As a clinician, if you ever took a Mulligan course from Brian Folk, I suspect you will agree that the experience was positive, enjoyable, and eye-opening - and if you didn’t have a good laugh at some point on the course, you weren’t truly present. As a friend, Mulligan teacher, co-teacher, colleague, and past member of the MCTA executive committee, he will be
missed. Brian loved to travel, and many of you across the country benefited from his willingness to travel to clinics large and small to share his passion for teaching Mobilization with Movement techniques. Although I never practiced side-by-side clinically with Brian, I have no doubt that many of his co-workers and patients benefited from his manual therapy expertise and enjoyed his light-hearted banter.
Those clinicians who became Certified Mulligan Practitioners under his tutelage would attest to his high level of enthusiasm and his extensive and broad-based manual therapy knowledge. Year after year, many clinicians who learned from Brian benefited from his willingness to spend countless weekends away from his wife Donna, friends, pet birds, and his spiritual home in San Diego. Thinking about it, there are likely hundreds of patients who have also benefited from Brian in an indirect way. Because of his teaching, clinicians treated their patients differently and more effectively as a result of learning from him.
Brian was a mix of Tommy and Dickie Smothers. (Sorry if you don’t know these outspoken comedian brothers from the 60’s - look them up.) Brian was a smart and serious Dickie Smothers at times. But let’s be honest - he was one of the funniest and most entertaining people I’ve known - a Tommy Smothers, always ready to let his humor fly. As I often experienced while co-teaching with him on courses, just like Dickie Smothers’ attempts to control his brother Tommy, attempting to rein-in Brian while co-teaching with him was quite comical and typically impossible.
Simply put, and paraphrasing the Beatles song “In My Life”:
“There are (places) and friends I’ll remember all my life - some have gone and some remain. But of all these friends…….there is no one who compares with you. I know I’ll often stop and think about you…… in my life, Brian’s been a good friend.”
Thank you, Brian, for being with us, although it seems like too short a time.
Rick