The CLEAR Institute

First time lecturing at

In my city.

In front of my peers.

And with one of my favorite people to share a stage with, 🇨🇦🇺🇸

What makes it fun is that there is never an ego battle.

Just two educators trying to make sure people learn something useful, laugh a little, and leave with an experience they’ll remember.

The video has everything:

🍟 A discussion about poutine

🇫🇷 Joshua attempting French

😂 The traditional tickling incident at the end

For reasons nobody understands, Joshua is unbelievably ticklish.

For reasons I understand very well, I remind him every time we take a picture.

Over 200 people joined us, and the feedback was incredible.

Thank you to everyone who came.

Hopefully this is the first of many JDIQ appearances.

Refinement three.
And the problem was there at aligner one.
Most dentists I know are not struggling with aligners.
They are struggling with planning.
The staging. The anchorage. The force system.
Movements that looked clean on screen but were never biomechanically realistic.
A refinement does not fix that.
It repeats it.
Before your next submission, ask yourself:
Is this a compliance problem, or did the original plan ask for something the biology was never going to deliver?
That answer changes everything.

22 years ago…

Clear aligners felt almost ridiculous to many people.

Plastic trays moving teeth?

Really?

At that time, we had almost nothing.

No webinars.

No YouTube tutorials.

No online communities.

Very little scientific evidence.

No roadmap.

No “best practices”.

Nothing.

Only curiosity.

A willingness to experiment.

And the deep feeling that this could change dentistry forever.

Not only orthodontics.

Dentistry.

Because clear aligners forced us to rethink everything:

Diagnosis.

Occlusion.

Force systems.

Anchorage.

Staging.

Patient communication.

Digital workflows.

Comprehensive care.

Back then, many of us learned through mistakes.

Through refinements.

Through frustration.

Through cases that humbled us very quickly 😅

Today?

Dentists entering the clear aligner world are incredibly fortunate.

You now have access to scientific evidence.

Structured education.

Mentorship.

And programs built on principles instead of recipes.

That is exactly why we created the MOCA programs at The CLEAR Institute.

Not to create technicians following cookbooks.

But to help dentists THINK.

Because when you truly understand WHY teeth move…

You stop depending on luck.

And you start building predictability.

And honestly…

That changes everything.

👇 Curious to know:

Do you think clear aligners changed only orthodontics…

Or did they change the entire philosophy of modern dentistry?

TheCLEARInstitute DigitalDentistry Biomechanics Orthodontie DentistLife

is not only an aligner.

It is a conversation starter.

At CDI Toronto, I’ll be speaking about how Invisalign can become part of a more comprehensive approach to dentistry.

Not only tooth movement.

A better diagnostic conversation.

A more visual way to explain treatment.

A bridge between alignment, restorative dentistry, function, aesthetics, and patient motivation.

Because comprehensive dentistry is not about doing more.

It is about seeing more before deciding what to do.

And when patients understand what we see, the conversation changes.

I’m really looking forward to kicking off the CDI program in Toronto on June 5 and 6, 2026.

If you are ready to look at Invisalign as more than tooth movement, this course is for you.

Click the registration link.

See you in Toronto.

Dentists RestorativeDentistry AlignTechnology TheCLEARInstitute MakeTheMove

Starting with aligners?

Pick the boring cases first.

Most dentists starting with Invisalign want to prove themselves quickly.

So they take on a Class II case with crowding, deep bite, and midline shift as their third case.

Then comes the fun part…

Refinement.

Then another refinement.

Then the quiet internal question:

“What went wrong?”

Often, the problem is not your hands.

It is your baseline.

You cannot build clinical judgment in a system you do not understand yet.

Patient selection is not about fear.

It is not about being too conservative.

It is about learning in a controlled environment.

Start with:

Mild crowding
Single arch
Cooperative patient
No bite issues
Low biomechanical complexity

Not because these are the only cases you can treat.

Because these are the cases that teach you what tracking looks like, what proper staging feels like, and what finishing really requires.

Once you build that feedback loop, harder cases become easier to read.

Before that, they are often just expensive experiments.

Your skill level grows faster when the complexity is low and the feedback is clear.

Pick boring cases on purpose.

That is not a limitation.

That is a strategy.

It is time to Make the MOVE!

P.S. Did you ever take on a complex case too early and regret it? What would you choose differently today?

SCAN… then YES.

That’s not a feature of the software.
That’s a system inside your practice.

Excited to be in Halifax with doctors and their teams for this study club.

Because here is the reality most miss…
Clear aligner success does not start with biomechanics.
It starts the moment you scan.

What happens between SCAN and YES is everything:
• How your team communicates
• How you present the problem before the solution
• How the patient feels, not just what they see
• How simple and repeatable your workflow is

In this session, we focus on one thing:
Turning scans into decisions… as a team.

Because case acceptance is never a one person job.

If your scans are not converting the way they should…
It is rarely the treatment plan.
It is almost always the experience.

Let’s fix that.

Have fun making the move.

P.S. Do your scans consistently turn into YES in your practice?
If not, where do you feel the breakdown happens?👇

Spring changes everything

But your planning should too

Stop freezing your cases
Start understanding movement

Comment FLOW if this resonates