents in Canada and China The 3rd Foot Cane was chosen by The West Coast Consortium For Technology And Innovation as a 2020 Portfolio Member. 

Ardra Shepard included the 3rd Foot Cane to be part of her 2023 Mobility Aids 101: How To Cope, What To Get and to be part of her 2024 and 2021 Gift Guide for People With MS.

Kent Jones that_guy_with_ms, uses The 3rd Foot Cane and has a pair of the 3rd Foot forearm crutches. You can see his Customer videos on the Homepage of him using The 3rd Foot Cane and follow his progress after using The 3rd Foot Cane for over 2 years in the second video.