In January of 2013 I was training for my 2nd Degree Black Belt in Wushu when 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, it maintains balance and engages and strengthens the core muscles as you move.

  I am a Black Belt in the martial arts styles of Kung Fu, WuShu and Escrima. My training is in applied human biomechanics. The study of motion, force, momentum, balance, and the internal and external forces of gravitation as it relates to movement and alignment.

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 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.

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 cane, crutch, walking stick or walker handle to maintain balance you will become more and more bent over with time because your head stops being aligned and centered over your body making it impossible to maintain the natural alignment of your spine or to engage the core muscles that maintain the body's 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 balance will better and you will become more upright and stronger with time because you're maintaining your body's alignment and engaging your core muscles.

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!

My surgeon made sure that my left leg was straight and the same length as my right leg when he finished my leg surgery. During the next three and a half months my left leg was bent, locked in a brace with my foot off the ground non weight bearing. The crutches continuously misaligned, positioned and forced my leg, spine and the rest of healing body to be misaligned and moved in ways it was never designed for. The muscles between my hip and knee lengthened and the ones between my knee and foot shortened including my Achilles tendon. 

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 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. Each step I took was painful and awkward. This was not a result of the car accident, but the result of the crutches that failed to keep my healing body 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.

I began a monthly movement and motion journal to chart my progress and to help me understand how to adapt the standing, walking, sitting and stretching rehab exercises that I created based on my martial arts and Qigong training.

Every exercise I did at home and at PT was done 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 for my body to regain stable movement, motion and 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 working together to connect my movement and motion and engage my core muscles that could regain and maintain my body's alignment.

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 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 to maintain balance on the cane or walking stick tip or tips you had to extend your arms away from your side 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 human biomechanics then I do and I'm a physician. You know how to build things. 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 the 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 and without a cane despite the prognosis I was given after my car accident. This is because of great surgeons and The 3rd Foot Cane that I invented. The 3rd Foot Cane allowed me and now thousands of other like me throughout the World to walk with confidence and 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.

The 3rd Foot Cane and Crutch foot are designed, proportioned and Patented in United States, Canada and China to maintain balance, stability and upright posture from the back to the front of the cane and crutch foot like a foot. No other cane or crutch tip, tips or rocker foot can do that. I based all my Patented mobility designs on the principles of Wolff's Law and Davis's Law.

The 3rd Foot Cane was chosen by The West Coast Consortium For Technology And Innovation as a 2020 Portfolio Member. 

In 2021 I was included in Think and Zoom Future of Disability — Global list of Disabled Innovators.

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.