Kimberly Dawson

In 1979, I received a coveted full scholarship to study for the summer at the San Francisco Ballet School. The placement class was three hours long, and in the first hour, at the barre, I did a grand battement (an energetic straight leg lift to the back) that ultimately changed the course of my life. Despite intense pain, I finished the class and nonchalantly approached the teachers, asking if they knew anything about low back pain. Before I knew it, I was on the floor, on my back, with my knees bent and the school director, teachers and others gathered around me asking lots of questions. I was told I had to just rest, for weeks. I was heartbroken. I’d try to take class, gently, but would aggravate the injury, again and again. My family had Kaiser medical insurance. The doctor I saw determined I was experiencing severe muscle spasms and a muscle tear, and I would just have to let it heal. When I asked why this kept happening, the doctor pulled out a tape measure and quickly determined that one of my legs was half an inch longer than the other, so that was the problem. Even at the age of 15, I knew nobody’s legs are exactly the same length, he hadn’t conducted a very precise measurement (to say the least), and my ballet teachers would have noticed a significant difference in hip height long ago, if this was the problem. I was one of the "lucky" ones, who had been born with everything needed to be a world-class ballerina: long arms, legs and neck, arched feet, thin frame, natural talent, inherent musicality, extreme discipline (my Mom trained to be a concert pianist and composer and my dad had been a navigator in the Navy), and I was 100% committed. Despite the injury, SF Ballet was very supportive and encouraged me to see the chiropractor that worked with their professional dancers. Back then, chiropractic care was not well known, and there was no Internet to find out more about it. Understandably, my father was extremely protective, not wanting his young daughter to go to some “quack” doctor (a term I heard him use again, even recently, though not in reference to the “revolutionary” chiropractor he has been seeing to help remove scar tissue to relieve shoulder pain, instead of getting surgery at the age of 84). For me, back then, chiropractic care was simply out of the question. I continued to train, the next summer on full scholarship with the American Ballet Theater school in New York City, and then back to San Francisco Ballet the following summer. My back injury was always there, sometimes more painful, sometimes less. I just danced through it. By my senior year in high school, I moved to San Francisco full time (having finished, in my junior year of high school, all of but one class needed for graduation) and was poised to become a full-time apprentice with SF Ballet … until my back injury flared up, intensely, again. By mid-year, I was in so much pain that I made the devastating choice to walk away from ballet … and my identity. Although I returned to training about a year and a half later and made a huge comeback, being offered that apprenticeship position with SF Ballet, I made the final painful choice to walk away. My back was always going to be a wildcard, and I wanted to be able to walk when I was 50+. 20 years later, I stepped back into a studio for the first time, for a dance-based fitness class ... after which I cried for most of the next 3 months. When I chose to take a first level training in this modality, one of the preparation books was a body-based coloring book. On one of the pages there was a pointer to the exact place of my injury with a label saying “sacroiliac syndrome.” I stopped breathing, just staring at the words, then opened my computer and googled the phrase. Up popped chiropractic website after chiropractic website with descriptions of a hyper-mobility in the sacroiliac joint, where the spine sits in the pelvis. This joint is only supposed to move in women, when a hormone is released during pregnancy.  

Mine was hyper-mobile. My injury was actually repeated sprains to the ligament — like a sprained ankle. The tucking of my pelvis to have a perfectly straight back for ballet, took out the natural curve in my lower spine and put too much strain on my sacroiliac joint. If I allowed a little of that natural curve, it would help to keep the joint in alignment. Hah! So this is why I had always been more comfortable in high heals than flat shoes! Since this realization, I have lived mostly low-back-pain-free. Occasionally, I will strain my sacroiliac with too much weeding or heavy lifting without bending my knees (oops), yet with a temporary brace to give my sacroiliac a little support (like an ankle brace), followed by a little gentle, circular hip movement, it realigns itself, and I’m good to go. If I’d known this back in the day, it’s very likely I could have fulfilled my first dream. That said, as I approach another milestone birthday, I am very grateful to be strong and pain-free today. A few years later, a close friend, who was studying to be a naturopath and then ventured into other less conventional healing approaches, helped me to see a connection between severe “menstrual” bleeding and my own subconscious self punishment, in ways that helped me to stop the bleeding, by changing the thought pattern, instead of getting a hysterectomy. (Note: my gynecologist was very concerned and made me promise to get myself to the emergency room , if I bled X amount. Admittedly, I did have a couple of close calls. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped in time.) One morning, when my friend and I were meeting to work on defining and describing her practice, she recognized that I was really not OK. She immediately took me to her home, fed me a highly nourishing meal of salmon and kale and quinoa, and called in a favor from a colleague — a doctor of Chinese Medicine — to see me ASAP, that night. She said she hadn't realized the severity of my life-long anorexic tendencies and lack of nourishment (again, related to self punishment). The doctor stayed late, took his time, treated me with acupuncture (and other techniques) and herbs, stated explicitly the foods I was to eat and drink, along with visualization meditations and sleep “prescriptions,” and (later) even guided me privately in qui gong and tai chi practices. I saw him every day the first week and then twice a week for 6 months, and once a week after that. After a year, he told me that when I first came to him, I was a day or two away from dying, and it was the first time in his career he'd had to choose whether to treat me or commit me to a hospital. I was stunned. I had no idea. I am very lucky, and deeply grateful, he chose to treat me with such commitment and care. It feels like a miracle that I am still here.

These life experiences, and more, inspire my personal passion to explore and define the kinds of paradigm-shifting possibilities shared in this Guidebook. I hope they open the door a little more for you to explore what “health care” is right for you.


Kimberly Dawson


REViVE Hope for Health
Co-Visionary / Board VP and Executive VP Perspective Design