How Bowen Therapy helped TV daredevil Bear Grylls

Interview from Mail on Sunday with adventurer Bear Grylls
  - 24 September 2007

To the outside world the adventurer Bear Grylls epitomises supreme fitness. The man who catapults himself into alien, life threatening environments, surviving on his wits alone, practically bursts with good health – or so it seems.

Yet despite appearances, Bear has been plagued with back pain for over ten years – for which he only recently found an effective treatment.

Twelve years ago, aged 21, he broke his back when training with the SAS after his parachute failed to open at 16,000 feet. He landed on his parachute pack, which was like an iron bar, and fractured three vertebrae.

It was extraordinary that he was alive, let alone not paralysed – but incredibly the spinal cord, which channels messages between the brain and all parts of the body, had not been severed. Instead, he underwent ten hours a day of physiotherapy, swimming, stretching and ultrasound treatment –a programme designed to help servicemen but rarely available to civilians.

Then a year ago his wife suggested he see a Bowen therapist.
"I was sceptical, but wanted to keep an open mind," says Bear.
"With the slightest squiggle of his fingers, it felt like petrol was being put back in my tank and I could feel all the stress seeping away. More importantly, after my back accident, I was unbalanced, my spine and pelvis had lost alignment, causing endless pain and problems".

Bear describes himself as now 'hooked' and has treatment every month.