My Testimony
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Seeking, Without Rest
I want mainly to share how God was over my life, even in a season of seeking and unrest, when I was trying to find true meaning. Even though I belonged to a church group, it did not bring me true peace. Even though I read the Bible and sang the hymns, participated in all the church activities and the prayer meetings, it still did not bring inner peace and rest.
Eventually I went to dental school, in part as a way to get away from it all. But I could not focus only on dental school, which was already a full-time job in itself—learning and studying all the different courses of anatomy, biochemistry, neurophysiology, dental materials, and more, let alone acquiring the skills and techniques necessary to become a dentist. On top of that, I had to figure out how to pay the tuition that came due quarterly and yearly, especially when I found myself with no money. Those were not easy times.
By the time I entered dental school, my wife and I were married for 7 years, and our first daughter was a year and a half old. Through those years we made our home in Fullerton, California. While I studied, my wife —an elementary school teacher—taught kindergarten through second grade in the public schools of the city of Cerritos. It was near the end of my junior year that our second daughter was born.
Becoming a Dentist
Before I was a dentist, I was a laboratory technician. When my wife and I were going to get married, my in-laws were not so excited about their daughter marrying me—I was not rich, I was not a doctor, I was not a PhD; I was a dental technician. But my wife loved me regardless, and that was good enough for me.
I was used to feeling a bit out of place. My in-laws were well-to-do business people who owned their own paper-distribution business in Taiwan, and my own family was of a medical orientation—my father was a medical doctor, and his brothers and sisters were all physicians and trained nurses. But me? I was, at best, an educated business-administration and accounting major with a background in dental technology. I didn’t seem to fit into the tradition of a family that was medically and dentally oriented.
So it was in those early years. I was the first of five sons. My mother, Carol, raised us boys in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles, along with my father who kept his private practice as a family physician in Van Nuys, California. Yes, I was the last of us to consider going to dental school—and I did so only after my wife encouraged and persuaded me to pursue the profession.
Graduation and a Milestone
Eventually I graduated with honors and awards from dental school. My wife and I were happy to reach this huge milestone in our life and marriage. My family was happy, and my in-laws were happy that I was now a “Doctor.” My in-laws flew over from Taiwan to attend the graduation ceremony. I was no longer considered an embarrassment to the family.
San Diego and My Brothers
After dental school, and after completing the State Board examination, I was finally able to begin practicing as a dentist. My wife and I chose to move to San Diego’s North County, close to two of my brothers who were already practicing there. My brother Curtis, the fourth son, was already a practicing dentist; the third son, Craig, was practicing as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon; and my younger brother Carlton was a practicing optometrist in the same Del Mar, California, area. My periodontist brother Clifford was practicing inland from us, in the Temecula and Hemet region. I was the oldest, but the last of my brothers to go into dentistry. Still, God had His divine hand over me, and I humbly recognized that I was the youngest in dentistry among my brothers. I had much to learn and a great deal of experience to gain.
In these San Diego years, my wife continued teaching, now as a kindergarten-through-third-grade teacher at a school in San Marcos, close to where we lived.
After some years associating as a dentist in two offices in the Encinitas and Leucadia areas of North County, I decided to stretch my wings and join together with my brother Curtis, setting up a brand-new, modern office of eight operatories nearby in the Del Mar Heights area. My own side of the office had four operatory spaces built out, as planned, and I started by setting up two of them to see my patients, beginning with a single patient. The practice grew, but not overnight. It was a labor of love poured into that space—all while I was still trying to figure out how to pay the bills and the expenses of staff, leases, and equipment.
Something Was Missing
As I practiced, I tried to do everything I had been taught in dental school, and to do it correctly—to be comprehensive, to examine each patient properly and write everything down as carefully as I could in my patients’ treatment progress notes, then to build a treatment plan and carry it out: the hygiene, the operative procedures, the extractions that were needed, the root canals required to resolve a toothache, the crowns to restore a broken tooth, and the principles of adhesive dentistry. And yet, over time, I discovered that something was missing. I wasn’t sure what it was.
Part of what wore on me was the insurance side of practice. I was trying to take on insurance programs that would bring in patients I could care for, but the preauthorization requirements were frustrating: a third party, someone on the other side who had never seen my patient, would decline procedures I could plainly see were necessary to make that patient healthy. They were determining the care of my patient? It was wearing on me, and it slowly led me to question the whole system.
The Gnathologist with One Chair
One day I went to a local dental study club meeting and listened to the guest speaker, a general dentist working out of a single operatory with a half-time assistant, yet doing large, complex cases in the nearby affluent community of Rancho Santa Fe. I was curious—what was he doing so differently from what I had been led to believe about how dentistry should be done? There I was with chairs still to fill, while Dr. Phillip Taylor, with his one chair, had patients coming to see him.
So Dr. Taylor invited me over to see his office. Sure enough, there was only one dental chair; the next room was his dental lab, equipped with everything needed for laboratory work—articulators, facebows, casting rings, and burnout ovens for his casts and wax-ups. He was a gnathologist, heavily steeped in centric relation thinking, facebows, hinge-axis, and fully adjustable articulation. Dr. Taylor changed my way of doing dentistry, and I saw that another path was possible—though it would go against the grain of the dental establishment. I decided to study gnathology with him, and for two years I trained under him at what he called the Taylor Dental Institute, learning all the details of dental occlusion and articulation and the mounting of casts on a fully adjustable articulator.
The Cases That Would Not Resolve
Having thought I had found the answer to TMD and occlusion, over time I realized there was still something missing in the approach I had learned and practiced. Eighty to eighty-five percent of my patients definitely got better—but there was a fifteen to twenty percent of cases that were not resolving as well as I knew they should. That led me on a further search.
Even though I was meticulous in applying the gnathic principles—mounting my own cases in the lab, fabricating my own wax-ups, doing full-arch cases, casting my own crowns, and checking that every margin and interproximal contact was proper—I discovered that when a patient brought their teeth together, they were often contacting more on the back teeth than my careful articulation and facebow transfer had indicated. Patients would also tell me that, on occasion, they now felt a ringing in their ears they hadn’t had before.
One case I still remember was a lady with severely worn-down lower anterior incisors. I treated her by rebuilding and bonding the worn teeth to their ideal length; the case looked great. But over time she returned, again and again, telling me the front teeth were contacting too much. I would naturally use articulating paper, find the high spots, and adjust the bonded restorations down a little more to give her relief—and she would return, and the same process would repeat. Eventually I found myself right back at her original bite, looking again at her worn anterior dentin, and I knew then that something in my understanding was off. That drove me to seek further answers.
The Neuromuscular Path
My search eventually led me to Dr. James F. Garry, a pediatric dentist and specialist who had relinquished his specialty status and asked the California dental licensing board to restore his general license, so that he could treat the adult patients he was seeing—people with airway and neuromuscular problems, headaches, and posture issues—in his dental practice in Fullerton. I went to take courses from him because he was advertising comprehensive occlusion and TMD courses that attracted me. I thought I was already comprehensive; but as I listened to Dr. Garry, I began to ask more questions and realized he had challenged my thinking—he was talking about posture and alignment. He became a mentor to me.
It was on the second day of his course that I had so many questions. At the break, Dr. Jim told me, plainly, that I was asking so many questions I was disrupting his course—but he said it kindly, and then he invited me to come with him to his private office. He sat me down behind his big oak desk, in a room whose four walls were covered with plaques of his achievements, certificates, and diplomas, picked up the phone, and dialed his friend Bob. Bob, on the other line, was clearly a dentist, and he set about addressing my concern: what does a neuromuscular molar look like, anatomically, compared to the gnathological molar I thought I knew? I sat and conversed with Bob for three hours while the course in the other room continued — and by the end I realized I did not understand what he was trying to convey. My mind was blinded by my own preconceived ways of understanding and thinking.
That friend, I later learned, was Dr. Robert Jankelson, the owner and developer of Myotronics. Bob’s father was regarded as the father of neuromuscular dentistry—the inventor of the dental TENS and the kinesiograph, the K6i—a technology I had become curious about, because I saw that it could track jaw movement and positioning.
After the course, the keenest impression I walked away with was this: these were kind, gracious, encouraging men. And I realized they knew something I did not. The doctors there recognized the detail and thoroughness of my gnathology cases, and they could only encourage me to go back and measure—to record my patients with the instrumentation. And I did.
Shortly after, I bought a K6i unit. Over the next year, as I studied this new way and began to TENS and measure my patients with the recording instrumentation, my paradigm of thinking slowly began to change. That technology, along with instruction from Dr. Garry and Dr. Jankelson, helped me understand things I had never realized about how the physiology of the jaw functions and moves—very different from the mechanical, structural concepts I had carried out of dental school. I came to see that there was a biophysiologic relationship between the lower jaw and the upper jaw. Soon I began to apply these newer principles in my growing and evolving restorative practice. I was having success; the lights were turning on, and I was having fun—working hard, too, trying to pay the bills and raise a young family with my wife at my side.
A Breaking Point
After years of trying to do the best I knew how—and, yes, becoming financially successful—I was stretching my dental wings, growing more confident in talking with patients and in diagnosing issues that others in the community did not recognize. Patients were coming with more complicated concerns: muscular pains, headaches, and the like. They began asking me to do their children’s orthodontics, which I obliged, and eventually it led me to treat the mothers as well, who had their own TMD issues—and we resolved them and brought them to stability.
The practice was growing, and I was feeling the success. But alongside it came a chronic frustration, a sense of being overwhelmed by trying to do everything in dentistry—every procedure possible. Eventually I realized something had to be let go. I couldn’t do it all. I began to eliminate certain procedures I didn’t enjoy as much as others, and I told my team that we should do the things we enjoy and let go of the things we don’t—and that included dealing with third-party insurance plans. We grew our focus on the more complicated cases, block-scheduled our days with fewer patients, and gave those who needed it the time required to accomplish the treatment goals we saw as necessary.
Through all of this—the business of it, and the early struggles of a dentist trying to find his way—I did not see God in any of it. I wasn’t looking for Him. And yet, looking back, I understand now that He was there the whole time, patiently waiting on the side, waiting for me to get tired out.
How the Door to Las Vegas Opened
The way to Las Vegas opened in a manner I never could have predicted. From March into the summer of 1999, I was taking part in an online adhesive-dentistry forum, where I joined a debate about how to treat cases involving joint derangement. In one post I mentioned, briefly, that it was possible to measure and record muscle activity and jaw position objectively—with real data—to help find a more optimal jaw position. That comment caught the attention of another forum member, and I soon found myself corresponding privately with a fellow dentist who had many questions about the technology.
On September 8, 1999, the owner of an institute in Las Vegas emailed me, inviting me to come and share about computerized mandibular scanning (CMS) and to demonstrate its use. A few days later, on September 12, the institute’s general manager called to arrange the visit.
On Sunday, October 10, 1999—the first time I had ever traveled out of state for such a purpose—they flew me out for the day, and I proposed an agenda to share with them what the instrumentation was about.
My purpose was to help them understand the diagnostic instrumentation that was available, and to encourage the institute toward a bigger picture of comprehensive care—giving doctors a more effective, more predictable way to diagnose and treat. I hoped to open a door for the dental community to find answers to the very questions that other programs had left unaddressed. That was my intention in meeting them.
By the end of the day, I thanked the owner for the opportunity to come and share. I applauded his center, and I could see why he was proud of his facility. As I was stepping into the limousine that had come to take me back to the airport, I told him again how much I appreciated the chance to share. As the door was closing, he said, “I’ll be seeing you soon.” “I’m sure we will,” I replied, and the door closed.
About a month later, on November 9, 1999, the institute held what they called a “big meeting,” bringing in Dr. Bob Jankelson, the CEO of Myotronics—an executive meeting with the institute’s administration, to talk further and to plan.
In time, I was given the title Director of Neuromuscular Dentistry at the institute, responsible for arranging and setting up all the neuromuscular occlusion courses. Together with Dr. Jankelson, I co-developed the various levels of those courses, along with the TMD, orthodontic, and instrumentation curriculum, and I was a featured lecturer in each of them as well as in all the aesthetic restorative programs. Looking back, I can see the hand of God in all of it: a single comment on a forum, written without any thought of where it might lead, became the door through which He would move our whole family to Las Vegas.
Flying Back and Forth
During this period, in 2000, I was running my own practice and seeing my patients in San Diego, and at the same time flying to Las Vegas to begin teaching alongside Dr. Jankelson—introducing these new concepts to the attending dentists who came to learn dental cosmetics. The courses were packed; the enthusiasm and energy in the room ran high.
Eventually the owner of the institute begged me to move to Las Vegas and be there full-time. I really didn’t want to go. But with some further prodding, and after consulting with my wife, I came to see that I had to. My wife and I decided to make the move—to sell our two homes and our dental practice in San Diego. It was a huge commitment, but I was ready for a change.
The Move from San Diego
In 2001, we made the move. After preparing to find the right buyer for our San Diego–Del Mar coastal practice, a dentist of the Dawson belief came to purchase it. The transition went smoothly, and Dr. Greg Jensen was a wonderful, kind dentist who continued caring for the patients.
Restless in Las Vegas (2004–2005)
While at the institute, during 2004–2005, I was growing restless and uneasy, but I wasn’t sure what specifically was causing the unrest. Certainly, holding the title of Director of Neuromuscular Dentistry brought a kind of pride—but that wasn’t it. Having the opportunity to teach hundreds of dentists every year at the institute brought happiness and notoriety—but something more was missing. I had moved from San Diego to Las Vegas with no focus on God and no sense of spirituality. I didn’t come to Las Vegas to seek God; I came intending to help convey a neuromuscular message with the aid and support of instrumentation technology (Myotronics). That was my focus. But God—He had other plans for our life.
The Voice on Highway 5 (March 5, 2005)
On March 5, 2005, while I made a short trip to San Diego to take care of some personal financial matters, I was driving my white minivan down Highway 5 to pick up a new laptop computer. I was voicing aloud my concerns about my unhappiness—that I enjoyed my present job and yet, at the same time, found unhappiness in it. As I was speaking these things to myself over the steering wheel, a Voice spoke and said to go and apologize to my father for my rebelliousness when I was seventeen. I was surprised, and spontaneously I said to the Voice, “I will do it.” That weekend I was in turmoil, not sure what to do, conferring about my concerns with my employer but not coming to any agreed consensus. That was how I entered that weekend in San Diego. On Sunday morning, my wife told me, “Clayton, get up and take me to a church meeting.” On the drive back, I took my wife to a meeting that I soon discovered was being held in a home in Rancho Cucamonga, California, on the way back to Las Vegas.
The Spiritual Encounter
During this time in my life, I was not going to any church. In fact, I was not focused on God—I was actually running away from being involved in anything Christian: church meetings, gatherings. I was fully focused on teaching and developing programs for the institute. It was my way of removing myself from any involvement with Christianity. As we went into this home meeting, afterward the pastor came to me and asked if I would receive prayer. I wasn’t in any mindset for prayer, but I politely accepted. As we sat down, the pastor said this would be a very different kind of prayer—a prophetic prayer. I had never heard of such a thing, but, oh well, whatever, was my thought. As the pastor prayed, he said, “I see five trees in your life. You are trying to grow them, but around these trees I see a rope going around them, and at the end of this rope is a bucket—but the bucket is not able to hold water.” I thought to myself, what a strange prayer. As the pastor continued, he said, “The Holy Spirit is telling me it’s not time yet. You are working for a very difficult boss, but the Holy Spirit is telling me it’s not time yet.” At that time I was ready to quit and resign, but the pastor was telling me in this prayer that it was not time yet. “But if you would submit to authority, God will bless you, and you would not have to worry about anything.” The pastor said, “I see what you are involved in—I see you flying around globally.” Wow—he was describing what I was involved in, and he didn’t even know my situation. I didn’t know this pastor, and he had never met me until this moment in time. The pastor, Lou, continued, “You have a father who had high expectations of you, but you were not able to fulfill those expectations until more recently.” Wow—that hit me hard again. How did this pastor know about my father and his expectations, which I realized was true? He said, “If you go back and take care of these things, you have nothing to fear or worry about.” I realized at that moment that God was speaking to me. How did any person know about my past, my present, and my future? I knew this was God letting me know of His love and care over my life—that He knows every detail of my life history, my present working situation, and my future that I have yet to live. My wife and I left that small meeting and that prayer euphoric. For the next two weeks I felt God’s presence and peace with me. With no fear and no worries, for the first time in my life I felt confident that God was with me and over my life. I don’t have any other way to explain this experience, but to me it happened, and it changed me.
I Wasn’t Seeking God, but He Found Me
I wasn’t seeking God, but He found me. Even though I believed the Bible and was raised as a Christian, I had no relationship with God up to this point in time. But when I was in dire emotional stress, out of desperation I cried out in my car, sitting in the driver’s seat driving down Highway 5 from Encinitas to Mission Valley in San Diego, speaking to myself about my unhappiness over my job—yet happy for the success I had enjoyed in the work of teaching. It was a period of unease and confusion: I had the opportunity of a lifetime to teach and interact with so many dentists who came to hear our NM occlusion teachings, being the “Director” whom doctors looked up to and patronized—and yet, over time, happiness was not in the job. Something was missing, and the unhappiness was a professional void I couldn’t understand. But God—yes, God. I have no other way to explain this as an analytical, skeptical person. I don’t claim to be spiritual or an especially godly Christian; in fact, that is not me at all. But in the depths of my distress, while I was talking to myself, God heard my cries. He knew my predicament and my situation in life, and He said, “Go and apologize to your father for your rebelliousness when you were younger.” It was that day, while we were driving back to Las Vegas, that we called my dad. I told him about the spiritual encounter and how sorry I was for my rebelliousness at seventeen. My father said, “Son, I know exactly what you are talking about. It’s okay.” Immediately I felt a huge weight leave my back. It was so easy to do when God was with me. Right after that call, I called my former boss and told him the same thing. I had enough courage and strength to tell him that however he wanted to handle it, I was 100% okay with it. I was able to let go, regardless of the circumstances I had been trying to hold on to—trying to be right—because God was over the situation of my professional life. For one year I prayed, asking God, “When, Lord, do I graduate from this situation?” Eventually, one year later, in the summer of 2006, the Voice said, “Now is the time.” It wasn’t a loud voice you can hear with your physical ears; it was an inner voice you hear with your spiritual ears. Whether I would say it was in my mind, my heart, my soul or my spirit, it was a quiet, speaking voice that told me: now is the time to submit your resignation as Director. On June 30, 2006, I submitted my resignation, with peace and calm, knowing that God was in charge.
Let Go and Let God: The Quiet Years
After resigning from the institute, I had no clear clue what my future was going to be, but I resigned trusting in my Heavenly Father, who guided me step by step. “Let go and let God” continued in my life, removing the pathologies within my heart that had left me unhappy, stressed, and uneasy.
There were times of battling in those years, and a verse from Deuteronomy spoke to me and gave me courage:
“The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.”
— Deuteronomy 28:7
I held on to those words, trusting that the Lord would go before me and fight the battles I could not fight on my own.
Resignation and the Non-Compete
Before I left, my wife and I consulted with a local church pastor—the church where I had lately been attending as a back-seat, Sunday-morning attendee—asking him how we could resign from this job without causing much trouble. After we talked through the situation, the pastor said, “Hey, we have a Kairos School of Ministry you should attend.” Knowing I would have two years of a non-compete to fulfill, we realized at once that this was the way.
So I told my boss that I was going into Christian ministry and would be attending the Kairos School of Ministry. I submitted my resignation as the Director of Neuromuscular Dentistry at the institute on June 30, 2006, with my departure effective July 31, 2006, and he accepted it without debate. That began a two-year non-compete agreement that restricted me from teaching, lecturing, or sharing on the subjects of occlusion, TMD, cosmetics, and restorative dentistry anywhere in the United States—an agreement that would complete exactly two years later, on July 31, 2008.
The next two years would be a dramatic change in lifestyle. There would be no interaction with large crowds of dentists listening to me speak, no accolades about how amazing I was or how great the programs were. It would be quietness—a calm of a different energy, a period of loneliness, a period of unwinding.
After leaving the institute, I attended the Kairos School of Ministry at the International Church of Las Vegas for a season.
The name Kairos itself carried a meaning I would come to appreciate more deeply. In ancient Greek there are two words for time. One is chronos—sequential, ticking, clock-and-calendar time, the ordinary measure of hours and days. The other is kairos—the right or opportune moment, the appointed time, a season set apart for a purpose. In the Scriptures, kairos is the word for God’s appointed time, the decisive moment He chooses for His own work.
Looking back, that two-year period was exactly that—a kairos. Measured on the clock, it was simply two years of a non-compete to wait out. But in God’s hands it was an appointed season: a time to be still, to unwind, to be quieted and formed, and to be made ready for what He had planned next.
A verse from Jeremiah speaks to that very truth, and to my whole life:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
— Jeremiah 29:11
A Blessing Over Dinner (2007)
In 2007, I was invited to attend a Peter Dawson Level 1 occlusion program in St. Petersburg, Florida. On the Thursday evening after the course, my wife and I were invited to a sit-down dinner at the local Chart House Restaurant with Dr. Dawson; his partner, Dr. Dewitt Wilkersen; Dr. David Newkirk, a clinical instructor; and Joan Forest, the Dawson Academy administrator. The dinner was a pleasant evening, and I shared with Dr. Dawson how Christ came into my life and how I came to leave the institute. As the entrées were being served, Pete took my hand and said, “Let’s pray.” We all bowed our heads, hands joined around the table, as a blessing was offered over the dinner. Immediately after the blessing, Dr. David Newkirk asked how I had liked the course. I told him how much my wife and I loved it, letting them know the program was first class and that I would encourage any doctor to attend.
Right after my response, Dr. Dewitt asked how I would propose we bring our profession closer together. I had no prepared answer, but what spontaneously came out of my mouth was this: the fact that Dr. Dewitt had shared with me earlier that morning how he and Dr. Dawson came together to be partners, and how Peter had been led to Christ, and how I had shared with Peter at dinner how Christ came into my life during my time at the institute—that, I believed, was the beginning of how God was working to bring our profession closer together. That evening we did not discuss philosophies of dental occlusion, but the dinner was memorable, and we let them all know how much we appreciated this special time together.
A Key Offered in Kindness
During this two-year period of having to be quiet, away from the excitement of teaching, sharing, and giving courses, I spent the next year and a half with Dr. Tom Zafiratos in his office every Tuesday or Wednesday night, over a pizza meal at the local pizza restaurant, sharing with him about the cases and treatment I had performed in his office that week. Tom was a dentist, and his wife, Luci, was the hygienist. They were lovely, kind people, and they generously allowed me to work in their small office, very close by in Summerlin, Las Vegas, during the two-year non-compete—opening their doors to me so graciously. I had first met Tom at the institute, where he had come to take our courses. One year before I left, he approached me one day and said that if anything ever happened—if I ever decided to leave—his office was open to me; he would give me his key so I could practice and see patients there. I thanked him for that kind and generous gesture, but I didn’t think much of it at the time, not knowing whether I would ever take him up on it. Yet with the evolving of time and circumstances, it came to pass. I resigned, and I called Tom to see if his offer was still open. He said, “Come on over.” To this day I remain grateful for his friendship in allowing me to see my TMD, restorative, and orthodontic cases there during that time.
During this two-year period, the pace of life was very different for me, but God was speaking to me, telling me to “Let go, let God.” Those were the words that rang in my head, reminding me to trust in Him.
A Name for What Was Coming
During those two quiet years, dentists would call me from time to time, asking whether I would teach them. Each time I had to tell them no, because I was committed to abide by the two-year non-compete I had signed. I honored that contract faithfully—yet I sensed that, as the two years drew to a close, something was about to break.
About a month before the non-compete would complete, my wife and I were on vacation with our family—first in France, then in Aruba—and I found myself contemplating my future, not knowing what was going to unfold. It was during that trip that I accepted an invitation to speak at a local Pankey Dawson study club back home in Las Vegas. And it was there, in a timeshare hotel in Paris, that I felt the urge to come up with a name for a domain—a website—sensing that something was soon going to happen. I turned the possibilities over: Occlusal Connections, Connection Occlusion, and various derivations of the name. I didn’t want to call it an institute or a center. After consulting with my wife and a friend, we agreed on it—occlusionconnections.com.
The Night Before the Non-Compete Closed
The evening of the presentation arrived—July 30, 2008, the night before July 31, the day my two-year non-compete would be complete. At the study club’s request, I gave a three-hour lecture on the difference between two philosophies of occlusion: the centric relation concept and the neuromuscular concept. At the end of the lecture, a dentist stepped up to applaud my presentation and then began to press me with the thought that I should start teaching. At first I took it as a kind compliment, but I soon recognized he was serious. I told him I had no teaching entity, let alone teaching material—I had left it all at the institute—so I had no plans to teach. But because of his persistence, I finally asked him, “Who are you?” He told me he was Dr. Byron Blasco, at the time one of the state dental board examiners, governor-appointed.
The Dentist Who Would Not Let Go
One month later, Dr. Blasco called and asked again when I was going to hold the course; he wanted to bring his dentist friends. Again I told him I had no program, but I thanked him for his interest. Then Byron called a third time, in September, and I quickly realized he was dead serious—he was asking me for the date. So we set one: November 8, 2008—a goal and a deadline—knowing that I had to get to work arranging the entire curriculum and manual for a course that did not yet exist. That is when I realized God was at work. He was the inspiration prodding me along, through other people, to develop a curriculum that had never been.
The First Course (November 8, 2008)
By the time November 8 arrived, sure enough, doctors began to walk through the front door of the office where we had arranged to hold the course. One by one, new faces appeared, and familiar former faces came as well, to hear what OC had to offer. That day, Occlusion Connections held its first Level 1 course, titled “Advanced Principles of Physiologic Occlusion,” with the manual written in textbook format. We had sixteen dentists in attendance for that first course, and we began to present the concepts of GNM—concepts that had not formerly been presented at the institute: what to see and observe, what to diagnose and recognize when taking the bite registration, along with key factors that had never been presented in former occlusion programs. The course was a hit, and now these doctors were asking when the next one would be.
A New Home for the Teaching
Dr. Tom announced to my wife and me that he was moving his family to practice in Chicago. We knew our time in his office was coming to a close. We trusted God to provide a way and a place. Amazingly, my wife received a call from Dr. Joe Willardsen, another dentist in town and a former student who had attended the institute. He had an office on the west side of town and invited us to come and be with him. We couldn’t do that immediately, but we told him that if circumstances changed we would let him know. Well, Dr. Tom announced that he was definitely moving six months later, so we called Dr. Joe to ask whether his offer to work out of his office was still open. He said yes, and invited us to come see the place. In Dr. Willardsen’s office there was a lecture room that was not yet fully developed, but his office was much larger, with the potential to build out a proper classroom at a later date. That is where we began to teach the OC courses, and in 2010 we completed the classroom build-out.
From 2008 to 2024 we taught at True Dentistry, and Dr. Joe was a gracious host and a supportive friend through all those years. He passed away on January 26, 2025, and my wife and I remember him with deep gratitude and affection. When Dr. Jennifer Cha—the owner of the Dental Implant Institute, and another former student—learned of Joe’s passing, she graciously offered her office to us, and that is where we continue to offer the OC course teachings today. It is clear in my heart and mind that the hand of God has been with us and with these GNM teachings.
How the Term GNM Came About
In the early Level 1 courses, the term GNM was not yet apparent, but as we continued to give our courses, one of our students said to me, “Dr. Chan, we all know you formerly as a gnathologist teaching NM instrumentation concepts to us. Why don’t you use the term ‘gneuromuscular’—a silent G in front of ‘neuromuscular’—for Gneuromuscular, GNM, to better distinguish what you are teaching.” That is when the term GNM came about.
The Heart of the GNM Teachings
When praying about what I should present and how to design a course, I would ask my Heavenly Father what should be taught. Certain points would come to mind, and I would write them down. Eventually I found an outline presenting key principles that were not effectively taught in dentistry. A key point was the principle of Physiologic Rest. It was a point presented in the NM arena, but it was not adequately emphasized as a foundational step in getting a patient healthy again. Establishing homeostasis—a physiologic rested position of the mandible that helps bring neutrality and stability to the stomatognathic neuromuscular system—is fundamental, free of pathology and dysfunction. Trying to continue doing dentistry on a patient who presents with occlusal dysfunctions and symptoms would be counterproductive; but to first establish and identify the physiologic rest position—which can be identified and observed through jaw-tracking patterns with dental TENS—was an eye-opener for many dentists who came to the courses. Another key point of the OC GNM teachings is that a true physiologic path of jaw closure can be found, and definitely measured and quantified, where the muscles are more relaxed and the jaw joints are optimized with the disc reduced—which is key once physiologic rest is first identified. The AP jaw-closing path depends upon the quality of physiologic rest that is established. Additionally, we teach how to find the structural and physiologic vertical position of the jaw that corresponds to proper facial and neuromuscular joint posture. Up from the rested position, along an optimized myo-trajectory determined after breaking up the unseen spastic muscle engrams, we can then determine the precise terminal contact position—where to set the bite in all six dimensions. Then OC GNM teaches six principles of gnathic movement—how important these movements are—which completes the GNM process for optimal biotensegrity of the body and its function, starting from filling in the missing structural pieces: the deficient dental occlusion that is commonly missing when abnormal breakdown and muscle symptoms occur.
Techniques, protocols, and procedures that apply to all facets of dentistry—from diagnosis, to implementing comprehensive restorative dentistry, to orthodontic and orthopedic treatment—have been clearly presented in the OC curriculum. It has opened the eyes of both new and very experienced clinicians, who now realize that the questions they had held for years were finally being answered at OC. These techniques and methods are demonstrated and proven, and dentists are amazed to realize what they had been missing for their entire careers.
How the Courses Were Born
Let me share how God—the still, small voice—moves in the development of the OC courses.
Knowing I had been asked by doctors to give them a course, I didn’t know what to call it. There had to be a course title, a topic, a subject. What would it be? The doctors were obviously coming to me to learn about dental occlusion; they knew there was something missing in their experience as dentists—but what was I going to share with them that would meet their need? As I contemplated this, thoughts would slowly emerge over time. I would consult with my wife, and she too was a voice of reason—one who often helped with the names of the courses. She seemed to have a good pulse on what the doctors and the audience were interested in. She would tell me, and I would write it down. Then there was the need to determine how many days were required for the courses—one day, two, or three. Doctors had to leave their offices and their livelihood to attend, and we wanted to respect their time away from their own patients; yet two days seemed to ring clear as a reasonable length to deliver practical teachings and allow a hands-on experience.
Now thoughts came to me for the outline, and then the bullet points—the key points of what the course was going to cover. What needed to be emphasized? What were the key points that had to be communicated in these two days? Early in the morning, still in bed, I would simply talk to my Heavenly Father, asking what I was supposed to teach. A thought would come to mind about the key points, and I would write it down immediately. Then another thought would come at my desk, and I would write it down. While I was in my car driving and running errands, another thought would come, and I realized God was giving me these inspirations. I would type them into my iPhone, or, if I was traveling, jot the idea down on a scrap of paper to formulate later. All these ideas came together into an outline—a blueprint. What next needed to develop were the visual images to help convey what was on the outline. As I thought about each major point of the teaching, I realized I also needed to detail, in written form, the meaning of each concept. I had to define the terms, to clarify and explain in text what the technique or method was about.
From Cases to Curriculum
In fact, what I was writing down to give the doctors was not just a simple handout of papers. As it turned out, from hours and hours of work—contemplating with the Holy Spirit at my side—it became a course manual that evolved from meditation. This seemingly unholy process was in fact a process of being with God, allowing Him to enlighten me, to shine His thoughts about a particular subject or matter. The presentation slides also came from my many years of collecting, documenting, and recording every case I treated. Over the years I assembled a library of occlusion, TMD, and orthodontically treated cases, along with full-mouth rehabilitation cases that displayed every step of the way from start to finish—the photos before, the mid-treatment progress images from visit to visit, and the very end. During each case, I learned from the patient things I would not have figured out unless I was listening, recording, and photographing. The patients were willing to tell me their story. Yes—each case was a story, and as I assembled the different parts of a patient’s story into the course presentation and text manual, key principles, rules, and processes would evolve. That is how each OC course was established: one step at a time.
It starts with quieting yourself, then listening for a still, small voice, focused on this question: “Dear Lord, what do You want me to say and present?” He didn’t answer right away, but the answer would come—sometimes at a time I didn’t expect. When the thought came, I knew it wasn’t because of me. Yes, the idea did come from me—but really it came from somewhere through me, a deeper Source. I realized it was not my own genius. Deep within, I realized there is a great Source, a divine impression, where a human can tap into the creative Source where all things actually begin—from a state of physiologic rest, peace within, a calm and a sense of clarity. Then comes the thought, and the action of actually writing it down with a pencil or pen. Then you see the words on paper; you massage the text and words into sentences, and from the sentences grow paragraphs of ideas and concepts focused on conveying the teaching, the lesson, the protocol, and the process. I title each section and put them all into a logical learning sequence to meet the objective of the course—the focus of the course now begins to convey the lessons the doctors should learn in written form.
That is how it happens. It flows and develops organically. It wasn’t that I figured I was going to teach, and so set about teaching. No—it happens from a beginning point of prayer and meditative thought, allowing God, my Father, to guide, direct, and inspire me into developing the program His way. What does God want to convey, through this topic of dental occlusion, to dentists? I allow God to speak, using the OC courses to teach each doctor the deeper meanings of the dental problems every dentist faces daily. But how do we resolve these issues if we first don’t recognize there is a problem? Now, after experiencing this process over and over again, nine courses plus nine orthodontic course manuals have been written and assembled in an order that brings together what OC is about. This is how I began to discover the answers to the deeper issues that dentistry never taught me.
If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Treat It
Many doctors think I am a smart genius, but in all due respect, I have realized that I am just a vessel to convey what I believe the Creator is trying to convey to us dentists in the realm of dentistry. The message is simple and straightforward. It’s not complicated; it’s not difficult to see and learn. But what I find is that the difficulty is all the mud, the clay, the buildup of deposits on our minds that clogs the clarity of seeing clearly. There is a phrase I teach in our courses: if you can’t see it, you can’t treat it. If you can’t see the problem, you can’t diagnose the problem, and without a diagnostic understanding of the problem, it’s impossible to come up with a clear treatment plan to remedy it. In short, you can’t treat what you can’t see. So seeing is the key to solving problems. If we dentists don’t see the issues, it’s impossible to fix a deeper problem.
The key is having the vision—the eyesight, the insight, and the foresight—to see beyond the basic physical, structural realm of what is before us. We can see in the physical realm, but as human beings, we dentists must also learn to see into the non-physical realm, the intangible arena; and that is often the case when treating dentistry. We see the physical problems, but sometimes it takes seeing beyond the surface—into what is deeper: the muscles, the tissues, the ligaments and fascia, the soft and hard tissues, the bones. There is also the blood that makes up the circulatory system, the nerves that innervate the muscles and associated organ systems, and the dental organs that are connected to the human jaw and upper facial structures that support the posture of the human being. It’s what happens in between—the sometimes-mysterious jaw movements that create various articulations during functional chewing and the act of swallowing. It’s the unseen realm, not always visible on a radiographic image or an MRI, that makes the problem visible—what is happening outside of those moments in time. What is nature trying to tell us? What was the original design, before destruction came into play, of the teeth, worn dentin, jaw joints, postural system, bio-nutritional system and the central nervous system? Treating dental problems is walking into a realm of the unseen unrest of a system that is warring against itself. Welcome to the world of dental occlusion and TMD.
This is what God, I believe, has allowed me to see; and I am just a conduit to convey these principles of the Divine nature.
Give, and It Shall Be Given
As the courses unfolded, the inspiration that had once been only unspoken thoughts took form—in writing and in lecture slides. The message that had been inspired as the curriculum came to life; the attending dentists grasped the concepts quickly, and when the two days were over they would ask, with great delight, “When is the next course?” Over time, through this giving, I came to learn a valuable principle.
The first is that when you give, you receive. “Give, and it shall be given unto you,” the Lord said; and as the Scripture also puts it:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
— Galatians 6:7
The second principle I came to recognize is that the oil keeps flowing as long as there is a vessel willing to receive it. There is a story in the Bible about the prophet Elisha and a poor widow whose husband had died, leaving her in debt, with a creditor coming to take her two sons. She had nothing left in the house but a single jar of oil. Elisha told her to go and borrow empty vessels from all her neighbors—and not a few—then to shut the door and pour. As long as there were empty vessels to fill, the oil kept flowing:
“And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.”
— 2 Kings 4:6
As long as she kept pouring, more oil kept coming; the moment there were no more vessels, the oil stopped. So it has been with these teachings. As long as there are dentists willing to share what they have received and learned, pouring it into other vessels—vessels ready to receive—the supply keeps coming. That is God’s economy, and it has been the way of Occlusion Connections from the beginning. It is a principle I have seen and experienced for myself: keep pouring out. As you share what you have received, you learn more—you receive more.
For the past eighteen years we have kept on pouring out, and God has continued to provide for us and for OC—and as long as He keeps giving us vessels to pour into, the oil will not stop.
Giving God the Glory
Over the years, I can only give God the praise and the glory for the existence of OC and for what OC GNM has become and represents. Occlusion Connections is nothing without God involved—no sponsors, no marketing dollars spent, just prayer to Him for His supply and His blessing over these teachings. It is prayer, asking Him to supply the doctors who have an interest and to bring those who have a heart to hear. God is the only one I can depend on. I have learned that humans are not always dependable, but God brings the success and the blessings over OC.
There is a prayer—the prayer of Jabez—that has been my own prayer as a dentist and teacher over these years:
Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm, that I may be free from pain.” And God granted his request.
— 1 Chronicles 4:10
God Spoke to Me Through Dentistry
In the book of Job, it is said that God speaks to us through dreams and visions of the night:
“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed.”
— Job 33:14–15
But God spoke to me through the practice of dentistry—through my patients and through my dental colleagues. For more than thirty-eight years, dentistry has been a major focus of my life, a true gift given to me by God.
Whatever my wife and I faced, we faced together. There were many ups and downs, and our share of victories; but win or lose, we never lost our passion and our love for sharing what God has blessed us with. Through it all, I came to realize that God is my true Heavenly Father, who cares for us and blesses us throughout our lives and dentistry.
My Dear Wife
My wife has been an answer to my prayers. She was the first and only girl I ever dated, and I knew at once that she was the one. She has been the best of wives—my guiding light, my inspiration, a voice of reason, and one who has always loved me. She has been the backbone, the strength, and the motivation of our small family, and the one who encouraged me to become the person I am today.
She has been a loving, gracious mother, and a caring, thoughtful office administrator to our OC doctors—faithfully arranging the courses, providing the wonderful lunch meals at every course, and coordinating with everyone who serves our attending doctors to meet their needs. She has been a shining light. Without her voice and her supportive prayers, OC would not be what it is today.
The Fish and the Bird
Here is a thought I once heard—not my own—that has stayed with me ever since. God created the fish, but the fish did not have to take swimming lessons to swim; swimming is already within the fish. God created the birds, but they did not have to attend flight school, because flight is already in the bird. So what if success is the same way—not something you chase, but something that happens naturally when you are aligned with the God who created how you were meant to be?
A fish looks untalented on land; a bird looks weak underwater. But neither is a failure. They are simply in the wrong environment—and that is where so many people get stuck. They are not failing because success is not in them; they are struggling in a place God never designed them for. A fish swimming looks effortless, and a bird flying looks effortless—not because there is no work involved, but because they are moving within their design. When you are operating in your purpose, success becomes the by-product: not because you forced it, but because you found the environment God created you to live in.
That, I believe, is what God has done in my life. The years of unrest were not failure. They were a fish being moved, step by step, toward the water. Dentistry, occlusion, GNM, and the teaching of it all—that is where He finally brought me home.
Christ, Our True Rest
There is a rest deeper than any I have described in these pages. In our OC teachings, Physiologic Rest is the foundational starting point—the quiet, neutral position from which the whole system begins to find its health. But over the years I have come to see that Physiologic Rest is more than a clinical principle. It becomes a living reality only when a person recognizes who the true Source of rest is.
That Source is none other than Jesus Christ the Person. He is the one who said:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
— Matthew 11:28, 30
On the cross, He did for us everything we could never do for ourselves; He paid for all that we lacked through His death and resurrection. And still He does not force His way in—He stands and knocks, waiting to be welcomed:
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
— Revelation 3:20
When you open the door of your heart and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, you will find what all my striving and all my religion could never give me—true rest, true life, and true peace. He calls us simply to follow Him:
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
— Matthew 16:24
Physiologic rest may bring healing to the body, but the rest of the soul is found in one place only—in Jesus Christ. He is the rest I had been searching for my whole life, the rest that all my accomplishments could never manufacture. And He is the rest I pray, with all my heart, that every reader of this testimony will come to know.
This is the story and testimony of how my wife and I have lived and continue to live, practice, and teach in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Occlusion Connections — The Center for Gneuromuscular Dentistry and Orthopedic Advancement
6170 W. Desert Inn Rd., Las Vegas, NV 89146
(702) 271-2950
Course registration: jane@occlusionconnections.com
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