Robert, I was quite interested in reading your reply1 to my article, “The Backbone of Structural Integration, which contained criticisms of tour article, “Lecture Notes on 1’soas and Adductors.”‘ However, since you apparently missed the stain point of any criticisms, I find it necessary to reply In your reply.

You began your reply with the statement, “Amazing how much a little tangential footnote can trigger.” Unfortunately, this sentence is quite misleading. The problem I discuss in my article is not just about a tangential footnote. It is mainly about your discussion of scoliosis and vertebral rotation which appears in the body of your article, under the heading “lliopsoas In Relation to Scoliosis and Pelvic Torsion.” I offered two specific criticisms for your consideration. One had to do with the fact that you misquoted your source. The other more important point was the following: “By nut following the convention laid down by the osteopaths about how to describe rotation, Schleip thinks that he has described the opposite of what Freyette’s first law says when hi tact he is describing the very same situation.” I agree with and applaud your attempt to ground our work in science. Bill before we: an decide what kind of ground we are walking on, whether solid or sandy ((o use your metaphor), we must properly understand the terms of our discussion. As far as I can see, these terns still remain problematic in your reply. Also, I do not believe you adequately address my second criticism, which really has nothing to do with a tangential footnote.

My criticisms also have nothing; to do with the question of how well accepted Freyetti’s laws are. But the content of your reply makes it look as though you thought an important part of the Focus of my criticism was also about whether Frevette’s second law was generally accepted. But Ibis was never my point. I even said, “I am not suggesting there are no problems un learning how to use Frevette’s laws in a clinical setting or that they are true in all cases.” Not only that, I also quoted an osteopath who said that both laws were not generally accepted. If acceptability were the issue, I would have offered arguments against this view. Clearly there are no arguments to that effect in my article. Hence my point cannot be about whether or not Freyette’s laws are generally accepted. Your understanding of scoliosis and rotation m relation to Freyette’s laws coupled with a misquoted source is what I focused my criticism on, not whether these laws are generally accepted. Thus, your discussion in “Walking” of whether Frevette’s laws art, generally accepted is not relevant to the points at issue.

It is true That I mentioned the issue of whether these laws were generally accepted in my article. One reason for drawing attention to this issue was to shiny that the author of your source did not soy what you claimed he said. The only st0rte on which you based your claret that Frevette’s second law was not generally accepted was an article by Dr. Fred Mitchell, Jr. a well known osteopath. Mitchell did not say that the second line was not generally accepted, as you claimed. He said he’ll laws were not generally, accepted I his point was admittedly a small one. But I think you would agree that it is important to get our sources right specially in a journal article where we are using other authors to support our conclusions.

The other reason for drawing attention to this misquotation had to do with the tact that I was concerned that your remarks were “inaccurate in a stay that could support unwarranted conclusions about the usefulness of Frevette’s laws and our understanding of scoliosis.” I was pleased to learn from your reply that you agree that Frevette’s laws are useful, even though they are not generally accepted. But please understand, I did not mean to imply that you drew this gratuitous conclusion and were therefore critical of our use of Frevette’s laws in our advanced classes. I am sorry if my words misled you in this way. In the first draft of my article, I said, “I am not suggesting that Schleip wanted to surreptitiously undermine the wisdom of what we teach. My primary concern is that the wrong conclusion might be drawn from an improperly quoted source.” Unfortunately, the editors of Rolf Lines removed the first sentence of this quotation from my article.

Since you missed the point of my second criticism, let tile return to it and give a mart’ detailed account. Here is what you said in “Lecture Note.” (in the body if the text. not in a tangential footnote): “In terms of side-bending one would then suspect the lumbar spine to side bend toward the side of the shorter psoas In terms of rotation one would suspect I the psoas fibers attaching at the lateral sides of the vertebrae to rotate this side more anteriorly, which would result in a general rotation of those vertebrae away from the side of the short psoas. Yet, according to the generally accepted Frevette’s First Law the Iumbar vertebrae tend to rotate as a group in the opposite direction i.e, with their vertebral bodies toward the side of their convexity. This rotation is also how just about all scoliosis spines appear in X-rays.” The first sentence says that one would expect the lumbar spine to side bend toward the shorter psoas. Since you never contradict that expectation anywhere in your article, the only reasonable conclusion one could draw is that you indeed believe side bending occurs toward the side of the shorter psoas. Thus, your words support the following assertion: if the right psoas, is short, the lumbar spine is right side bend. You do not say or ever even come close to suggesting that the lumbar spine side bends away from the short psoas. Accordingly, you words do not support or imply the following assertion: if the left psoas is short, the lumbar spine is right sidebent.

Now, according to Frevette’s first law, side bending and rotation are oppositely coupled. Thus, if the lumbar spine is right side bent, the anterior faces of the vertebrae are left rotated. But you say in “Lecture Notes” that this expectation is not met. You say that the vertebrae rotate oppositely from what Frevette’s first law predicts. You give no explanation for why you take this position in Lecture Notes.” You only say that you do.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear the first time around, so let me belabor some details. You say, “one would suspect the psoas fibers attaching to the lateral sides of the vertebrae to rotate this side more anteriorly, which would result in a general rotation of those vertebrae away from the side of the short psoas.” All by itself the phrase “away trout the side of the short psoas” is not specific enough Io accurately describe the direction of rotation. But the context strongly indicates you are making the sans point in different words, namely, dial the lateral sides of the vertebrae are rotating anteriorly. Given that Lecture Notes” says that the lumbar spine side bends to the side of the short psoas, we can translate your statement Into the example of a right side bent lumbar spine in the following way: one would expect the fibers of the right short psoas attaching Io the right lateral sides of the vertebrae to rotate this right side more anteriorly and away from the right short psoas. It the right lateral sides of the vertebrae move anteriorIy, then, of course, the left lateral sides of the vertebrae must move posteriorly. Saying that the right lateral sides of the vertebrae move anteriorly while the left lateral sides move posteriorly is just another way of saying that the anterior faces of the vertebrae are rotating left, which is exactly what Freyette’s law says. When you say, “Yet according to the generally .accepted Freyette’s First Law the vertebrae tend to rotate as a group in the opposite direction,” you are saving that you and Freyette´s describing rotation in opposite ways, that Freyette’s description is opposite to yours. Your belief that your description of rotation is opposite to Freyettes is the mistake I was referring to in my article.

Now let’s look at how you deal with this criticism in “Walking on Solid and Less Solid Grounds.” In your reply you provide the accompanying schematic drawing rot a scoliotic spine in which the Iumbars am right side bent and the vertebrae are left rotated. Year say You had this drawing in mind when you wrote your original article, and that, “It fits the description of side bending and rotation of scoliosis in my article and shows how the explanatory theory of an unilateral psoas shortness (e.g. on the left here) would be partly in conflict with the direction of rotation shown.” But as I have just shown, there Is no textual support in “Lecture Notes” for the claim that right side bending of the lumbar spine is coupled with a left short psoas. In fact, everything you say in “Lecture Notes” leads the reader to exactly the opposite conclusion from the one you are now claiming. I am not saving you could not have Meant what you claim in “Walking,” only that the text of “Lecture Notes” does not support this Claim. “Lecture Notes” gives no indication whatsoever that you were thinking (if a left short psoas and “Walking” gives no explanation for why you think such a situation is even possible.

If you are now saying that side bending can occur away from the short psoas (not toward the side of the short psoas, as you first indicated un “Lecture Notes”) and that the existence of a left short psoas is why you think “the explanatory theory of an unilateral psoas shortness … would be partly iconflict with the rotation shown,” then I am not sure what to make of your position. Rather than answering the criticism or solving a problem, it seems to compound the difficulties with which we started. The position you take in “Walking” is so counterintuitive that it requires some extensive explaining. It the lumbar spine is right side bent, I do not see how it is possible for the left psoas to be shorter than the right psoas. As far as I know, unless’ we are dealing with a pathological Condition, you will not ordinarily find a right side bent lumbar spin, with a short left psoas. Consider the schematic drawing you provided. Compare the distance the right psoas would have to span to the distance the left psoas would have to span. Clear it the span along the right concavity of the curve is shorter than the span along the left convexity of the curve. How then could the left psoas he shorter than the right? Among the sources you didn’t have time to reference, do you have any research that supports your claim that the lumbar spine side bends away from the short psoas? Do you have any research to show how a psoas that spans a longer distance than a psoas that spans a shorter distance could actually be shorter than the one that spans the shorter distance?

I could he missing something here. I have been wrong many times before, so perhaps you are correct. But I cannot see how the situation you described is possible. Perhaps what you aye describing in “Walking” could be possible if you were assuming the existence of a pathological condition. But pathological conditions provide understandable exceptions to the rule. They do not contradict, conflict with, or cast doubt on the rule. No one would he surprised if Freyette’s first laic did not hold when pathological conditions were present nor would anyone even expect that it should. Thus, although I cannot imagine it, maybe it is possible under pathological conditions for a right side bent spine to have a left short psoas that rotates the vertebrae as a group to the right. But such a possibility is not relevant to your argument.

I tried In imagine what else you could have meant. Perhaps you didn’t mean to say that the left psoas was actually shorter than the right, only that it was in a contracture. However, unless we are once again assuming a pathological condition in addition to the scoliosis, we would not ordinarily expect to see a right side bent lumbar spine accompanied by a left contracted psoas. It you are assuming; a pathological situation, such a situation is again not relevant it, the point at issue.

Perhaps you were thinking that in right side bending of the lumbar spine, right rotation of an individual vertebra might be possible if particular fibers of the left psoas were ill a contracture. However, it that Were the case, more than likely we would be looking at a facet that was fixed in a Type II dysfunction. Type II dysfunctions are quite common and do contradict Freyette’s laws. But, of course, your point was not about the rotation of individual vertebrae, but about lumbar scoliosis, which is a curvature of a group of vertebrae. So whether individual fibers of the lets psoas might be capable of right rotating an individual vertebra is not really relevant either.

So, here we are al the end of a reply to a reply, and it looks as though we are in the position of the sorcerer’s apprentice the more we try to solve our problem the mote problems we get. As I see it, the issue conies down to this: either you thought you were describing rotation in a way opposite to Freyette when in fact you were describing the very same thing in non-conventional language, as “Lecture Notes” makes it appear, or you were describing a pathological situation which is irrelevant to the point at issue. I await your answer and am interested to see what research you might have to support your position.

NOTES

1. Robert Schleip “Walking on Solid and Less Solid Grounds: Reply to Jeff Maitland.” Rolf Lines, Winter 2000. Vol XXVIII. No. 1. pp. 20-21.

2. Jefrey Maitland. “The Backbone of Structural Integration,” Rolf Lines. Winter 2000. Vol. XXVIII. No 1, pp. 18-20.

3. Robert Schleip, “Lecture Notes on Psoas and Adductors,’ Rolf Lines. November 1998, Vat. XXVI. No. 5. pp. 19-24.