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If you’ve ever wondered where Myopractics came from—or how one man could change the course of hands-on healing forever—this story is for you.
It’s a reminder of what’s possible when faith, skill, and purpose come together.
Dr. William Jackman Huls (b. May 9, 1896) was no ordinary practitioner.
He was a farmer.
A father.
A man of deep faith.
And today, the work he began lives on in the field of Myopractics—a full-body manual therapy rooted in restoring motion and function through soft tissue manipulation.
But his path wasn’t easy.
He lost his dominant hand in a farming accident.
He rejected the medical mainstream.
He treated thousands of people with nothing but his hands, his heart, and his God-given intuition.
And he did it all with a quiet humility that earned him the nickname:
“God’s Mechanic.”
Huls grew up on a 160-acre farm in rural Missouri, where life was hard, physical, and deeply connected to the land. He learned early how to fix broken things—plows, fences, livestock—and that mechanical understanding would later shape how he saw the human body.
His family expected him to become a minister. He was spiritual, thoughtful, and service-minded. But a farming accident changed everything. A plow injury left him unable to walk. He was in constant pain, and no doctor could help.
In desperation, he traveled to Kirksville, Missouri, to see Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, the founder of osteopathy. Still gave him a single treatment—and Huls walked out of the clinic on his own two feet.
That moment didn’t just restore his body.
It redirected his life.
He left behind the pulpit and stepped into a new calling:
Healing through hands-on care.
Huls enrolled in the American School of Osteopathy, eager to learn the techniques that had changed his life. But by then, the school had shifted. Under new leadership, osteopathy was moving toward drugs and surgery—away from the hands-on methods Still had pioneered.
Disillusioned, Huls sought out Dr. Lyda, one of the few remaining teachers still practicing the original manipulative techniques. Lyda taught a small group of students using Still’s neglected textbook, Research and Practice.
Huls stood out. He practiced relentlessly—often on a strongman named Jack Cole—and developed a feel for the body that few could match. One day, he did something no student had dared: he treated Dr. Lyda’s own cervical spine. Lyda was shocked—but admitted the work was flawless.
That moment marked a turning point.
Huls wasn’t just learning the craft.
He was mastering it.
In 1927, Huls’ young daughter Letitia became gravely ill with dysentery. The local doctors had no answers. She was fading fast.
Desperate, Huls turned to Research and Practice and found a spinal technique described by A.T. Still. He applied it gently to her back.
Within minutes, her fever broke.
She began to recover.
That night, something shifted in Huls.
Manual therapy was no longer just a profession.
It was sacred work.
Huls didn’t rely on guesswork. He studied anatomy obsessively—dissecting cadavers at night, refining his techniques by day. He trained his fingers to feel a single human hair under tissue paper.
He could detect adhesions, cysts, and restrictions that others missed.
He developed bloodless techniques to treat conditions that normally required surgery—like ovarian cysts, ligament adhesions, and organ restrictions.
He even turned down an offer to study cranial surgery under a brain surgeon—Dr. Hugh Miller—because he believed there had to be a gentler way.
And he found it.
In the 1940s, Huls began exploring cranial work. He studied the writings of Dr. William Garner Sutherland, the father of cranial osteopathy—but he didn’t stop there.
One night, while handling a skull in the dark, Huls discovered a configuration of pressure points that caused the bones to shift and open—
“like a lotus blossom.”
The very next morning, a Mennonite couple brought him their disabled son. The child had suffered brain damage during birth and was unresponsive. Huls gently applied the new cranial technique.
The child began to stir.
Then to respond.
Then to improve.
Over the next several years, Huls treated over 700 Mennonite children with birth injuries—dramatically reducing disability rates in their community.
Huls never sought fame. He didn’t build a brand. He built a life.
In 1937, he moved to Iowa, bought a 310-acre farm, and converted a large home into a clinic. He treated patients during the week and worked the land on weekends.
In the early 1950s, tragedy struck again. A corn picker accident took his right hand. Most would have retired. Huls didn’t.
He taught himself to write and work with his left.
He developed new techniques using straps and leverage.
And he kept treating clients—with the same precision and care.
In 1959, he moved to Arizona and opened a clinic in Scottsdale. Even after a heart attack at 68, he returned to practice.
Because for Huls, this wasn’t a job.
It was a calling.
Huls saw the body as a mechanical system designed by God.
He often compared it to a Model T Ford:
If the fan belt slips off, you don’t add chemicals—you put the belt back on.
He believed:
He didn’t need machines.
He didn’t need medicine.
He just needed to listen—to the body, and to God.
The stories from Huls’ clients are nothing short of astonishing:
Though Huls never gave his method a name, his students eventually did.
Myopractics is the continuation of his legacy.
It’s a full-body approach to restoring motion through soft tissue manipulation—
Working with the body’s natural mechanics, not against them.
It’s gentle.
It’s specific.
And it’s rooted in the belief that life is motion.
I share this story not just to honor Dr. Huls, but to remind you:
This work is real.
This work is powerful.
And this work is still changing lives.
Every time I work with a client, I carry Huls’ legacy with me.
His faith.
His precision.
His belief that the body was designed to move—and that healing starts with restoring that motion.
If you’ve been curious about Myopractics, now you know where it came from.
And why it matters.
Want to experience it for yourself?
I’d be honored to work with you.
Let’s keep the legacy alive—
One session, one story, one step at a time.
Source:
Dr. Huls God’s Mechanic: The Manipulative Practice of William J. Huls
by Marilynn Griffith-Fargo, Mike Martin, and Rhonda Marinakis
