Back in 1914 Dr. John Hurley was asked a pivotal question.

Back in 1914 Dr. John Hurley was asked a pivotal question. This question was to have implications for the way people approached health and wellness for the next 100 years.

John Hurley was a newly qualified chiropractor and was asked a question by Dr. Willard Carver, his tutor.

At that time chiropractors were looking for the “major subluxation”. Back then they believed that once this key misalignment happened, all the other misalignments were subsequent compensations for that first one. Willard Carver asked John Hurley what he thought was this major.

John Hurley had been a structural engineer earlier in his life and he thought that it might not be a misalignment but rather a deranged relationship between gravity and the ground reaction force. If these two forces didn’t balance each other in a static object, the object would collapse. Perhaps if these two forces didn’t balance each other in a dynamic structure, the structure would be forced to compensate to avoid collapse?

Over the next 15 years of experimentation, measurement and calculation he discovered two specific anatomical points which, if they were in a correct relationship to each other, allowed the constant pull of gravity to be perfectly balanced by the ground reaction force. This allowed the person to be upright with ease and poise and grace. We now call this the Primary Alignment.

If the Primary Alignment is lost then gravity is not balanced by the ground reaction force and the person then has to compensate to hold itself up against gravty.