Lymphatic Reflexology Demo Video

joke either one it doesn't matter moving fluid on Jose okay so again just to kind of recap what we're gonna be doing is we're going to be doing a just quick demo on how to move lymph through the feet so this would be somebody comes in and they're either complaining of a foot that is swollen or they're complaining of a lymphatic issue oftentimes when that you feel free to get situated oftentimes when a client is struggling with a fluid issue there are a couple dangers to that one cardiovascular which is the theme of our weekends like if somebody has a physical backup of fluid that's a red flag for a lot of deeper cardiovascular stress so referring them to a physician might be in the cards yeah we need to keep that in mind as far as like just red flag myths because cardiovascular and lymph go hand-in-hand there are two fluid systems that play off each other a lot so if the vascular nature of the capillaries and the veins are not creating that fluid return that could be part of the equation as well but like we talked about just recently you know the idea that powerful stressors can trigger massive swelling so how would we address that in a client on the table first thing that we're gonna do is we're going to get the solar plexus and adrenal or first two points under control we had talked about the adrenal gland as representing the stress hormone cortisol that ability for the body to process stress effectively but then also the adrenal glands as a powerful reflex for sex salts and sugars those three asses that will help to regulate fluid as well and then solar plexus for overall pain and discomfort what we're gonna do after that is we're going to work three very specific areas of the feet we're gonna work the dorsal surface because that's going to be our lymphatic portals we're going to walk the ball of the foot which is also lymph but more center of the chest and then we're going to do that deep ankle portion of the routine make sense okay so that should constitute a really quick half hour feel free to gather and all that stuff okay so we're gonna start with our solar plexus and again we're right at that diaphragm guideline if you wanted to look at the the chart on the wall real quick we have the diaphragm guide line in between that green and yellow section so in between horizontal Zone two and horizontal zone three that diaphragm guide line in line with the third toe that ditch that that's space we're just gonna hold that point for about thirty seconds which is very much like how again acupuncturist would take pulses this is kind of like how we would take a pulse except we're not feeling for an actual pulse we're feeling the tissue texture okay after our solar plexus then we're gonna go to our adrenal here's a fun hack that I discovered while I was teaching this this month so normally we would find the adrenal gland in between the first and second toe halfway between the diaphragm guide line and the waist line guide line there's that nice little ditch or this is new content you could at palpate for the proximal head of the first metatarsal and slide right into it Oh magic right so proximal had a first metatarsal slide right into the adrenal yeah so much less complicated but you are required to learn both versions not just the quickie cheap version so just something something fun something new because practice is always changing and evolving okay because lymph is also moved by heat it may be appropriate for you to do two rounds of hot towels yeah so if you wanted to pass me a dry towel from that end and to what tells from that ends we'll actually do that excellent so we have our and for those our new students we're going to drape over the top of the foot 2-inch flap for the toes wrap under tuck under wrap over fleece immediately comes over top in order to seal in that heat and then press a lot of clients will ask me for conditions especially with pain should I use heat or ice unless you want to numb an area and stop inflammation you should never use ice I am of the school of thought that's a little bit more energetic even if heat is present in an area you want to calm you want to relax you want to open and you do that with heat unless there is like a like somebody sprains an angle not strains like sprains like damaged ligament territory there's pain because of fluid pressure like that would be a case for ice but most of the time heat even when you know certain inflammatory conditions like if a client comes in and they're like I run hot like that's okay you're still getting hot towels because it's amazing and it's definitely part of that that relaxation process so we're going to then dry off the foot same wrap around the foot for the hot towel just a little bit of shimmy dryness I know Korea but if I don't go together yeah it was playing war on that cancer like that it leukemia so cancer lymphatic leukemia all of that territory the physical cells are earth there they would be the the element of Earth in that and they would be related to the blood because that is technically part of the blood the lymph is the fluid transport so it's kind of like it's kind of like the the cells or the subway car but the lymph is the actual subway that the tunnel yeah that the subway cars have to go through so when we think of the the difference between you know the actual blood production aspect of leukemia that would be cardiovascular when we think about the actual like lodging of the cells and the overgrowth and the channel that the cells are coagulating in that would be lymph but it's not like in the case of leukemia that all the white blood cells are immediately going to the lymphatic system they're found everywhere it's just that's where they measure okay so also relaxation techniques are very appropriate for swelling for like really really crazy a like amounts of swelling because look what we're doing very fast very vigorous motions that will help to free and stimulate fluid I mean in this case if you wanted to be technically lymphatic you could even go up instead of down but from a reflex perspective the reason why we do calf massage and we pull downwards as opposed to go upwards is because we're not really we don't have the intention of moving fluid here we're more massaging the muscle and getting a feel for tissue texture confirming you know if the feet are cold is the calf cold or is it just the extremity that's compromised you know that type of information but if you wanted to you definitely could do more of those lymphatic strokes if you felt it was necessary then we're going to be doing our push pull very important relaxation technique because of what we're doing for the calf were literally pumping that soleus and the gas trucks then we do our heel rotation heel rotation important because the heel represents all of those lower body reflexes so stimulating and flushing the nerve that would be controlling kind of that fluid balance when we think of the nerves which root into muscles the muscles themselves act as secondary hearts to the lymphatic system so if the sciatic nerve is compromised and it's freezing up the muscles that could be part of the lymphatic situation as well [Music] so that's totally part of it so what I would do first is if you wanted to start with the actual direct pump of the dorsal ankle that would be a nice way to start so we're going to push the foot back slightly to open up those channels and then use our fingers to squeeze and pump that fluid down and that's a very direct lymphatic technique because we are choosing to push fluid three and we would do that in three vertical sections three times each for a total of nine passes and although Jody has a lot of fluid in her body her feet are like technically swollen so it's not as but like when you have a foot this big you'll see it you'll see the fluid then we want to do our metatarsal shake to open up the bones and to open up the lymphatic system and then we'll actually walk down each of those dorsal valleys so we're gonna take a fist push the foot back again to open notice how we're pumping everything everything in this set is pumping in that way then fingers come over top and we're going to get into those dorsal valleys just once if you feel like a particular dorsal valley is super congested you could always go more than once it's up to you okay so we're pumping or pumping we're leading the fluid to where we want it to go and then because of that after we're done with the dorsal valleys and we give another metatarsal shake I'm going straight to the ankle because after we push the fluid to where we want it to go we want to make sure that the deeper structures of the foot are open to channel that fluid back up so we're going to do a little bit of Achilles tendon effleurage those medial sacral reflexes on the calcaneus three times representing that tailbone area switch hands lateral calcaneus representing all the glute muscles and then if you wanted to get a close-up of the the ankle rotation we're going behind the lateral malleolus starting at the top of that Crescent using our outside hands to create that pump again that rotation my index finger is just tracing around finding points along that hip joint reflex in order to deactivate it and there there is a significant amount of tension through there and that's okay okay and then we'll finish it all off with another pump the dorsal pump to really get into those direct groin and lymphatic reflexes and that would be like if you just wanted to leave it there you totally could and just repeat that same series pump pump pump wiggle down down down wiggle inside outside of calcaneus rotate pump like that if you wanted to do that like as a series of three that would be suit like just keep pumping keep moving you totally could but I'm going to finish it with horizontal zone two and there are a couple different reasons for that so when we talk about horizontal zone two on the plantar surface if you wanted to come around that horizontal zone to on the plantar surface is not just going to be our breast chest kind of upper body lymph but it's also going to be from a foot reading perspective the emotional space and when we think of the lymphatic fluid as being emotionally triggered water in the body wherever it goes emotions are present we want to clear horizontal zone too because of that emotional state not just the physical lymph good so you could pull this into a one-hour session if I just repeating Jefferson if you wanted to if you wanted to do this set like start with this set and then maybe go back and walk the digestive reflexes maybe get into the cuboid nagy spine toes and then do the set again just kind of butchering up the routine and copy pasting were needed like that could be that could be a thing okay then we finished with the relaxation techniques yay relaxation techniques mm-hmm and again if you felt the need to physically pump the fluid upward instead of downward you totally could as a general rule with lymphatic work you could pull the facha but don't go deep because lymph doesn't travel deeply you want to just very surface on the skin move the fluid standard is like not more than a nickels worth of pressure okay then we go to our any specific questions or other things you guys had curiosity about as we move to the other foot and do that same routine this is something that you see a lot in fact Cody who works here at the Institute he actually had this in a couple different clients this week which was fascinating he's like Sam I don't understand there's there's so much water in the foot but there's also so much heat and it's because the body is trying to evaporate the fluid it's very much like the body produces a fever when their stagnation in the limp in order to heat it up and get things moving but then it produces coldness when there's too much inflammation and the body is going into kind of a freakout response which is why people often go from hot to cold to balance out that that heat as well as the kind of chill that happens accordingly so it may be you really need to kind of like watch that bruise right there see how that changes throughout the session with with stagnant heat I wouldn't necessarily change the routine at all unless like you wanted to go back and you notice the heat is coming from somewhere specific you would need to you would need to kind of put more pieces of the story together from that standpoint and see like is it water that's fighting fire is a fire earth that's fighting water like which one was there first yeah and is the heat actually medicinal being produced by the body and is that something we need to add to what you could do by you know adding more vigorousness to the technique also you know spicy foods herbs that we're heating like the gingers the chai anything like that but then that you know if it's a if it's a water that's fighting fire you know the fluid is in response to the deep heat that's happening it would be the reverse so you would want to cool them down and you would want to basically help the fluid and the reason why I'm doing this first is because there's just this I saw it on the other foot there's the space on the spine that's like right in line with the bruise that I just can't not touch it's like l1 yeah with a tattoo have anything to do with the lymphatic because a bank um not necessarily in terms of like some people will say yes in my experience ink is really benign it's because a tattoo is something you get once and the body then digests it over time I would be more concerned about the quality of water that somebody is drinking more so than the tattoo just my two cents okay so we're moving again that dorsal aspect of the lymph [Music] literally okay so now we're gonna go down those dorsal channels so there's a little bit more congestion on this side so what I'm doing is I'm pairing just a little bit of again pump yeah to that to that area that needs the this stuff and there's a little bit of binding here so what I'm gonna do is i'm going to use some traction i'm gonna take my hand over the top and actually pull the foot slightly right here okay it's a little bit of traction and a little bit of just like dorsal pressure down on that area just to get things coming I can't tell significant mm-hmm yeah the left is crazy so with this the body is actually telling me that it needs to be pushed not pulled so on this spot specifically I'm going to push the foot forward and allow that compression to take place and that's all it is like you're listening to the body okay and we got it was that a twitching the leg what was that yeah okay which is fine because it's it's when we think of fire as like that heat that spasmodic tendency the body's trying to get the fluid to move so that's okay yeah exactly muscles aren't muscles aren't halfway it's either their honor they're off okay there you go so then we're gonna do our calcaneus work so medial surface of calcaneus once twice thrice switch hands lateral surface which represents what reproductive part of reproductive phone is telling me to rotate I was trying to get to create it so I'm making pause make a decision ovaries yeah but what what else is in here in the from from a muscular standpoint glutes it's in between so when you think of like if this is hip joint if lateral malleolus is hip joints and then the achilles attachment is that sacral area then it would be the bridge between the sacral area and the hip joint which is the glutes so it's just about quads would be cuboid notch cats right okay so now we're getting into that lateral malleolus space and we're going with our outside hand to create that movement there's a lot more attention on the side and she's she's giving us like a really deep not okay moan so we're we're gonna Park it right here and we're just gonna hold that point my middle finger is on it do you find that sometimes what people equate to sciatic muscle pain etc is excess fluid yeah that's what I'm finding this more where we just can't get an answer and then yeah that was your low back yeah oh cool yeah everything is awesome and you can see the fluid you can see like the shiny fluid happening right through there Oh like you can see the sheen that's happening on the skin that's so good yeah so triggering just all that water movement and we finished with our dorsal pump and then we'll go to Zone two to finish it off and that will be that will finish with relaxation techniques and then do another round of hot towels and that would be the recommended limp routine to clearing each of those vertical zones and line with the toe so this area you can see a little bit of darkness and that's actually like not to be it's not dirty but it is ground in dirt the callus of that area is very prominent and so it's like soaking up all of the dye from her shoes and so that's that's also something that rigidity in the upper body when we think of zone 2 as dorsal limb or not dorsal the upper lymph drainage so the fact that she has a - - callus means that that area has been somewhat compromised in terms of restriction so we want to just be aware of yeah we want to be aware of just the body presenting that that also connected lymphatic marker has nothing to do with anything feelings and emotions feelings and emotions has nothing to do with the banging of the ankle every two seconds and we can see the bruising has actually dissipated like it's still very present but it's not as black and blue it's more of like a brown color so that's cool yeh color change cool you know that is a really cool point because when you when you say air pocket like I know what you're feeling and sometimes for people who haven't experienced that openness that that sensation can actually feel wrong because it's like well that feels odd like I want to pop it I want to get that air out of there but that support is actually that space is what's good okay let's grab two more hot towels and then I've got I'll use the same dry towel then we'll we'll leave these rather steaming they're not I mean they're not super hot but they're so you're talking about Casa Diez I mean I know you're starting distal so you're not really concerned and you said always right the problem with like a DVT a clot or a deep vein thrombosis it's it's a problem because it's not only like directly painful but you don't want any liability from that perspective so if they have a clot that's being monitored I wouldn't I I wouldn't if they're insistent on a session I would not touch the calves and I would not do any of the relaxation techniques that would yeah potentially move that clot I would stick just with the feet and only stimulate the nerves just to be safe like I've yeah just want the reflexes from that standpoint you know it's the same thing with pregnancy like the the myth about reflexology inducing labor or being harmful for the pregnancy is a myth but I still don't want a jostle the body so much because that's just uncomfortable when you have another human inside of you and you're suffering from morning sickness like it's it's practical stuff so same thing with a clot like if there's a clot that could potentially move to the brain if you press it too hard like they're walking around with that so their body weight and their contraction is is stimulating to that area so I'm not like worried worried about it I'm just worried about like if the physician is scared and they find out that they have gone to a body work practitioner that has touched that area that's liability and we want to eliminate that at all costs like I've worked on people with a history of clots and then I find out oh they had a clot you know at the time that they were seeing me thanks thanks for not being an informed client you know but at the same time was I worried no did I feel like a hot red inflamed spot on the calves No okay and then we would end with solar plexus adrenal hello okay and then after this we will take a quick break cool thanks for watching everybody we'll see y'all later