Brian Dobbs had been a Certified Rolfer and Licensed Massage Therapist for 15 years when he became badly injured and could find no help. In his search for a solution between 2001 and 2009, he developed a new paradigm in bodywork: Vascular Bone Therapy (VBT). During that time he learned to listen to the subtle language of bones and became a Bone Whisperer.

Brian had received numerous injuries through car accidents and playing sports. As a result, he experienced persistent pain and had lost hope of finding relief. Even though he saw some of the best bodyworkers in the country, something was missing. So he began to study anatomy and physiology in relation to fetal development.

From his own experience, Brian understood the paradox between power and force that so many patients are caught in; too shattered for high velocity adjustments yet too compressed for light work such as cranial sacral. He knew he would need to introduce a way to employ the right kind of power to effect positive change. Fortunately, Brian found a machine called Activated Air. Activated Air provided the right kind of power to give the body enough energy to change.

Using Activated Air, he discovered a relationship between the vasculature and the bones. He was working on a patient with a crippled knee who could barely walk. He remembered that in fetal development, the blood vessels are created first then the bones. Perhaps the bones actually were created by the arteries to protect them? He began to work through the bones with a Fulford Percussor (a vibrating massage tool) in an effort to release the deep holding patterns. He discovered the bones were spasmed around the arteries in what he termed a “vascular bone spasm”. By reaching through the bones into the arteries, the entire structure released and came into balance. After the session, the woman was able to get up and walk up the stairs.

He began to use this technique of releasing the vascular bone spasms with other patients.  One man, Ken, had fallen from a second story and landed on his hammer, breaking his thigh bone. Even though the bone had been set, he became addicted to drugs so he could dull the pain in order to keep working. During a VBT session, Brian released the spasm in the broken bone which allowed Ken to heal and eventually to get off drugs.

Brian developed an analogy using a bee to explain this process. See Article on Development of VBT 

From this ability to listen to the bones, Brian developed a mapping technique to efficiently recognize the patterns formed by vascular bone spasms. This type of checklist allowed him to be thorough in releasing many layers of complexity in deep set traumas.
 See Bonewhispering map
Another man came in who had a bad back. He had no previous injuries except bumping his knee on the sofa playing with his boy. Unwinding the knee injury took the pressure off his back, permanently relieving his discomfort.

Next, Brian discovered how the body used the gripping abilities of  “lock down vortexes” to protect the vasculature against the bones in the thorax, abdomen, pelvis, and cranium.  He found pictures of scapulas, ileums, and cranial bones that show the flow marks in the bones…like the way wind shapes trees at the sea shore. See pictures

This led to an investigation of organs and their relationship to formation of the body shape. In the fetus, the body shape changes when the brain migrates upward and the heart and liver migrate downward. Organs shape the bones, just as blood vessels do. Thus, Brian came to understand even more deeply the interconnection between the intricate systems of the body.

How does Bone Whispering and VBT help?  Where does it fit in with other methods? See Q and A

Karen had been injured badly by her favorite horse, resulting in a crushed chest and shoulder. Then she fell down some stairs, and injured her sacrum and broke her coccyx. After this fall, her neurological system locked up. She could not walk more than a few hundred feet. Even with such a difficult case, Vascular Bone Therapy restored her to normal functioning.

After over 25 years experience in bodywork, Brian’s has found that bodywork in general is about 20 % successful, regardless of type of therapy. After this, success depends on skill, the most skillful therapists will help up to 60% of all clients.

Vascular Bone Therapy and Bone Whispering increase the chance of success up to 80%.  VBT is dramatically helpful with people who are less traumatized, but it especially improves functioning in those who can find no help. Why don’t these people get better? Due to heavy trauma, an injury is imbedded in “lock down vortexes” which are bones and muscles that spasm around organs and blood vessels in a circular pattern. These injuries are embedded deeply into delicate structures, so power rather than force in needed to create change.

Once the vascular bone spasm is released, all other modalities work much more efficiently. During his daily sessions, Brian uses Visceral Manipulation, Mechanical Link, Cranial Sacral, and Berry Work. When trauma is great, bones are often become dislocated, so chiropractic is sometimes necessary.

A client I will call Kathy came to me with sharp pain in her stomach and serious hip and back problems. An X-ray showed a divot in the right hip. She had tumbled from car as baby of 2 and bounced along the freeway at 50 mph. 6 months later, she entered a stage where she could not keep food down and almost died of malnutrition. She came to see Brian with 65 years of problems in her digestive system and a painful right hip.

Brian started therapy by working on the opposite hip than the one she landed on. He looked for places where organs/vasculature were spasmed with the bones. After releasing the spasm around the arteries in the left hip, the digestive system began to relax. Then the right hip began to move and the organs could then regain motility. Kathy regained the ability to sit and walk without discomfort for the first time in 65 years.

Throughout this process of development, Brian employed VBT  to alleviate his own injuries. Sciatica, neck pain, knee injuries were first to improve. Only after diagnosing and releasing patterns of bone spasms, could Brian begin to unwind pressure in his chest and thus sleep through the night.

In the end it is about hope. It is about faith…  faith in the body’s ability to heal and inspiration in following the next step that reveals the universal design. Clients who have stayed with the work as it was developing have healed. Brian’s practice is full of people with hope. Last week five of his clients who were previously considering surgery, are now all improving. They were the “no hopers”.  Now VBT gives them a chance.