Reflexology Documentary History research

all right okay I'm talking to Vicki Wilde here from Wellington thanks for talking to me today it'd be great to hear a little bit of your story about how you got into reflexology great thanks for the opportunity so my first experience of reflexology because I don't really know anything about it good until back in and he hated 80 something really 90s I had a car accident knowing she was early 80s 1992 and I had a car accident and got a head injury and things like that it was unconscious for several days and had a leg injury but the point was that when I went home from hospital my sister who had just come back from an overseas are we you know she was she had learned to do some reflexology and so she decided she would treat my head injury through my feet I thought this was Becky and so I had my feet up and in this sitting and in a lazy boy chair and she heard to me like blazes and pressing my big toe and I thought she was just being mean and she said it's too hard there's too hard and she said look what I'm doing and she just pressed my my thumb and demonstrated the shoe and the pressing very hard at all and there then in hindsight that became a measure of effectiveness for me of seeing shut so she continued to treat my feet my heat for over a week every day and each day they progressively got easier and I progressively got a bit clearer in my and it was a little less forgetful so that was my that's my touchstone for reflexology which is quite quite special for me because I think everything around reflexology for me resonates out of what have I experienced and how does that how does this feel to receive and how might it feel for the person receiving when I'm being the reflexologist so that's kind of like the locus around which my earthly ecology practice operates I think so can I just interrupt there your sister where did she learn her reflexology skills from she went to she went on a retreat she was a nanny for a family who took her to the Bahamas when they went on a family holiday and they were at a retreat where there were workshops and courses and yoga and all sorts of things and she was participating in that when she wasn't looking after the kids and so I don't know how long she was learning or you know the extent of it but for me she had learned enough to know trick the head and the toes and she probably did lots more than that but for me around my experience that was the kind of key that and it made a difference thanks for sharing it and so how many people have influenced your reflexology path quite a few people and the person that I first heard about reflexology in Wellington Dean this is years later in the 90s mid 90s and I heard there's this woman emif roamings who was doing really Saji client clients and stuff and so oh wow I can't do I'll try that and I think at that point when I first went to her she was working out of her home and eat a babe and I traveled out there and meet her and henna reflexology treatment oh my gosh she was she's just amazing and and a really lovely bubbly person and all that as well so she was a nice person to visit and to experience kind of trance transporting kind of experience really that's what I hear and having reflux already and so having had treatments for quite a few times I became so a regular client they no halt and and then she mentioned that she was gonna she was gonna be doing weekend workshop I work in workshop and I thought I think I'm doing it so you're you know ray my friend Ray and and I both thought we would go and have do the course the weekend course and ice Premier Li the second day of that for our I want a little more so from there we wondered that 12-month course that she was teaching I think we were the second group the second and take of reflexology students that she had taken so it's quite new and she'd trained in UK and and I think probably world to my knowledge she was the only reflexologist practicing in Wellington at that time it wasn't really that common and and I thought gosh I've had such a great experience I'm I want to share it family friends weather and in thought I really want to be out offer this to four other people because it was so powerful so the it was him other people along the way and I think just the people the other students and their graduates from the previous year and Wellington were pretty inspired because they were all doing reflexology in their own way and they were pretty passionate I think that passion for it is quite a nice it's quite an attractive kind of energy and I mean to this day even preparing to talk to you about this today I'm thinking I still don't really understand how it works and at the time I really wanted to understand how it works and at some point I suspended that need to understand it and and I don't know whether that's okay I don't really know though mom came with that because I like to understand be able to feel confident in whatever it is so I just come back all the time to whatever I experienced and in is that real one there is absolutely real so and I can experience the power of it without understanding how it did that so I know the connection between the feet reflexes in that and the organs and the systems and functions I know that to be true and it works and yes other people would be able to explain how it works probably and articulate way but I don't at the moment feel like I need to chase that so much but just sort of ever an experiential faith or not sense of it it sounds probably a bit fluffy but um so other people and ah Walter Hackman took us work because I became part of the local group and things and then you know we had a committee and I so lease lease lease exciting things really about reflux ability I think but Walter happened who was our chairperson time he had the idea that we would have the first conference for the new reflexology New Zealand there was a reflexologist group Association prior to that but this was the new the new breed I think of the organisation and I just remember when he suggested that so for what you know this went from kind of weekend get-togethers and workshops and sharing and stuff like that that you may had been doing it's a more an opportunity to learn and get together and like stuff and maybe sometimes have people coming in but this was taking at all new level and I I think I wasn't ready for that I wasn't sure that we were really for it as it is a organization either however Wellington Linda took on that first responsibility for for because it came from our chairperson and we sort of shifted another gear at that point as an organization and I still quite like the lease yes formal kind of approach that and ways of learning and things like that and workshop kind of environment some things and that's not to decry the need to learn and share and bring in expertise and because we have we've had some amazing reflexologists from overseas teaching and sharing their knowledge and stuff one of those people was sooo eating her from Australia she came out to I think one of the conferences and things babe and Ray and I we were thinking about we want to put a bit more depth in our practice and be a bit more rigorous not a surprise that kind of stuff and we thought well maybe we will see with her so eating as as open to us going to drink some learning from here and she was and we went and we spent it was about a week or something stayed so we had four or five days of learning who meet who methodology and that kind of stuff and so there was there was a quite a bold thing to do and sort of another way of investing really in my practice I'm not sure in truth I'm not sure that I may have made the best use of their investment and yeah however it's one of those inspired thoughts at the time and in actions we talk and the people are most Arnold come out here imagine Emma had bought more Arnold out and he was he was just like a firecracker really and you know you since then the reflux or any context could it is such a live you know bubbly energy and some confident and like kind of stuff and he was and any was talking about Chi reflexology which is all quite new and I didn't have that much of a footing in Chinese medicine all that kind of stuff and and this felt like a bit of her he's had created this from his knowledge and knowledge and inspiration I think for reflux or to create a mode of reflexology that that resonated for what he believed and thinks and then he was very inspiring in that way and he was it was very energizing and as teaching so kind of fun yeah so I have used some of his Chi reflexology movements and stuff again I think I probably haven't done his system and his work justice and what I do but I feel a little bit like a magpie you know you learn but so you bring in any practice or forfeits and we're efforts and the things in and that's kind of okay and and and I'm not certain whether it's adequate yeah it's a practice maybe everybody does that in their own way and will feel something I know how to do an evaluation stuff who else is there oh my fines end the estimation incredibly inspiring is like in she first came here she was also you can trained so she came and joined the association and she took on lots of roles and things now what I find amazing about her is that she she just quietly gets on and keeps growing her practice you know working with horses doing cranial cranial reflexology and there's lots of aspects to what she does new practice and I find her very quietly very inspiring she knows an awful night through chemo and how I kissed this Wilson please her cotton socks and you know she's she's passed she was she was pretty neat and then she she'd and reflexology with everybody and did that for nothing and she was also going to say inspiring so much and so she was she she gave a lot from her own knowledge and now I can't remember the ones named cure chill waters I can't remember your name Gerald Waters who came here and she didn't tie to you with us and she also taught us some vertical reflexology techniques from and I don't know who the teacher is that's a bit embarrassing but Gerald was the person I learned from and that was up and learn booth yeah usually might be yeah I haven't met honey I've only learned a vertical through this ritual yes and so I found that really interesting and I've been playing around with the vertical reflexology stuff into my practice quite a lot kind of using that in linking methods and various things I really liked it last and in the last year whilst doing some work on so he had a physical injury foot on things and I started to do specifically doing the vehicle reflexology and I started to write down to create some language for what I was feeling when I was palpating and then feeling the pulses and stuff like there and I so I developed my own little shorthand for what was happening and trying to track patterns and stuff and I just felt so excited about it so I want to be learning more all the time about how to I had a way how do I register when something's having an impact on the person in addition to what even they say but if that kind of not talking at the time because they're asleep um it's quite a good to get have the foot communication or yeah giving some feedback and to recognize what it is yes like you have been involved at council level well quite a few years with various roles so you would have seen the impact of reflexology grow in New Zealand yeah what sort of roles did you take on and how does she get into them oh well I started off ray and I had lots of ideas and things like that around and the education sort of portfolio theory on things but no much worse I think we shared the role or something I'm not really short early days and and I was kind of all on the committee I think that was my role with Ray and at the time I thought that the idea of having recognition for reflexology in a formal way so MA and he may have been doing the training and stuff and we've got a certificate for that but it's like or how do you start to think about standardizing practice and what that might look like and things and that took it took us aspirationally kind of quite well ahead of where practice was where people were reading and it's a bit like my experience when while to see always to a consign we're ready and and I think as an organisation and nationally we're quite ready for that but maybe that's the whole thing about growth is that you know you're usually steeping then to something or toward something that you know it really for because it's a growing experience and I think at the time there were you know there were a lot of people in really different places about what they thought was important and what were the priorities were and I don't know that we had such a fertile ground we were wanted and there was and that was a bit painful because you know when you get excited about something you can see see possibilities and and and there's not a sheen thing you can't just go on and do it anyway because