Introduction to Reflexology

so my name is Karen ball and one of the things that I teach area as Sam is foot and hand reflexology and I want to take a few minutes to just tell you a little bit about it it's a very very old therapy comes out of the east and we're not really sure exactly where it first came to be the earliest records of it are actually in Egypt but it was developed in China and it's based on two primary theories and the first theory is that there are reflexes in the hands and in the feet that reflect almost every part of your body and that by certain techniques in with your hands you can actually have a positive influence on those reflexes so one of the other theories around it is that the body gets divided into actually ten zones so if I was hot to hold up my hand this would be the first zone this would be the second the third the fourth and the fifth and then it's the same with the foot so your great toe is your first so second third fourth and fifth here's an example of a reflexology chart and it's the chart that we use here at the school to teach from I want to give you a little visual on how the zones would work in the body so here's your great toe this would be your first zone the second zone would you from the second toe the third the fourth and then the baby toe is your fifth zone so that's the bottom of the foot what we call the plantar surface of the foot now the other lines that we look at are the divisional lines that come across the body so in my body here's my shoulder line my head right so the reflexes to my head are all going to be found here in the toes here would be my shoulder line coming across my diaphragm line shoulder line the whole chest area on the foot shoulder line diaphragm line and then what people call the balls of the foot the heads of the metatarsals that's the whole chest area where I find the reflexes to my heart into my lungs I'm a diaphragm line and then here's my pelvic line so in between years of course is my abdominal area with all the reflexes to my stomach and my liver all the digestive organs on the foot we're gonna find that in the arch of the foot so it'll be between that diaphragm line and where the heel is so right in this arch area and then the heel area actually refers to the pelvic area of my body so you can almost see like your whole body superimposed over the foot and see your head chest abdomen and then your pelvic area where I'm going to focus with me working with on Pluto would be in this area you know one of the areas we like to focus on with the students in the program is the chest area because this is where your heart and lung reflexes are and you know that other primary reflexes okay all right so when we come to the foot I want to just show you the zone on the foot as well okay so here's the great toe I can just draw a line right in between the great toe and the next toe and come down come between the second and the third come all the way down between the third and the fourth and between the fourth and the fifth okay so this would be Zone one all the way in this area so two in this area three four and five and those zones will extend all the way up the body so whatever lives in the first zone and look at what and the reflex of the foot is going to relate to whatever is in that zone coming up the body now the horizontal ones it's my shoulder line the diaphragm line comes the waistline and then the pelvic line so my head reflexes all the reflexes for my head and the neck area will be where the toes are the chest area will be between the shoulder line and the diaphragm line where the balls of the foot are the heads of the metatarsals and then this whole arch area is going to relate to the abdominal area so the upper area where your stomach is down in here or your intestines are and then the pelvic area will be here this whole heel area okay that will relate to all the organs of the reproductive system and now I'm going to show you the primary techniques in reflexology is offering an alternating pressure so if I take my thumb there's two bones and my thumb and I just bend right there it's kind of like this would be called the reflexology wave - by the way and I'm going to apply alternating pressure using this thumb okay I'm going to apply just a little bit of lubrication on her foot first and I'm gonna start by doing a few techniques just to relax or foot a little bit and warm up the tissue provide a few purposes you know the relaxing the tissue warming up the tissue getting the blood circulating also though its I'm introducing myself kind of kinesthetically to the client generally in a session we would spend maybe mmm five six seven minutes to work on the foot doing a number of these relaxation techniques spreading the whole top of the foot the dorsal part of the foot and now I'm spreading the plantar surface the bottom of the foot so I'm gonna start in the first zone I'm gonna start down at the heel lay my thumb just flat on the heel and then I'm just gonna rock in straighten my thumb move a little bit forward and rock in so some people think of this is like like inching like a little inchworm moving forward so each one of these little steps that I'm taking what I'm doing is paying attention to the tissue just noticing what I feel I start off I get a sense of how homogenous it is how how much it is alike and then what can happen is that I can come across an area where all the sudden it gets my attention because it feels really different or the client themselves might say something to me there's some sensation where your thumb is you're in a session I would work vertically through each of these zones thumb walking all the way up and then what I'll do is come in and get even more specific by coming across horizontally through them and then check for any places that get my attention or get my clients attention do you do yeah so I felt something a little bit different in this area and so did my client so what I'm gonna do now is just stop and I'm just gonna hold this point and if you would just take a few deep breaths take about three of them nice big breaths and while you're breathing just pay attention to what this spot feels like under my thumb how does that feel now feels like it seized up a little bit feels like a DS stuff okay all right so as soon as my client feels a change in the sensation like that I'm going to just kind of come out of that point I might just do something to smooth the area out and then I'm going to just continue on with walking and you'll notice that my thumb walks are really slow very rhythmical I want her to be able to really really relax with this and for her to be able to bring her attention to her body so she'll notice anything going on now come down a little bit lower so now I'm feeling something I haven't heard anything from my client but I'm gonna just inquire and see if she notices anything here so are you when you bring your attention to this point do you notice anything different than the other points we've been on it has a little business ation to it a little bit more sensation incision so let's take a few deep breaths again this pressure feels perfect okay when you exhale just let your body totally relax on the table I can apply a little bit of movement if I watching it really slow small friction I want to keep the pressure comfortable for her and at the same time I wanted to feel it though - what do you notice now the sensation has decreased decreased a little bit okay we can go to the top of the foot now to because this part of the foot doesn't have as much tissue on it as the plantar surface I'm not going to use my thumbs my heavy hitters I'm gonna use my fingers here you can use one or two or even three of them but let's say I start with to support the great toe with one hand and it's the same action really only it's a finger walk this time just bending in you notice I have short nails so my nails aren't coming into hair I don't want to bend so much for that she actually feels those nails either the movement is comfortable for my hands I don't bother with trying to apply so much pressure that I hurt my hands or cause pain to my client it was the first song and now I'm gonna come into the second zone so this place right here under my middle finger got my attention I just check in to see if you notice anything in this area it feels a little sensitive okay is this pressure comfortable for you pressure is perfect okay all right so let's just take a few deep breaths I'm gonna move my finger back and forth a little bit and really small friction movements I'm taking the opportunity to focus on my own breath at the same time so that I'm breathing as well once my hands are in motion I can bring my own eyes up to just watch my clients breathing trust that my hands you know what they're doing what are you aware of now and yes I'm here um I'm aware that the sensation has decreased a little bit again just smooth it out it's a technique that we use a lot to work on the groin lymph reflexes in addition to working on the reflexes to the grind limp this is a really great technique to loosen up a band of connective tissue here that kind of supports all the ligaments and veins and nerves that are coming into the dorsal part of the foot can do some range of motion with the feet as well people generally come for reflexology for one of about three reasons either their feet hurt or their hands hurt or they feel really stressed is this modality will actually shift your nervous system into a really deeply relaxed state and then your body can heal itself or the other reason people come from reflexology is because there's some sort of an imbalance going on in one of their internal systems they might be experiencing pain they might be having trouble with their digestion they might be having a lot of sinus issues or any respiratory issue going on so we can have an effect on the health of those systems by working the reflexes in to them this is the location of all the reflexes to the spine in the primary system that reflexology is working on is the nervous system so this is always a really important area to pay attention to again you can see I'm switching my hands back and forth it's switching between my fingers and my thumbs that way I don't ever get repetitive strain injuries with my own hands so one thing I like to do when I've finished working on one foot or one hand is to check in with my client before I move on to the other one and just see if they can notice the difference you know I can always notice a difference in the tissue myself but it's more important they're noticing bring your attention to both your feet wiggle them around can you feel a difference between them as you're doing that I can can you describe that difference the one that you worked on it feels much lighter a more flexible feels like there's less crunchies mm-hmm that's pretty good if you're curious about massage therapy as a career for yourself and are interested in knowing a little bit more about what we offer at the Florida School of Massage I'm inviting you to give us a call come by take a tour hang out with our students they'll tell you what the school is like and if you're interested in knowing more about reflexology you can leave a message for me at the school and I'd be happy to call you back thank you