…article continued:
Donald McDowall was able to travel to Dearborn, Michigan, in 1977 and sat the first trial of the written section of the diplomate exam. He sat and passed the practical section in 1978 for his diplomate award. Donald McDowall became the first Australian to complete the Diplomate of the International Board of Examiners of the ICAK. Donald began teaching AK in Canberra in 1978 using the first official ICAK-approved Walther Seminars materials upon their release in 1978.13Dr. Mario Sabella used these same resources to teach AK in Sydney. Henry Sabella practiced AK but didn’t take on the teaching duties.
Both Drs. Donald McDowall and Mario Sabella were responsible for lighting the flame of interest in AK, which grew rapidly in Australia over the following years.
Not unlike themselves, Donald and Mario’s early teaching at Phillip Institute sparked the interest of many students to investigate AK further. One student at the time, Victor Portelli, began taking the 100-hour courses offered by Drs. McDowall and Sabella concurrently. Victor completed four 100-hour sessions with Dr. Sabella and three with Dr. McDowall from 1978.
The first AK seminars were sponsored by and coordinated through the post-graduate division of the International College of Chiropractic in Australia (ICC) beginning in 1976-79.
Dr. Portelli taught an unofficial AK introductory class to around 40 students at the Phillip Institute Technology (PIT) in 1984-85 for no fee and among those first exposed were people that would eventually form the local applied kinesiology chiropractic association.
During a week-long skiing trip to Falls Creek in the Victorian Highlands in the early to mid-1980s, a dedicated group of young enthusiastic doctors, keen on AK thought it a great idea to form an exclusively chiropractic AK Association. These hearty souls included Robert Peacock, Victor and Peter Portelli, Keith Maitland, Joe Krawec, Barry Decker, Andrea Bisaz and a few chiropractic students from PIT. During the morning they thrashed their bodies on the slopes, and in the afternoon and evening they thrashed their brains trying to work out how to start up an organization from scratch.
With little experience of how associations or committees worked, they forged ahead seeking legal advice largely paid for by Victor Portelli; and they decided to form an exclusively chiropractic association to be named the Chiropractic Applied Kinesiology Association. (CAKA) Dr. Portelli was elected the inaugural president with Robert Peacock as his vice president and a few enthusiastic people who formed the bulk of the committee, including Joe Krawec, Andrea Bisaz, Barry Decker, and Keith Maitland but without any formal structure. The group grew exponentially over the first couple of years in the mid-1980s to around 200 members, who had a strong interest in this new and exciting technique and wanting to know more.
In 1987 Keith Maitland became the first Australian-trained chiropractor (from PIT and a student of Dr. Portelli’s) to successfully pass the diplomate exams in Washington, DC; and soon after his return to Queensland, he began teaching the AK certification series using Walther’s materials, which included manuals and slides.
The first official seminar of the fledgling association was held in Melbourne on December 5, 1987 and featured both Donald McDowall and Keith Maitland as the speakers. It was very well attended with many travelling from all over the country to attend.
Victor Portelli served two terms as president and was succeeded by Robert Peacock.
During Robert Peacock’s presidency and the fast expansion of the group, it had become clear that a formal structure was becoming a requirement, especially as they were seeking recognition as a subchapter of the ICAK. A name change of the organization to better reflect the true direction of AK, which was being embraced by other non-chiropractic professionals internationally and getting away from an exclusively chiropractic organization, also became a priority.
Dr. Eric Pierotti, the education officer for the Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) in South Australia and with many years of committee and seminar experience, was himself an avid fan of AK and had staged several 100-hour basic courses for Mario Sabella. He had also successfully brought Dr. David Walther to Australia for seminars in both Adelaide and Sydney. Pierotti was recruited to the board as secretary in early 1988 and mandated with getting the house in order.
Robert Peacock and Eric Pierotti spent two days in Melbourne rewriting the association bylaws and formulating a formal board structure, using the ICAKUSA board as a template and the recruitment of likeminded people to fill the board roles.
One of the earliest boards consisted of:
President Robert Peacock
Vice President Keith Maitland
Secretary Eric Pierotti
Treasurer Ian Niven
Collected Papers Braden Keil
Newsletter editor Frank Marcellino
Sub Editor Newsletter Victor Portelli
Seminars Joe Krawec
Committee Members Keith Keen, Andrea Bisaz
The decision was taken in 1988 to make the name change to the ICAK-A, forward the bylaws to the US, and become an official chapter of ICAK, making Australia the second official chapter after Europe. In 1987 Eric Pierotti was the first elected international representative to ICAK and travelled to Chicago in 1989 to represent the Australian interests at his own expense, at the now famous Super 25 meeting. He is still the Australasian representative and has not missed an international meeting since.
By 1990, the association had grown on the strength of providing AK seminars as well as AK certification series taught by the new diplomates on the block, Victor Portelli and Robert Peacock.
During this time Victor Portelli in collaboration with Frank Marcellino, were researching and developing their new Visceral Biomechanics techniques which have gone on to be lauded internationally. Robert Peacock’s interest and expertise in clinical biochemistry saw him develop and teach his very successful Chiropractic Ecology seminars. Keith Maitland was no longer teaching a basic course. This left a rather large hiatus in terms of teaching of the basic course. There was of course a veritable smorgasbord of weekend seminars on all manner of topic from this very active group of diplomates and other non-diplomates busily developing techniques and protocols using AK methods.
