I'm Dr. Randy Kale, a.k.a. Randolph Kale. I'm the eldest son of Dr. Michael Kale, the undisputed upper cervical knee chest king. I train chiropractors in the Kale Upper Cervical Technique, two removed from B.J. Palmer.
My father, Dr. Michael Kale. From the family archive.
My Father
He Came from Dirt Floors
My dad was left on the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina when he was four years old. His mother packed up and drove off, and he chased that car down the street as far as he could. He didn't see her again for twenty-five years.
At nineteen, somebody told him to go see a chiropractor named Fletcher Keith. An adjustment changed the direction of his life, so he went to Palmer. He practiced with Dr. Lyle Sherman, B.J. Palmer's right-hand man, for over five years. Then he built a home they called Kale's Castle, and he'd laugh and tell me, Randy, I built all this on two bones. Can you imagine if I was full spine?
We wouldn't have knee chest adjusting the way we know it if it wasn't for my father.
Me at the Palmer Upper Cervical Specific clinic. From the family archive.
Palmer, Then My Father's Side
Raised in the Practice
I graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1985 and interned with Dr. E.L. Crowder, another man from the research clinic days. My dad was jealous. He'd tried to get in with Dr. Crowder himself. Dr. Crowder had one of the largest Amish practices around. They didn't come in a car. They came in a bus, forty or fifty at a time, three times a week.
Then I went home to Spartanburg and practiced beside my father for fifteen years. In 1988 I completed his certification residency course: x-ray analysis, heat differential scanning, and knee chest adjusting.
On the Wall
Earned, Not Borrowed
Doctor of Chiropractic, Palmer College of Chiropractic, 1985.Certification residency course, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1988.
The Palmer Lineage
I'm Only Two Removed from the Very Father of Chiropractic
It'd be like being two removed from Bruce Lee. I say that in all humility. I happened to be Michael's eldest son. He had everything to do with that.
Drs. Lyle Sherman and Michael Kale. From the family archive.
The founder
D.D. Palmer
Founded chiropractic in 1895 in Davenport, Iowa.
The developer
B.J. Palmer, D.C.
Ran the research clinic and adjusted knee chest, toggle recoil, at the top of the spine.
The right hand
Lyle Sherman, D.C.
Assistant director of the B.J. Palmer Research Clinic.
My father
Dr. Michael Kale
Practiced with Dr. Sherman, and invented the training tools I still build today.
Today
Dr. Randy Kale
Fifteen years at my father's side, and the doctor who trains you.
The Kale Chirometer. From the history of the Kale clinic, not for sale.
From Our History
The Kale Chirometer
Instrumentation has always been part of the Kale way: check before you adjust, and check again after. This skin temperature instrument from my father's clinic is a piece of that history. It is a historical instrument, not something we sell. The check itself is still how I teach: a thermography reading, left and right behind the ear, with today's instruments, and I'll show you exactly how at the certification.
I Will Live and Die on This Sword
Talking it through at the September certification seminar.
Why I Came Back
I had retired. I came back because chiropractic has moved so far from its very foundation. I'm here on a mission to bring back some camaraderie around what we're really about: the specific, the hands, the philosophy.
A couple of months ago my grandkids were asked what they want to be when they grow up. They sent me plaques that said, I want to be a chiropractor. That puts a load on me. I've got to get chiropractic turned back up again.
I'm a man of faith. L-I-F-E, to me, is living in faith. I get down on my knees and pray to my good Lord, and I teach every doctor I train to keep it that simple.
That's the principle I was raised on. Spark, fuel, and air is how I teach it to patients: the nerve supply, what goes in the tank, and getting oxygen moving. Take one leg off that tripod and it falls over. Kale is on the superfood list, by the way.
