You can maintain balance without maintaining alignment, but you can't maintain alignment without maintaining balance and engaging and strengthening your core muscles as you walk. 

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 human movement and motion. I am a Martial Artist. A Black Belt in the martial arts styles of Kung Fu, WuShu and Escrima.  I began my martial arts and Qigong training in my twenties with Sifu K and Master Wong and my Defendo training with Bill Underwood at the age of twelve. In January of 2013, I was training for my Second-Degree Black Belt in WuShu.

On the 15th of January of 2013 an SUV crashed into the driver's side door of my car. Over the next two years I would undergo eight long post-op and recovery periods before relearning how to walk.

I was continually told 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, procedures, and physical therapy to give me an opportunity to use my training to rebuild the physical foundation needed to take advantage of the opportunity that my surgeons had given me.

The arm slings, crutches, leg brace, walker, walking canes and walking sticks that I used after my surgeries and procedures to maintain my balance forced my healing body to be continuously misaligned, moved and positioned in ways it was never designed for bankrupting the opportunity my surgeons had given me and causing secondary disability unrelated to the car accident.

Inside the Dojo you learn to build and maintain a physical foundation starting from the weakest point in your body to become a Black Belt. 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. 

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 use my training and develop a Rehab Plan that would let me rebuild a strong enough physical foundation to regain my body's alignment.

The expression, "No pain, no gain" is never used in martial arts. If you have pain when executing movement or if your movement and motion doesn't flow and connect, you break whatever you're doing down into smaller parts or to the weakest point and build it back up until you can do whatever you're trying to do without pain and with speed and precession that flows and connects to and through the midline of your body. 

I created a four-year Rehab Plan and the 3rd Foot Cane to help me reach my unreasonable and unrealistic expectations regarding my long-term prognosis. I began my Rehab Plan with a Movement and Motion Map. I started it by mapping the motion and connection points in a body that was in postural alignment using a skeletal diagram. Then I mapped the movement and motion points in my own broken, twisted, disabled body on another skeletal diagram. Next, I overlaid my map on top of the map of the body that was in postural alignment. I did that to give myself a starting point and point of reference to work from.

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

Every exercise I did at home and even at PT was done on both sides of my body and not just the injured side. Because of my training inside the Dojo, I understood the difference between movement and motion and that the two sides of my body needed to be rehabbed together from the weakest point for my body to regain alignment. I didn't have a weak side and a strong side. 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 as I walked.

In martial arts, dance, and most competitive sports your body needs to maintain alignment for the quality of the quantity of what you practice to keep improving, and for you to progress. You practice something until you think you know it, then you keep practicing until it knows you. When what you're practicing flows out of you without thinking you've developed procedural memory that is automatic and can connect your movement, motion and alignment and put flow in your go. 

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 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.

You can practice spelling a word the wrong way over and over and your spelling will never improve. The same thing is true of using a mobility device that maintains the body's balance, but doesn't maintain the body's alignment.

Walking is a skill and like any skill it needs to be maintained as you age and regained after an injury. To quote the late, Great, Frank Robinson, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." 

Older people who do Qigong, Thai Chi, martial arts, Ballroom Dancing, Yoga maintain and generate stable, balanced upright, movement and momentum well into old age if not throughout their entire lives and regain it after an injury. It's not the few hours a week that they practice that allows them to do that, it’s the way they think about and execute movement all day every day. One only needs to watch the YouTube video below of 99-year-old Englishwoman Dinkie Flowers to see an example. 

https://youtu.be/v60FkXqHcQY?si=rUUbtzKNwEU42O4i

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, braced with my foot off the ground non weight bearing. The crutches continuously misaligned, positioned and moved my leg and the rest of healing body in ways it was never designed for to regain or maintain my body's alignment. The muscles between my hip and knee lengthened and the ones between my knee and foot shortened including my Achilles tendon. 

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, but because my Achilles’ tendon had shortened from being off the ground for three and a half months 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. 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. 

Mobility impacts the way we see the world and the way the world sees us at every age. Mobility can only be developed, maintained or regained at any age by keeping the body upright, aligned and moving the way it was designed to be aligned and moved. 

When you walk with your head upright, aligned and centered over your shoulders, with your underarms next to your side as you walk and your line of sight towards the ground in the direction you're moving the way you drive your car. You'll see everything in your path and have enough time to avoid, walk around or to stop walking. You'll reduce your risk of falling and have a larger visual field, faster cognitive processing speed and increase your body's balance and stability. Your walking stride will be more stable because it will be long enough for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage your core muscles with each step you take. The arm on one side of your body and the leg on the other side will be able to swing forward and backward together with your palm facing your thigh when walking helping maintain or regain the natural alignment and curvature of your spine.

Overtime you'll become stronger and more upright because you're aligning and moving your body the way it was designed to move to maintain or regain alignment and engage all your core muscles. Core muscles are not just your abs. They include your chest muscles and the muscles between your neck and waist and in between your shoulder blades that maintain the alignment and natural curvature of your spine, your head upright, aligned and centered over your shoulders, and the length of your walking stride when you walk.

The only time you should look down at the ground in front of your feet when walking is when you're on the stairs, in the dark, a wet or slippery surface, making a transition from one surface height to another, or stepping over or around something in your path. 

If you walk looking down at the ground in front of your feet or leaning forward or bent to one side using a cane, crutch or walking stick handle or handles to maintain balance you do so at the expense of your body's alignment and the strength of all your core muscles.

When you extend your underarm and the top of the inside of your arm or arms away from your side when walking and use a cane, crutch or walking stick handle to maintain balance your head stops being aligned and centered over your body and becomes positioned towards one side or forward in front of the rest of your body. You have more weight on one side of your body than the other and your spine loses its natural curvature and alignment. You must shorten the length of your step, stride, and gait to maintain balance or you'll fall forward, and your feet stop contacting the ground from heel to toe. Your line of sight like your head is drawn downward in front of your feet.   Your body becomes less stable, and your core muscles become weaker. Your hip, knee and ankle joints are designed to work together in pairs to evenly balance, load and unload the weight of your body over and on your feet. Allowing you to maintain a long enough walking stride for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage every single core muscle in your body. 

If you use 2 walking sticks to maintain balance your hands and elbows are positioned higher than your waist as you walk. Your wrists and hands stop swinging forward and backward behind your body helping maintain the alignment and natural curvature of your spine. The top of your shoulders are driven upward towards your ears putting stress on the muscles at the top of your spine, the front of your chest and around your shoulder blades.

After my hamstring surgery I would complain to my physician husband almost daily that my crutches and other mobility devices were bankrupting the opportunity that my surgeons had given me by forcing my healing body to be continuously misaligned and moved in ways it was never designed for to maintain balance. I would tell my husband almost nightly how your underarms and the top of the inside of your arms were not designed to be extended away from your body when walking without creating injury and disability. That crutch and cane feet didn’t have the same proportions as the foot and because of that they didn't make a good foot substitute and couldn't support or maintain upright posture, stability and the body's alignment with the head aligned and centered over the body. That the crutches were creating injury and secondary physical disability unrelated to my car accident with each step I took by forcing my arms and head to be moved and positioned in front of the rest of my body when I walked to maintain balance

When I briefly used traditional canes and walking sticks after I started relearning how to walk, I would complain to my husband that traditional cane and walking stick feet make a poor foot substitute. That you can't extend your underarm or the top of your arm away from your body when walking and lean forward or to one side onto a crutch handle, cane handle or walking stick handle to maintain balance without creating physical injury and disability throughout your entire body. That no one had ever developed, maintained or regained physical ability or an upright, stable 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 aligned, moved and positioned to maintain balance.

 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've modified and rebuilt almost every mobility device that you've used the last two years. 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 can maintain the body's alignment and stability. That can keep people upright and stable as they walk and help you and other people regain, maintain or develop an upright, stable walking gait that keeps the body aligned as designed.

I started creating the 3rd Foot Cane and The 3rd Foot Crutch by visualizing how to move an injured or disabled body using a cane or crutch foot that could act as a foot substitute. That had the same proportions as a human foot and would maintain the body's balance without extending the arm or arms and using a cane, crutch or walking stick handle to maintain the body's balance keeping weight off the wrist and shoulder. That would move and maintain the body's balance, stability, upright posture and alignment like the foot. That had an angled cane or crutch shaft that moved on the outside of the leg and maintained the same angle as the leg when walking forward, backward, turning with the arm or arms next to the body supporting the body's natural alignment. That kept the head upright and maintained the body's vertical stability and natural alignment without extending the arm or arms and using a cane, crutch or walking stick handle to maintain balance.

The theory behind traditional canes, crutches and walking sticks or canes with a shaft that is curved at the top or that swings is that you use your arm or arms to extended your body's base of support and use a cane, crutch or walking stick handle to maintain balance. The only problem with that theory is that your arms are not designed to extend your body's base of support and carry your body's weight to maintain balance your feet are. A traditional cane, crutch and walking stick tip or 3 or 4 tips or ones with a handle that maintains the body's balance make a poor foot substitute. Because of the way they force the body to be continuously misaligned and moved when walking you're unable to maintain or regain your body's natural alignment or an upright heel to toe walking gait that engages and strengthen the core muscles responsible for the body's upright posture, balance and stability.

After I built the 3rd foot Cane I would use 2 of them for fifteen minutes inside my house to walk forward, backwards and turn every day. I did that to help my left foot relearn how to walk from heel to toe when walking forward and from toe to heel when walking backward to help my body relearn how to walk and turn keep my head upright, my spine aligned and my body stable .

I grew stronger and more upright month after month and year after year. I was able to reverse the kyphosis that I had developed from using crutches. After the first year I redeveloped feeling along the outside edge of my foot with drop foot caused by the nerve damage done to my leg in the car accident. My toes stopped rolling under and became able to bend normally again because of my daily foot exercises using the cane foot together with my foot and my walking became less awkward. I kept adapting my rehab plan and my core strengthening exercises and stretches which allowed my broken, twisted disabled body to slowly become upright and less painful. After the first year I was able to regain a more balanced step, and a long enough walking stride to keep my body upright and stable when walking forward, backward and turning without the cane. I stopped having pain in my spine and in the muscles in my left leg because the cane that I invented maintained my body's natural alignment and supported my entire foot from heel to toe with my arm next to my side and my head upright, aligned and centered over my shoulders as I walked.

The series of standing heel to toe foot exercises using The 3rd Foot Cane foot together with my foot that I created and the series of sitting and standing exercises and the slow stretches that engage and strengthen the core muscles between the neck and waist and in between the shoulders I now teach to people who use The 3rd Foot Cane throughout the world.

My left leg, hip and foot are straight and aligned as designed again. My legs are the same length. My step and stride on both sides of my body are balanced and both my feet contact the ground from heel to toe engaging my core muscles with each step I take. I no longer have drop foot in my left foot because my cane foot and the series of slow foot stretches and exercises using the cane foot together with my foot helped gently stretch and lengthen my Achilles tendon and the muscles between my mid-foot and toes. Allowing the front of my foot and my toes to stretch and bend normally again when I walked and turned, sat down and stood up.. I have one-hundred percent of my former range and mobility in my left arm and shoulder. I don't have pain in my spine or in my shoulder and I have redeveloped a balanced, upright, stable walking gait as I walk.

I walk normally today and without a cane despite the prognosis I was given after my car accident because of great surgeons and the 3rd Foot Cane that I invented, used, and patented that allowed me and now thousands of other like me to regain an upright, stable, heel to toe walking gait that maintains the body's alignment and allows the body to move the way it was designed to be aligned and moved when walking.

The cane that I invented is now being sold Worldwide. The Aligned As Designed Patented fabric topped 3rd Foot Crutch will start being available to purchase later in the fall of 2023.

In 2020 The West Coast Consortium For Technology And Innovation chose the 3rd Foot Cane as a Portfolio Member.

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

Kent Jones that_guy_with_ms, uses The 3rd Foot Cane. 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.

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

In January and February of 2019, I received my first two United States Utility patents, and in April 2020 I received my first US Design patent on my cane and crutch foot. My Walker/Rollator patent was issued on November 12, 2019. My US Crutch Utility Patent was issued on June 1st of 2021. My Canadian Cane Utility Patent was issued on November 3rd, of 2020. My China Utility Cane Patent was issued in 2022. I have more patents and trademarks and others pending in the United States and abroad and additional improved mobility items being developed and waiting to be Patented that keep the body upright, stable and Aligned as Designed.