Charting the Feet in Reflexology - Part 1

hello and welcome Adam Thomas from bouncing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today today we are going to look at charting the feet so the best practices that I've found and also the importance of keeping good files on your clients [Music] so in this video what we're going to be talking about here is the actual drawing and charting of the feet okay so I'm not talking about keeping your charts as far as like the person's name and their address and other sort of uh medical information that is important to the session as well right maybe that will be another video um so we're not talking about this page we are talking more about the actual charting of the feet right so the actual markings the directions of the toes any calluses that shows up like that so visually and also we will be touching the feet um to get information as well so we're going to go through a checklist of uh what is important to chart so why even chart the feed right so we have a session that we do and we follow it along so why do we need to take the time to chart the feed well I have a couple reasons one of them is because I don't want to keep all that information in my head right as soon as the client leaves so does the information in my head right um unless there is something like really important that I need to go and study and so when I write it out or Draw it out on the chart I have a reference of if they're coming to see me again I can just quickly glance at the chart and be on the same page as as uh you know as they come back and start the session right I also really like it as a history to be able to look back and see the progression of you know what has changed what hasn't changed during the reflexology sessions that I've had with a certain client and another really good one is you can start to use once you get a whole bunch of clients you can start to use it as research right so keeping good charting can be a great research tool [Music] how often should you chart clients [Music] So my answer to that is every time okay so it's our first time obviously I get out the chart and I start charging them because I'm I'm just meeting them right and so this is a good way to show the client that you care by taking some notes and and that sort of thing right it's a it's a standard practice right when I first started doing reflexology it was actually really kind of uncomfortable to chart because you know I felt like I was wasting their time but really um if I go for a session or I go to a doctor's appointment or something like that I find it really important and I find it very caring that they're taking notes right because in today's world uh you know people don't even address you by the name anymore it's by like a file number and they don't even look at you sometimes right and they're just writing stuff down they move on so having that time to take notes and ask questions and stuff is I think really important in a reflexology session as well foreign repeat client come back to me and I'll see their name in the on on the schedule and I'll be like oh okay I can't remember anything from them I can't even remember what they look like and then when they show up I'm like oh yeah okay now now I sort of remember what they look like but I still can't remember anything about them until I see my chart and I see the feed in front of me and then suddenly I can remember like small little details about what we were talking about like some weird little you know conversation that we were having not even related to reflexology right so it's so funny that um I'll recognize the person and stuff but I won't remember what we talked about or worked on during the reflexology session until I see their feet and then I look at my chart quickly right so having a system where um you chart and it feels really great all the information that you need to write down on there um is so important right so anyway just a funny little thing that I've noticed as well [Music] so one other little thing that I want to go over before we get charting is to kind of be gentle with yourself okay um when you're first starting out doing charting or even if you've been charting for a long time there are just some clients that I've noticed that they show up and you know they they say they want to work on these sort of things and then when you get to feed in front of you and you're looking at them and you're like wow I can't see anything on their feet right so this tends to happen with somebody who maybe is a first time client right and you're you're sitting there and you're wanting to chart something but their feet look they're not giving you any information right and it isn't until with these clients maybe a couple sessions later that suddenly stuff you start to notice on their feet right I've just noticed that some people they're kind of like um you know they they want to build this trust with you before even in their feet they start to reveal more information right so this this has happened a couple times to me it's not just one time and I've talked to other reflexologists as well and this tends to be a common thing where um some people just aren't comfortable opening up and showing themselves to you right away and so you'll even see that in their feet where it's just so hard to get any information from them right from their feet at least they're telling you that they have neck issues and you know their back bothers them and stuff like that but when you look their feet look fine right there isn't any of those same sort of calluses and things like that and until a couple sessions later where you're looking at their feet going wow okay how come I'm seeing this now right so just an interesting thing that can happen to you foreign point that I want to get into too is that charting is ultimately for yourself okay so the way that you chart is the right way um I'm going to give you some suggestions and you know the way that I do it but that's not the end-all be-all right I don't know I'm not a chart Guru right there are some you know there's a checklist that we're going to go through um that will make sure that you know what you're looking at gets you as much information as you can right but ultimately when you take your pen down or pencil down onto the chart and what you think is important you know some people are you know a lot more uh used to using words and stuff so they're going to probably write more descriptions about what they're seeing and feeling right on the feet whereas I'm more of a visual person I'm going to be drawing more of what I see on the feet right so charting the best way for yourself is what's important in charting okay because later on when you look back you will understand what you wrote down um as far as if you're following my method for example um you'll look at the charts and not understand most of it because it wasn't your way of doing it so I really said like strongly suggest that you find a method that works really well for you okay so let's jump into this checklist so just so you know um in the description below there'll be a link where you can actually get this so it's everything that we're talking about in this video today so charting the feet and then you have your checklist okay so there's two parts to this checklist one is visual so when you take off the socks you get some feet in front of you what do you see right where are we gonna look what is important information to start the chart um in part two it's more of when you're actually moving the feet around what do you feel right and then you chart that as well so I broke it up into that way but as you get more familiar with um charting the feet you're gonna do your own method like for example I don't even use a chart sometimes right on the very first client I will use a chart on maybe on the following depending on what is what's important to chart and if I need the outline of the feet as an indicator then I will use my chart but if not I will use maybe the back right for session two of just a blank sheet so there's no real way a right wrong way to do this right again it's really up to you so let's get into the checklist really quick here [Music] so