Mapping the Skeletal System - Reflexology

alrighty everybody so let's map the skeletal system on the extremities and as always we're going to be starting with the feet uh because the feet are a little bit more complicated than the others um and also will go really slow just so that you have time to kind of digest everything but there are also different surfaces on the feet we have much more three-dimensional things happening on the feet than the other extremities so we need to really take a more extensive view on these so just like with all of our videos let's start by drawing our guidelines so we're going to draw our shoulder line guidelines and then just for you know multiple views the shoulder line guideline ends at the base of the toes a little artsy swoosh there then we will go to our diaphragm guideline which separates the base of horizontal zone two from horizontal zone three and we're just kind of winging it um with this picture just extending that bunion area then same thing over here and then we are going to we can't see on this picture the waistline guideline the waistline guideline is about there same thing over here we're just kind of guesstimating because it's that proximal head of the fifth metatarsal which we can see over here it's right about there and we can extend that all the way across giving us our waistline guideline and then we have the pelvic guideline which again really hard to see but behind the malleoli which will be very important as we start to get into the hip reflexes and again you can see that the foot here is dorsiflexed meaning that the the dorsal side of the foot is moving towards the body so we need to kind of curve that pelvic line just for this picture so those are our four guidelines and now let's get to mapping uh first and foremost we're going to start with the spine and so with the feet it's really easy we'll look at this medial view first and so let's turn our attention to the big toe so the big toe has the distal Phalanx and the proximal Phalanx the two phalanges that make up the toe and I'll just draw a little bit of a dotted line just to make that a little bit clearer so the neck reflexes or the cervical spine reflexes would be on the medial aspect of the proximal Phalanx of the big toe so it's not the big toe pad it is the neck of the big toe very aptly named for the reflex and that gives us our neck reflexes so this is C1 to C7 and then we'll kind of switch it up just for contrast we'll do a dotted line for the thoracic so the thoracic spine actually extends all the way to the waistline guideline and so this would be technically there are 12 vertebra in the thoracic this would be T1 to T6 and then this would be t7 to T12 but this is the thoracic spine then we'll do contrast with a full line and then this brings us to our horizontal zone for our lumbar spine and then we'll go back to dots and do the sacral spine and the coccyx so that is our spinal reflex on the medial arch of the foot um just to give you a refresher over the past couple seconds cervical spine thoracic spine lumbar spine sacral spine so that is how we map the spinal reflexes and then if you wanted to think of the skull the skull would be here in that big toe space but it's not like there's a skull reflex because the skull is the entire head so it's not like you would press around the periphery of the toe to access the skull it's through and through it's all of it which makes it difficult to map some of these reflexes because there is no way to pinpoint them because they're so broad we'll definitely talk about that in the muscular system because all these muscles Traverse the entirety of the joint space in which they occupy so now let's move to to do we'll go one step below we'll do shoulders next and we'll use green for that little bit of color contrast can't use the medial aspect anymore but we can use the dorsal aspect in the lateral aspect so let's start with the lateral aspect because this gives us a perfect view of the shoulder joint itself and the shoulder joint is the technically it is the metatarsal phalangeal joint which is the distal head of the fifth metatarsal and the proximal Phalanx of the fifth digit together they create this joint this metatarsal phalangeal joint and it's in horizontal zone two and this area will often be calloused and it will always be texturally crunchy so when you're walking over this space don't be fooled by just The Superficial crunchiness of it it will always be slightly crunchy the reason why I personally have found that to be true is just through experience but also when you think of the shoulder joint the shoulder joint is hyper mobile yet it Bears a lot of weight especially gravitational force so when you think of the shoulder joint as being mobile but also needing to be solid in certain points often there's an imbalance between that mobility and that rigidity that's required for proper movement so there's a lot of congestion around this joint normally don't freak out when you feel it okay now let's get to the hips and the hips oh sorry we need to draw the shoulder joint on the dorsal aspect so let's just for extra emphasis we'll draw that shoulder reflex yep so vertical zone five in line with the fit toe and then horizontal zone two in line with that chest lung shoulder area now we'll do the hips and the only way that we can do that is with the lateral aspect so we are going to find the lateral malleolus which we'll Trace just around here just for color contrast so that is the lateral malleolus or the lateral ankle bone and the hip sciatic reflex is a crescent moon shape behind that area and it literally feels like a crescent moon kind of ditch I'm trying to color appropriately I would fail kindergarten right now I'm sure um but this Crescent Moon ditch represents the ball and socket joint of the hip reflex and I'm coloring myself and that is where that location is for that direct reflex now let's go to the knees so a lot of people get confused with the knees so we're going to talk about this the knee reflex can only really be found on that lateral side as well because it's the best view of it it is the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal and for those of you that have watched the free webinar that I did through the online school on how to map the feet physically you've seen this and I talk about this extensively the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal is the direct reflex for the knee joint in my personal opinion based on what I've seen especially in Runners and athletes that have a lot of impact on the knees this is the direct reflex for that it is the starting point of the cuboid notch and we've gone in past videos before of the ascending being uh well now we'll talk about that in the muscular system anyway so the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal is the direct knee joint now my students will ask me Sam why is this in horizontal zone four instead of horizontal zone 5 because you know the feet are supposed to be mapped exactly like the body so it should make sense that you know the knee reflex which is the knee is in horizontal zone five the lower body it should be in horizontal zone five The Reflex so it should be in the heel area the way that I like to explain it is that reflexology doesn't work with physical order it works with nerves and nerve innervation and the nerve innervation for the legs starts in the lumbar spine so when we think of horizontal zone four as being the kind of plexus of nerves that will eventually root into the knee complex that is why I like to justify that the the knee plexes in horizontal Zone 4. otherwise I just look at my students shake my fist and say because I told you so that's a joke but it is based on you know my observation of thousands of feet so there you go those are the major reflexes uh for the joints in the feet and now we will move on oh just like side note let's talk about uh other minor joints like the ribs so the ribs although they are technically bones they Traverse the entirety of a horizontal zone two so just like when we'll talk about the muscular system when a reflex spans the entire space there's no real way to isolate that reflex or to directly map it so when you think of these types of Bones it's not it's not something that you're going to see the ribs as mapped on a reflexology chart same thing with the skull same thing with if you really wanted to get specific the bone in the throat the hyoid bone there's no mapping for that some charge to get really extensive in terms of mapping the humerus mapping the uh the femur mapping you know the the extremity bones as well I'm going to say no to that and I would just personally prefer to focus on the the joints themselves so that's that if you have any questions just put them in the comments and I'll give you my two cents with that okay now let's move on to the hands okay so we got to draw our guidelines first guidelines are so important shoulder line guideline I'll just hands are a little bit tricky like that then we'll go to our diaphragm guideline a little bit harder to see yeah but we basically want to go below the knuckles and then below that major thumb joint and then connect them together okay then we have our proximal head of the fifth meta carpal instead of tarsal let me draw that all the way across for our waistline guideline now here's where it gets tricky because we technically use the pelvic guideline in between the first and second row of carpels but there's no way to really see those so just guesstimate it okay so those are our guidelines now we will proceed with the spine so the spinal reflux is very similar to the hands as it is to the feet this is the dorsal aspect same for medial aspect we're just going to look at a little bit dorsally because we need some of these dorsal reflexes to really give us some hand marker stuff so again skull would be the pad but then we have that we have two phalanges in the thumb and so the cervical spine reflex would be here yes the medial surface of the proximal Phalanx of the thumb then we have the first half of the thoracic spine reflexes T1 to T6 and then we have 2 6 to T12 or t7 to T12 rather and then we have lumbar spine and sacral coccyx pretty easy once you get the hang of it now again the issue with the hands is that you will not be looking at a client's hands like this most time in order to work on them most clients will present you hands like that so the medial aspect of that that hand we are going to have headspace next space thoracic thoracic thoracic Lumbar and then sacral coccyx so same same organization just with the hands you have to be careful because this position keeps the thumbs medial so it's in line with that true kind of mapping but then when we go into anatomical position and roll the hands over that's when this becomes lateral so it can get a little bit confusing in terms of verbiage as far as how that's mapped okay now let's go down the line right into the shoulder so in line with the fifth digit in horizontal zone two the direct shoulder reflex and reflexes are through and through again so it's not just dorsal surface it's also Palmer surface now we will do the hips and so this is our lateral surface right now if we were in anatomical position it would be our medial surface but right now we are going to get the lateral hip joint so I'm going to draw a circle but it's technically kind of crescent moon shape as well this is our um malleolus right here it's a little bit higher because the hands need to be a little bit more floppy and wiggly so this whole joint area you'll be able to sink into it really well it's technically like right over the carpals on the lateral side it's Juicy and Delicious and very effective with clients who are suffering from hip related back pain stuff like that super super awesome point to walk especially if you get a little bit of wrist rotation in there oh it's delicious okay now we are going to get into the knee reflex so just like the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal is our waistline guideline and direct knee reflex so is the proximal head of the fifth metacarpal and that gives us our direct knee flash re direct knee reflex there is no cuboid Notch of the hands but I like to think there is we went over some bone Anatomy for the hand so if you wanted to like replace the keloid with whatever bone is there that's escaping my mind right now because I'm uh not as familiar with the hand anatomy as foot Anatomy uh but feel free to replace that and call it the whatever Notch it is but those are our major joints for the hands now let us move to the face spam there's a lovely lady with the face let's draw our guidelines so starting at the eyebrows give her some Angry Eyebrows just kidding shoulder line guideline then we have the diaphragm guideline which we studied just now in the face Anatomy which is the zygomatic bone then we have the lip line which we are going to extend in the form of a smile just to follow the natural jawline of the face and that gives us our waistline and then the pelvic line is right at that crease of the chin and we follow the jawline all the way up as well okay perfect now face Anatomy is different from hand anatomy that's different from foot Anatomy so we're going to bend some of the rules based on what we find here in this shape and then we're also going to have a couple discussions about how bones stack as well because I think that's really important so let's first and foremost go to the spine with blue okay now as you'll notice there is no toe or thumb to give us guidelines so instead if you notice the frontalis bone the frontalis bone has a little ditch right above the eyebrows so there's this nice little kind of indentation that gives us an idea of where the neck would be versus where the reflexes for the head would be so when you think of the skull it's this entire area and then the neck would be this entire area then we'd break it down into vertical zones yes I believe that's right um and then our midline okay but when we think of the direct spinal reflexes so this would be cervical spine in vertical Zone one technically all the way to the uh eye crease all of this would technically be neck territory but the spine is basically just like with the other versions of the the map it is that horizontal Zone one vertical Zone one aspect it's right in the center of that head and neck space that we're drawing that reflex just kind of coloring okay so that is our next space then we get into if we wanted to extend our vertical Zone a little bit more the upper thoracic space and then we extend that a little bit more again just to our upper lip which is our waistline guideline that completes our thoracic space she's looking very warrior-esque right now absolutely loving it so that would be our thoracic and then if we wanted to extend our vertical Zone one all the way down this would be lumbar including lower lip so if you have anybody with lower lip issues we've already talked about that in terms of reproductive but definitely so for lower back as well and then anything chin wise would be sacral coccyx okay so that is our spine now let's move on to our shoulders what is the area of the face that everybody rubs whenever they're getting a headache that would be the temples horizontal zone two vertical zone five the reason why everybody rubs here when they're starting to get a headache is because this is the direct reflex for the shoulders and it unconsciously radiates from here if there is shoulder issues involved in the headache imagine that the body is intelligent so just something to be aware of direct shoulder reflexes at the temples which if you've watched some of our Pace reflexology routine on YouTube but you've noticed that we work very heavily on the temples as well so let's talk about the hips when we think of face Anatomy face Anatomy we have the TMJ joint that's actually right at the temple space kind of right behind the ear in the temple space it goes all the way up there but then we have the master muscle which starts at the edge of five and into four so I'm going to call the hip joint in that vertical zone five but in horizontal zone four it's basically that deep belly meat of the masseter muscle that would be the equivalent of the hip joint but the face gives us a beautiful kind of excuse to talk about reflexology and how joints stack so when somebody comes in and they have shoulder pain nine times out of ten the hips are involved if somebody has hip pain nine times out of ten the shoulders are involved because they're like a box so if we wanted to totally screw up our map just for a visual demonstration we have a box so this box represents our frame as human beings if that box starts to go wonky on one side it immediately tilts every other angle of the box so if somebody starts with a rotator cuff issue on their left side chances are they will also experience right side hip pain because the box has shifted does that make sense so that really from a facial reflexology standpoint when we think of the master as connecting both uh lower and upper master and in shoulder and hip area this gives us a beautiful example of how everything is interconnected uh reflexology wise with the face and kind of just deeper Anatomy stuff but I'm geeking out so I'll I'll stop okay knee reflex surprised they're they're really isn't one for the face um I like to think of the entire jaw reflex mostly laterally As The Reflex for the knees so if you wanted to just think of uh horizontal zone 5 as a whole as the knee reflex we really don't have notches here but it's just the entire jaw area more laterally I technically consider some of the masseter to be in that territory but just to give you a visual reference um remember we have sacral coccyx here so the more lateral you go the more lateral you go in the body so this is now she's starting to look like a football player with this helmet that I'm drawn on her um ger she's about to already tackle to somebody so this draw area represents horizontal zone five the entire sciatic nerve so this is where I personally would put the the knee and leg reflexes on the face because there is no Notch to tell us otherwise and I found great success so far with my sciatic low back people in working the jaw and master space okay so that is our facial reflexology map now let's move to everybody's favorite the ears okay so we are going to go just above the Triangular fossa now that you know what a triangular fossa is for our shoulder line guideline then we are going to go to our diaphragm guideline just below the Triangular fossa and above the Simba kanka then we are going to use the bridge between the Simba conquer and the K from kanka as our waistline guideline and then we are going to use the bottom of the auditory opening that cavemkonka for our pelvic line guideline and those are our guidelines okay now let's do spine so spine we have technically this would be headspace for me and then this would be neck so this is what I'm going to call as neck space for the ears fabulous okay then we have upper thoracic lower thoracic and then the tragus represents the lumbar area and then we have sacral coccyx same thing over here headspace neck upper thoracic lower thoracic lumbar and sacral coccyx so I'm pretty easy then we will go into shoulders so although I drew over it just a little bit here you can see that edge so technically what I have found to be true with the ears is that the Darwin's tubercle which is kind of like this Alfie point that some people have uh basically if you follow the Triangular Notch all the way across it's normally slightly above or slightly below that point and that little flap represents the direct joint to the shoulder in my opinion but if you wanted to stick with the book it would be slightly lower you could lower that even just a little bit further just so long as you're going more laterally because if we think of laterally being more laterally which is the shoulder area happens to be very laterally the utmost laterally then we are in vertical zone five and horizontal zone two which is where we want to be for the shoulder reflex okay then we have the hip reflex and unfortunately the hip reflex I can't really show you well on the ears because it's technically behind the ears so you see how the Simba kanka and the cavemkunka are indented that's because they are connected to the head in that space if we were to fold the ears back we would be right at that lining where the horizontal Zone 4 area the auditory opening that Simba conka is going to be connecting with the headspace and that would be my direct reflex for the hips okay so you could think of it as uh Kevin kanka facial attachment yes so that that gives me that or you could think of it as like the behind of the anti-tragus then as far as the knees go um I really find this little section to be super helpful with the knees and I'm still working out the bugs on this one because not a lot of clients come to me for ear reflexology since I am the foot Whisperer so whenever I work with friends family or clients that do want ear work this little Notch right here right above the lobe and more laterally right as that Helix starts to root down into the lobe that seems to be the magic point for um for knee stuff and even into here you can even see on this picture it's slightly raised that kind of channel so maybe this person also has some fluid retention in the low back that's going into the knees so that point specifically with the knees right as that Helix starts to root into the lobe that's my direct knee reflex and that ladies and gentlemen is how you map the extremities with the skeletal system again post your comments below and I look forward to hearing what you think and I will post these pictures so you can uh draw along with me if you haven't already