Reflexology School Instruction - One Hour Class

hello my name is Doug Holland I'm the owner and instructor at the Holland reflexology Institute in Ohio my students ask me what is reflexology reflexology is a unique modality that you uses pressure from the thumb and fingers to strike reflexes in the feet that detect congestion unlock and reopen communication and impart the need for responsible action of all body members to achieve homeostasis okay first we want to make sure that we reemphasize what thumb driving is if you remember in class we want to always make sure the thumb is in the forward motion when walking we want to make sure that it never goes linear or flat there's always a slight Bend and we want to use as much of our wrist and our forearm as possible in the driving motion okay so again as we're let's say we're walking across here we want to make sure that we don't backslide our finger we don't want to hook it backwards or drive it backwards always in the forward motion when we're walking across the the the feet themselves like same thing with the finger we want to make sure we stay in the forward motion just like that we never want to pull pull back hooking back grabbing back it's always in the forward motion make sure there's almost like a skinfold that's right in front of the skin now when it comes to the thumb the majority of the time you're going to be on the axis of the thumb on the medial axis so when you put your thumb against the skin there should be a slight Bend to it as you're coming across notice the lateral aspect of my thumb is exposed as I'm coming across the the feet here okay lateral aspect notice how I'm driving with my wrist too I'm not just simply walking with my hand some schools teach you just simply use your hand in the walking motion but I think torque is needed to drive deeper into the tissue that requires wrist and forearm motion or what we call wrenching okay so we want to make sure we wrench and we walk at the same time that's going to take practice walking across the metatarsal heads here in this example and then driving at the same time we're going to go ahead and discuss pressure again thumb pressure finger pressure on the reflexes remember it is it's Force distance over time now depending on how much force you use how much how big of an area linearly that you pass over and the amount of time that it takes you will make the difference of whether uh you strike the ref flexes appropriately and this can be done in thousands of combinations Force the depth in the skin distance how far you go and how quickly you go either quick or slow Force distance time okay now we're going to go over some basic stretching techniques uh the first one I'd like to discuss is the extension movement also known as the tarsel stretch and basically what we want to do is we want to stretch the major bones of the foot the seven major bones also known as tarsel now the way that we do that is is that we are going to pull this foot in a straight line or a linear motion away from the larger extremity which would be the leg in this case and both hands are going to act as a working hand neither are going to be just simply holding hands but both are going to act as a working hand now we're going to use the left foot in this demonstration the first thing we want to do is put the right hand over the dorsal aspect of the foot and about the midbody of the foot then we're going to take the left hand we're going to place it underneath so that's on the the the planner pad of the hand is on the medial aspect of the calcaneous now what we do is is we're going to pull in a straight motion backwards or a way from the client what we don't want to do is plan or Flex the FP which is very discomforting to the client nor dorsal Flex by pulling the heel only we want to make sure that we pull the heel along with this part of the foot the midbody straight back now notice I'm pulling it straight back we're going to do a hold for about 10 seconds and while we're doing that we're not going to twist the foot in any other way we're just going to bring it straight back now when we hold it for 10 seconds the body is going to defend itself and the leg is going to naturally want to pull itself back that's good because what we're going to do is we're going to slowly release the pressure and just when the body starts to think it's over we're going to quickly pull back all right that's going to give it its maximum stretch we do not want to start the exercise by just simply jerking the foot backwards that's no good we want to pull the foot allow for a nice deep stretch for about 10 seconds and as we release and the body let lets go then we pull it back okay when we do that then we go ahead and release the motion and then let let the hands off so that's what we call the tarsel stretch or the extension movement now the next stretch that I would like to show you is what we call metatarsal stretching adduction and abduction add U Tio n or abduction AB duu t n the first will try is adduction which is moving towards the medium or the middle center now the way we do that is is we place the left hand over the dorsal aspect of the foot then we take the right palm of the right hand and we place that along the planner heads of the metatarsal bones or the transverse Arch so we go ahead and we place it like this now notice how we interlock the fingers the fingers are interlocked over the side and as we lock them down we begin to squeeze on the top and the bottom of the foot and then we go ahead and we slowly twist in an add duction motion add duction towards the middle of the center now we continue to rotate until we start to feel some pretty good resistance once we feel that resistance we stop for a brief second wait till the body quits defending itself and then Mo just rotate a little bit more we don't want to over rotate it'll hurt the client we just want to get to where there's a good stretch there hold for 10 to 12 seconds then we want to go ahead and release that stretch to do abduction which is away from the median Center then we want to put the right hand over the dorsal aspect left hand on the planter surface and again interlock the fingers when we do that then we go ahead and we begin to twist and an abduction formation until we feel again resistance what we do not want to have is over rotation on either of the two stretches we don't pull the foot towards us we don't push it too far away let it sit in its natural position and twist that twisting right there really stretches the metatarsal heads and the metatarsal bones and ligaments and everything that's in you know muscles that's in between the digitorum especially uh and the flexor halus longest get a really good stretch in this in this particular exercise then we we release and we allow the foot to relax that's what we call abduction adduction stretching of the metatarsal heads okay now we're going to show the exercise metatarsal wrenching metatarsal wrenching is the most difficult exercise to learn it'll take you the most time and it requires a lot of hand strength um one thing that we want to pay a close attention to when you're doing this particular exercise is that both hands work equally together neither will be a holding hand both will be working hands of course your your one hand will work harder than the other depending on what foot you're on but here's how we do metatarsal wrenching we're going to use the right foot in this example we're going to take my left hand my left planter pad I'm going to put it directly across the metatarsal heads of the right foot they're going to be evenly across one another you'll feel there's a nice firm hold that just just natural pressure that foot wants to grip too high on the toes your hand will come off too low and the toes hook over so we want to make sure that that hand is pressing against the planter pad of that foot perfectly or the the metatarsal heads Reach the the fingers right across the top of the toes do not squeeze them and do not hold them too Loosely just gently do a firm hold on those toes the right working hand is going to have its the index finger is going to go right between the taus bone and the navicular the the thumb is going to hook around right to the superior aspect of the planter pad of the foot so we're going to hook all the way around we're going to let the other fingers gently just sit on top of the shin bone see nice and nice and relaxed now both hands are going to pose each other one is going to work abduction and the other one's going to work in adduction and then vice versa so the one hand will turn twist in the other hand will twist out do not pull the foot towards you or away from you let it sit naturally as you twist One Direction to the other notice my thumb is free it's not even using any pressure at all twist in opposite directions now as I twist in opposite directions I'm going to slide the right hand up the foot okay see I'm sliding it up the foot now I'm doing this in slow motion as I'm sliding to give you an idea of how they oppose one another but now notice how I do it with a little bit of finesse I'm rocking my hands and I'm going up till this this hand touches the other working hand see how we go up it's never in a down motion it's always in upward sweeping motion that we do this we perform this exercise so twist twist twist metatarsal wrenching it's like wrenching a towel see you wrench a towel you you you you Wrench It Against each other right you don't squeeze it in the same direction when you're wrenching when you're wrenching a towel so the same thing with metatarsal wrenching of the foot okay sweeping upward motion if we do this properly new students will do this they'll be very jerky that's okay you're learning but the idea is to be a nice sweeping motion you'll learn how to relax muscles in your hands you'll learn how to this one to give and this sometimes this one to relax so that that foot has a wonderful sweeping motion as you wrench the foot okay okay now we're going to demonstrate digital dorsal flexing and achil stretching the way we're going to do this is we're going to use the palm of the planter pad against the metatarsal metatarso fangel joint you'll notice that when we pull the the toes back on this particular exercise we call this digital dorsal flexing because we're stretching the digits and allowing the metatarso fangel joints to protrude and they protrude noticeably notice how the skin along this transverse area is white that's because I'm forcing all the Blood Out by pushing the toes backward pushing the toes backward is generally never uncomfortable usually is a good feeling you never want to pull back on the toes which we call planter flexing you planter Flex these toes too far that's very uncomfortable to the client so we always want to make sure that the stretches in a dorsal fashion or towards the body itself and this makes it good for in the future when you're working certain reflexes that you can actually get this you wouldn't want to do this on a new client but it's excellent for getting in between the metatarsal heads when you're doing that but the way you do this particular exercise the holding hand goes underneath the foot and holds nice and gently between the calcus and the tail spone and we're going to go ahead and we're just going to push the foot dorsally and back and then we're going to push the toes back and and then we're going to go ahead and just push our Palm in there like this and then we're going to push the toes back it's a what we call digital dorsal flexing so it's more than just the Achilles cuz you know we're engaging the Achilles all the way to the gastric nemus which is the calf muscle as we push back we're getting a good Achilles stretch we're getting a great stretch even the flexor alicus longus is being stretched in this particular stretch so this is an excellent stretch to do on your your clients before you get involved in ankle rotations and those other things and then to do the final part of the stretch just simply push the toes over now notice I have all the toes I'm not letting one slide off or the other I'm getting a hold of all toes in the stretch and I'm not squeezing with my fingers I'm just using it to hold you don't want to sit there and pinch those toes off from the other side that's what we call digital dorsal flexing and achilles stretching okay now we're going to go ahead and demonstrate how to do the hand drill like you learned in class the hand drill comes from an ancient form of fire starting with two sticks on on drywood the way we're going to perform the the hand drill is we're going to use the right and left hand the planter pad of both hands is going to come in contact with the foot the planner pad of the left hand is going to come in contact with the first metat tar head of the medial aspect of the left foot and it's going to come in the right hand the planter pad is going to come in contact with the fifth metatarsal protrusion of the lateral aspect of the left foot it'll feel as if they're in the saddle on both sides of the hands you don't want to be too high and you don't want to be too low in the foot when performing this exercise you want to make sure that both of those bones fit right in the saddle of both of of the hands we simply Drive the hands left and right back and forth and as we drive the hands back and forth we Engage The metatarsal uh stretching it also stretches the ankles it stretches the toes it stretches just about everything but again do not let the hand slide up too high and that way you're banging just the toes or too low and you're not getting any movement in there now the fingers should be slapping the dorsal aspect of this foot when you're doing it should slap the dorsal aspect so when you're twisting back and forth you can hear the hands actually hitting the dorsal aspect of the foot now it requires shoulder strength you want to keep your elbows a little higher than normal you'll feel your trapezius engaged the longer you do this most people can only handle about 20 to 30 seconds most practitioners can only handle about 20 to 30 seconds before their arms start to you know spill will sore but that's an excellent stretch to do on just about everybody unless they have gout or some other major issue with their FR now we're going to go over another difficult technique that's probably as difficult as metatarsal wrenching uh we call it the metatarsal wave again this is another metatarsal exercise it's designed to to bring fluidity between the metatarsal bones this particular exercise requires both hands again being Working Hands neither will be just simply holding and the way that this particular Exercise Works it's like a wave that's why we call it the metatarsal wave because it's a WAV like motion and the way that we perform this particular uh reflex or not reflex but stretching is we place both hands on either side of the foot with the thumbs on the first and fifth Metar heads the fingers should should relax gently over the dorsal aspect of the foot and come in contact with one another so again the first and fifth metatarsal heads is where the thumbs are and the fingers rest gently over the dorsal aspect now here's how this particular Exercise Works we're going to push in with our thumbs and notice how the transverse part of the arch dorsal flexes notice how dorsal flexes okay now what we're going to do is when we dorsal Flex that we are going to pull the right hand around and then elongate the entire transverse Arch it's elongated but it's at an angle then we're going to repress the right thumb back in there we're going to pull the left hand down and back and then we're going to elongate it in the opposite direction then we'll bring it back in and elongate it in the opposite opposite act angle here so what happens is is when I press in and elongate it creates a wave press in elongate can you see the wave in there there's the wave it's pressing and pulling pressing and pulling okay and you'll become more fluid with it as as you rock the feet so at no given time should both thumbs well you can see they they're kind of pressed in together at this time but there should be a fluid Mo motion should be a fluid motion on how the foot moves like a wave and you'll always go from one side to the other you'll never try to go back I'm doing it in reverse right now it's it's much more difficult to go medial to lateral it's much easier to go lateral to medial in this particular motion here you don't pull the foot plan or Flex it or dorsal Flex it just keep it nice and and loose and go ahead and do that stretch if you get too deep you're not going to get any mo movement there if you go too high you're not going to get the right movement you're just going to bang the toes around make sure you keep these two thumbs right on the first and fifth metatarsal bone that way when you press and and and twist you get that nice fluid motion that's metat torsal wave okay now we're going to demonstrate hanging the saddle and basically we're going to use our thumbs to hold the feet up in the most relaxing position and this is always done at the end of a treatment okay and it's real simple there's a saddle or a depression right below the second and third metatarsal heads it's right in the transverse part of the arch but you can feel there's a saw spot everybody has that soft spot right here both thumbs engage the soft spot and the best way do it is now you can hold the the feet this way and and hold the depression I do that a lot of times but there's even a nicer way if you twist the thumbs around you'll find that they lock in that nice little soft spot and you can lift the feet up gently see how I'm lifting up the feet real gently lift it up and you hold that position this is the solar plexus diaphragm reflex area and basically what this does is it relaxes the legs it relaxes the whole body it feels feels very comfortable to the client when you're finished with the the whole thing you can also feel a planter pulse that will come from a throbbing on the bottom of the feet if I feel that throbbing I know the client's legs are completely and utterly relaxed from the treatment but notice how I'm holding it up I'm not pushing In Too Deep with my thumbs I'm not driving them in real deep you can hold it this way too okay let the foot the feet rest down in this position that's okay but the different position that you hold if you let the weight of the feet come you know you're definitely in that saddle we call it hang in the saddle and that's an excellent way to finish up a client treatment okay now we're going to discuss how to do The hoix Reflex this is the most dominant reflex in the human body uh it's also can be the most painful so when a practitioner exercises this particular uh reflex they must do this with care now the way we perform this particular reflexes is we are going to use the interial joint of both the index finger and the second digit and what we're going to do is we're going to hook it between the HX which is the great toe in between the second digit okay the metatarso interial joint is or they call the metat so fangel joint is the closest proximal spot that we want both of our fingers to be so as deep as you can drive these two fingers into the tissue is where our starting point is for the amigdala reflex now how does this performed we're going to squeeze both Knuckles on the base side of the HX now I'm applying pressure inwardly on both of the fingers just squeezing this along can cause a client some pain but how we will do this we're going to use the holding hand we're going to slide it up underneath the foot so we have a rest a resting place for the foot to be and I'm going to be begin twisting abduction and adduction as I go up the toe okay as I go up the toe I'm twisting back and forth and I'm applying pressure all the way to the most distal aspect of the toe so from the very base the most distal aspect is a rotation of my fingers to the very top now the more pressure you apply from the medial to lateral aspect to the top will create more pain but that's the way that the H uh twist is performed again both fingers wrap around the toe you drive back and forth until you come to the very top now it seems to be that the most sensitive part gets to be right around the interial joint of the hoix itself as you get more towards the the most distal aspect it's not as bad but as the most dominant reflex I try to wait to the second or third round before I reach this once you strike the most dominant reflex in a body everything else in the foot becomes available then the true internal Diagnostics of the human body uh become available for work now give me your other foot Lori we're going to demonstrate a double hoix uh reflex what we're going to I do this at the very end I would never do this in the beginning we'll grab both toes the exact same way see we have both toes and we'll begin twisting and applying pressure as we go all the way up now Lori's not really prepared for this because we're shooting this video and so it's hurting her a lot I would make sure that before I did this I would have I'd never do this on a new client but um as the as our experienced clients have their feet done they're more ready and available for this by the second round or when I increase my power level to two there's as you know is three levels of power as I apply the pressure of three levels of pressure the second level pressure is when I would start maybe working these reflexes properly because without working the hoix reflex you're not going to get anything else done properly you just want okay now we're going to demonstrate how to perform the hypothalamus pituitary pineal reflex why are they all together well anatomically they're all together they're very close in proximity to one another so again it's the hypothalamus pituitary pineal reflex this is a very painful reflex when you're working on people so you must be careful we have a special way of doing it at the Holland reflexology Institute and it's in my book um I don't try to do as much in the hooking technique I prefer more of a of a sliding of the hand and a twisting of the hand now I hope the camera can get this properly because my elbow's probably gonna get right in the way so I'm gonna have to probably do it just a little bit different so that my elbow doesn't get too far in the way of the of the exercise but here's what we do if you take your thumb and you look at the if you look at the toe they almost match up with one another so if I take the interanal joint of my thumb and I put it at the most proximal aspect of the hoix it fits in like a glove you notice that kind of just fits in there nice and snug well the cool part about that is it doesn't matter what size a person's thumb is unless you're extraordinarily small in stature that thumb should reach almost the middle of the H is't that neat it fits right there so you don't have to kind of guess where that reflex is going to be but it sits right there now what do we do we take the holding hand we take the index finger and we apply pressure see I'm I'm acting as a leverage I'm pushing back the thumb is pushing forward and they meet together in the middle so you don't want to push too far planter or dorsal Flex keep it right in the middle now here's the great part about this I'm simply going to bend my thumb when I bend my thumb I'm dead smack in the hypothalamus pituitary penal reflex now all I have to do is simply twist my hand and as I twist my hand i'm striking the reflex I'm causing this reflex to strike now I'm going to raise my elbow up real high so you can see now all I have to do is slightly hook the finger at the top and raise the toe and I got maximum pressure on the hypothalamus pituitary pineal reflex and I do the opposite I slide the hand down it's a torquing up it's a torquing down and I'm striking the reflex okay this is one of the very few times that I believe in in in grabbing hooking sliding twisting on a reflex instead of just simply thumb driving I'm twisting and I'm going up and down just like this is that clear that's the way you want to do it if you want to do a little extra special attention as you're at the very top you simply drive up and hook and when you do that you get the maximum Drive of that reflex now be aware you do that to a client that's new they'll come flying out of that seat and be very uncomfortable to them so we want to break somebody in very slowly maybe the third or fourth visit before you start performing this type of a reflex strongly like in a range of of the uh third level of pressure anyways again that's the hypothalamus pituitary pineal reflex strike okay now we're going to discuss how to work the trapezius reflex there are many different trapezius movements we have anterior posterior but we also there's about three or four different exercises so we're going to start at one at a time first we're going to start with working the anterior aspect and we call this the trapezius Ridge or the trapezius walk or walking the ridge walking the ridge is what I came up with because it you know if you look at this part of the foot the anatomical structure of the foot this is where the trapezi anterior trapezius lies right through here now we know that the toes also are Incorporated in anterior trapezius posterior trapezius but if we're looking at the planner aspect on the planter aspect we see there's a ridge here that Ridge I want to walk that Ridge and I want to get between each and every one of these bones where the failen meets the metatarsal head okay so we want to get in there this can be quite painful to a new person so when we first walk the ridge on somebody new we kind of want to just scour the surface but as we get a more advanced client we want to get deeper and deeper in between these metatarsal bones okay so what we're going to do is we're going to use the holding hand similar to what I'm doing just to stabilize the foot find a comfortable way of holding this foot so that it remains stable we don't want to see any abduction or adduction of the foot any articulation of it side to side we simply want the foot stable now I'm going to take the working hand I'm going to take the thumb of the working hand and I'm going to start at the most lateral aspect of the foot right on the Bony protrusion of the fifth metatarsal head see there's that little B I'm going stick it right in there then I'm going to begin to walk this is one of the very few times you will not see me wrenching my wrist notice I'm not wrenching my wrist because I have a new person here see I have a new person so I'm just basically using my thumb if I was to wrench my wrist and drive we're going to get a way worse reaction on the end of the client you're going to get really deep into the subcutaneous layer so we're just going to simply walk the ridge nice and gently okay and that way we're striking the anterior aspect of the trapezius that's walking the ridge I only work medial or lateral to medial lateral to medial on either foot it doesn't matter lateral to medial you're never going to come back this way because it's just too uncomfortable for the hand I mean you can do it but see how the hals is getting in my way bang bang that's a pain in the butt so what we're going to do is we are going to walk the ridge from lateral to medial and the more experienced you you are and the more experienced your client is I want to see you get very deep to the base of that the most uh proximal place of those fail Ines I want I want you to be deep in those failing actually between each of the toes you'll get to the point where you're down in between these toes way in there when you're walking the ridge so it won't be just simply going lateral to medial you'll be going in and out in and out in and out in and out all the way until you get to the ho now since we're on the anterior aspect of the trapezius let's go ahead and we'll demonstrate anterior trapezius up and anterior trapezius down let's start with anterior trapezius up now I'm for for the sake of the camera I have to work opposite hands so I'm going to put my holding hand here and make sure there's a firm hold on these and I'm going to work with a with my thumb I'm going to start at the base of the Ridge and going work up the toe just walking my thumb to the very top now notice I went straight up the medium plane the medium plane or medial plane either way you want to say it but I I'm working right up the medium plane of that toe to the most distal aspect now I can start on the medial side or the lateral side trying to do this for the camera it's not easy the lateral side of this toe and I can get even a greater reaction but for starters let's just focus I'm going to try to pull this one toe back so you can see let's just focus on working the medial or the uh the most planner surface of this toe all the way up then we're going to make sure we work each and every toe all the way across now normally I do it this way I use this hand let me TR see if I can try to do it I use this thumb and this hand all the way up see how that blood gets to the very most distal aspect ain't that great and then I'll come all the way across to the top and I'll do the next toe all the way up to the top and I do the next toe all the way to the top and I'll do the next toe all the way to the top now I'm going very fast here but again you can go medial Center lateral medial Center lateral medial Center lateral on all them when you get a more advaned client now let's do an anterior trapezius down we're going to do the same thing we're going to hold the feet I'm going to take my thumb and I'm going to work my way down now this time I'm using in more of a wrist motion you notice that see I'm not just walking my thumb down I'm actually wrenching my wrist to Aid the thumb as I go down the toes okay all the way down now I must I'm using a little bit of pressure to demonstrate and of course the client here is is feeling it and jerking their foot but that that makes it more realistic when you have somebody that's new to reflexology okay so again as a recap for anterior we have the ridge okay okay we have the ridge we have anterior up and anterior down so do we have that good now now we're going to focus on going over to posterior aspect of the trapezius okay so now we're going to focus on the posterior aspect of the trapezius and that lies from here all the way across the top of these toes so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my thumb okay and I'm going to get my thumb to get right up behind the these digits and it's going to act as a counter leverage because when I use my index finger I'm going to walk right down the surface the dorsal aspect of these toes and I'm going to go all the way down and now I got that Conor lever now watch this I can take my thumb off now once you get down to the most proximal aspect right before you get to the metatarsal bone it doesn't even require you to use a a lever on the back side as a as a counter lever all you have to do is take the index finger and work the base see how I'm doing that I don't even have to put a finger behind it but if I come up nice and high on that toe well now I need a counter lever you know I need something because if I don't have it boom say I'm pushing the toe over trying to do the exercise you can't do that now we're planter flexing the toe so we need something behind there that's going to hold that toe in place so that we can work it I have yet to figure out a way to do posterior trapezius up so the only way I figured out how to do this so far is what I call posterior trapezius down working the posterior trapezi which is digits through four for posterior trapezius if once I get under the fifth digit I'm actually in the an or the posterior deltoid right now so really this is the trapezius area I will give credit to students that will actually go into the fifth digit because technically you really can't separate the deltoid and the trapezius that much they really need one another they're kissing cousins so I will give credit for students to go all the way if I say can the fifth digit be required in the posterior trapezius exercise or anterior trapezius exercise and the student Wass to Mark yes I would accept that in the testing requirement but now this is the deltoid the fifth digit does represent the deltoid so it's just something to consider that we have overlapping muscles and and it's important that we work them that way but that's as simple as that okay now we're going to do the hip sciatic reflex it's one of the largest it probably is the largest reflex in the entire anatomical structure um when I developed my chart I found that the hip sciatic reflex dominates pretty much the whole posterior aspect of the of the uh foot so what I'm going to do is first is I'm going to demonstrate first how to hold the foot with a holding hand and I'm going to demonstrate the working hand this is one of the most unique reflexes because you can either use hooking digging driving torque press rocking extension with compression you can use a lot of different ways to drive in and reach these specific reflexes um first let's discuss how we're going to hold the foot we're going to put our working hand we're going to switch hands we're going to do the opposite this is the left foot obviously we're going to put the left hand across the transverse plane as if we were going to Dorsal Flex or dorsal digit Flex the foot now I'm going to take the working hand I'm going to slide it up underneath and notice how I have my fingers loose here you can use one two three four all four fingers to work the hip sciatic reflexes now in this example we're going to start with the medial aspect of the foot I'm going to stick my fingers as uh as Superior as possible uh up the ankle and it's probably just above the Talis bone the tus bone excuse me because depending on where you're from in the country taus is the proper way to say it we're going to put my fingers as high up above the tail tailor bone as possible and then I'm going to drive my fingers in and then I'm going to slide them and drive them all the way across okay notice how they're moving inching across now really I only have two digits involved right now I got three digits involved it's very hard to get the fourth digit I got big hands but I can see now I'm going from Su Superior to inferior as I come across or I can hook and go ano posterior which is going backwards towards the back or posterio anterior which is going from the back to the front see how I'm going up if this is the most distal aspect of the foot and I'm going posterior to anterior that's what we call posterior anterior I'm driving my fingers up so this is more of a driving issue if I'm coming back it's more of a hooking issue see I'm hooking and I'm coming back it's when you break the rule and I'm coming all the way back now here's another cool thing I can switch hands and go into a normal digit dorsal flexion and I can take my fingers and I can simply Drive Superior see I can work my way see how unique that is oh hey I can do something else I can reach my left hand up underneath and I can just take the thumb and I can drive posterior anterior postero anterior right here just like that and working the hip sciatic and I can do it in many directions Superior interior I can come INF or Superior to inferior I mean gets to the point where you can't even describe what direction you're going to like a like a spider web just follow it all all the way around I can switch fingers like this you know I can I can come back underneath here and I can hook again see I can hook again I I'm driving now I'm driving hooking I can't even keep up with what I'm saying on myself but anyways this is how you can do it now here's one cool thing I don't know if the camera can see this this but I'm actually going to slide my fingers underneath the heel see I'm almost to the full planter pad sliding my fingers is another great way this can be quite painful for people have never had this done before and when you're sliding you are absolutely getting that hip sciatic to the best you can right there that's the that's the sweet spot right there now L let me have your right foot let's switch feet here and I'm going to show you doing the lateral aspect of the hip sciatic okay we just did medial now we're on the outside okay now I'm keeping my hand out of the way so you can see me doing this but all I'm doing is allowing her own foot weight just the her own weight of her foot to go up against my fingers now I'm just driving it's all I'm doing which means that I'm using Force distance over time you can go fast like this where you can go real slow get in there nice and deep now the more I hook my fingers the deeper the acupressure is the the more pain the client will feel the deeper you strike the reflexes this is one of the seven most dominant reflexes in the body the hip sciatic okay so I'm just driving that's all I'm doing I'm just driving now here's a really something really cool you can do let's say I start at the beginning position the posterior aspect of the uh the heel here my fingers are right between the taus and the calanus bone I'm almost on the Achilles tendon almost not quite there now let's say I was to take this foot grab it like I was going to Dorsal Flex it which I will and now I'm going to wrench the foot in a lateral aspect not past medial you don't twist it this way just from front and Center just go ahead and laterally flex the foot now I'm moving my fingers up as and I'm I'm moving them uh let's see this would be dist or post posterio and anterior I'm moving them towards the anterior surface of the foot as I move my fingers up now this will increase the intensity tremendously as you do this but I'm going very light on Lori right now but if I go with my hooking and my driving of the foot Hook drive or finger drive with the torquing of the foot man can you get to the reflexes that way so let's say on a test I on a practical I say I want to see you finger Drive coupled with the wrenching of the foot for hips attic reflex this is what I would expect you to do wrenching along with driving and we're just going to go all the way up and it doesn't look like I'm doing much but that's incredible so again you can you can drive Superior just like this you can drive Superior on the hip sciatic you can do an extension movement this is what I'm doing I'm going do an extension I'm actually pulling on the foot see I'm pulling the foot and and I'm driving I mean there's just a million different ways you can do this and only in class can you really get a good feel for it but my students know what I'm talking about so this DVD should remind you of of of how I want to see thumb driving finger driving extension hooking of the hip sciatic reflex and don't forget hip sciatic goes completely underneath the heel it's only that when we get to this part of the planter pad does the reflex change to the knee reflex but all underneath here is complete hip itic one of the most dominant reflexes of the body okay now we're going to cover the spine reflex exercise this particular technique can be done in many many different ways I'm just going to show you simply the basics uh as we learned in class there are 27 uh bones of the spine seven cervical 12 thoracic five lumbar then we have the sacrum and coxy now probably the most painful to the client especially new one is going to be cervicals and thoracics that's the one that's going to really get their attention especially if we work in a u oh I guess across the this the spinal reflexes we should say there's a technical term for it but it slips me right now well let's start first with the seven cervical as we know the cervicals start right at the top of the sternum reflex all you have to do is look at the peak of where the uh bony protrusion of the first metatarsal head is on the medial aspect and you know you're very close to where the cervicals will start so as soon as I get on the superior side of that and which would be the proximal side of the The Reflex once I get on the superior side of that I'm going to start walking my finger up to cervicals I'm at seven six 5 4 3 2 and then the very top is one so we have one through 7even okay now notice I only went you know pretty medly on that didn't I but you could come a little bit here on the inside a little bit you could come a little bit further on the dorsal aspect but either way way this is where the cervicals lie don't forget to go to the very Peak right about there okay on making sure you strike the reflexes some will use their thumb that's okay you want to use your thumb that's good just make sure the holding hand you know counteracts the The Leverage so that it you know when you're pushing with your finger you're not pushing the foot this way it's real easy notice where my thumb is on the H my index finger is on the hoex I'm just gently holding this left foot as I drive up the foot I really have never drove down I I guess you could but I've never really done it maybe as one of my students keep working at it maybe they'll come up with a neat way to do that now now let's focus on thoracics the easiest way to remember where the thoracics are is we look at the Bony protrusion of the Cal of the cuboid bone this is the cuboid bone where the fifth metatarsal head meets the cuboid now there's a a bony protrusion there if if we draw a straight line across a very straight line across we know from that point up is the thoracics okay there's 12 thoracics so we start at 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 it's not perfect obviously you don't know exactly where they're in if you did that you'd be a miracle worker but we do know that right across here is where the thoracics start now below that point we want to look at the planter pad see how the skin changes slightly here this is where the planter pad is and right where the planter pad changes its skin texture is where the lumbar start here's the fifth lumbar so we look for the Bony protrusion we draw a straight line and we look for the fifth Lumbar and we walk up five 4 3 2 1 so that's lumbars 5 through one there now what do we find below the fifth lumbar we find the last two bones of the spine the sacral and the coxal now the interesting thing about the coxal when we were a young kid that was five bones but they fuse but as far as chiropractors and and uh those in the medical field are um involved they look at as two bones now those two bones are found just below that planter pad so where're exactly are there just below the pad I'll give credit to any student that works the last two bones as long as they're below the pad if you're above the pad line the planter pad here that's a fail you must be below the planner pad line to demonstrate that you know where the sacral coxal reflux is so again to to reiterate we have the coxy sacral lumbar five 5 4 3 2 1 thoracic 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 seven cervical 6 5 4 3 two one that's the spinal reflex now we can work it uh Welly I forget the technical term at this time but we can work it from the inferior to the superior across notice how I'm using my fingers this way to go across I'm having a harder time doing this because I have a camera on me normally I like to twist my whole body around and I like to be able to hold that foot and I like use my index finger notice that I'm using my second digit to hold the INX finger down so the driving is good but this can be quite painful to a new person too but I'm driving in inferior to Superior across this transverse plane or the launch ital plane I should say and you could actually do this all the way up I've never really done it on the H much I guess you could yeah I do I guess I do do it you can go right across the top of the HX it's just kind of hard to grip that and apply pressure but important thing is is why it's good we don't use lotion otherwise our fingers would just slide now you can also take the dorsal aspect of your hand place it to the planter part of the foot and you could work work down this would be anterior posterior in Direction anterior posterior in Direction and do the exact same thing some people get real fancy about it you know they'll have the hand and they'll slide it like this and I don't really care about that that much I just want to know that the reflexes are being uh being struck so this is how we work the spinal reflex and uh okay we'll go on to the next reflex now that we've gone over all the dominant reflexes which were the amygdala hypothalamus pituitary penal the the spine the trapezius and the hip sciatic now we're going to go into the intermedial reflexes and the first intermedial reflex which is the most dominant of the intermedial is the occipitalis the acpo Talis is the back of the head you know people that have a lot of issues with headaches it's going to result probably either from the sternal Kido mastoid or the aipo Talis as far as muscle issues so what we're going to do is demonstrate how to do the aipo Talis it's very easy just simply use the holding hand and we're using a left foot here just simply use the holding hand and put it put your thumb right to the base of the ho or right center of the ho actually so that's your counter lover they don't want this h moving and you can use the index finger to kind of hold inner nice and snug now I'm going to take my index finger and I'm simply going to drive right over the surface the dorsal surface of the H right up in here manness can be painful on people so be careful but I'm just going to drive right across this ispot Talis I'm working medial to lateral I have I will switch I'll go from lateral to medial just like this and we'll get a different reaction and sometimes I'll even work it down okay I'll even work it down so medial to lateral lateral to Medi I'm holding my hands different normally than I do because I'm trying to let the camera see I mean you can't see if I was to if I'm holding my hands like this this is normally how I do it where you can't see it but I'm trying to hold it in such a way you can see it but just make sure that this hoix doesn't you know go flying around you're trying to do okay now we're going to work the sternal clyto mastoid the sternal clyto mastoid is a neck muscle that helps you to rotate your head from left to right what we're going to do here is is we're going to start on the medial aspect with the thumb notice how my holding hand just holds gently the H and the rest of the toes I'm not squeezing too hard I'm just gently resting my hand so that I got a hold of these toes cuz my goal is I want to deal with this HX so we're going to start here at the base of the sternal clom mastoid and we're going to work our way in to the lateral aspect and I'm going to slightly twist the hoex as I'm going up the side okay so we work from the base the most proximal aspect to the most distal aspect of the sternal Cloud on MTI once I get to this point that's the end of it so it's across and up across and and up you can change speed you can go real fast or you can go real slow slowly working your way across and then up that's the sternal clino mastoid now when somebody becomes more advanced I want to see you twist that hoix and you're going to get way up inside there that's a real Zinger there that'll knock them out you can also come down on the Sterno that's fine you can work across and go back across then go back but either way make sure that you have good leverage when you're holding the foot okay now we're going to work the thyroid parathyroid this is a pretty simple one just look for the the the soft area that's just above the sternal clyto mastoid that reaches up to the pituitary pineal hypothalamus it's just a small Target area that we want to find it's all it's the neck area and we're just going to Simply hold the foot the exact same way and we're just going to Simply drive up to the hypothalamus pituitary it's all we're going to do that's thyroid paraid thyroid right like this see yep that's a real easy one to do right there but just hold if you drive in too hard it can really make them Zing so just be kind of patient with them and work your way up through there thyroid parathyroid okay now we're just going to go over some of the guidelines and then we'll go over the reflexes and how to work them in the guidelines themselves as we know there are four guidelines that I that we pay attention to uh according to the Holland method first is the clavical guideline that clavical guideline goes from the head of the sternum all the way across to underneath the deltoid it's a simply it's a horizontal line just go straight across straight across so we know that when we're working anything above that or below it this is the guideline that I can I can hold a student accountable to and they'll know where to go from there the next guideline that we want to look at is the cuboid oblique guideline remember what I told you about the cuboid bone and how it sits with the first metatarsal base of the lateral side of the foot that guideline goes in a diagonal guideline it's oblique and then it comes right to the Bony protrusion of the first metatarsal head and then it comes over so it's a slight Arch and a straight line straight line and a slight Arch what's great about the cuboid oblique guideline is the reason I created that was that I wanted to split right down the most prominent reflexes of the midsection of the foot if you could know what reflexes would come in contct with that line it would give you a general idea where everything is and what should be separated from that point then we know what the cuboid transverse guideline transverse simply meaning horizontal or across we come straight across from that same cuboid bone there's our transverse guideline and below that is what we call the hip sciatic guideline that one's the easiest because you can see where the planner pad changes texture and skin you just draw the line this way now I want to slide Arch to that guideline a slide Arch I mean if you drew it straight across I wouldn't penalize you for it but let's give it a slide Arch because that now we're going to work some of the reflexes that lie in between or on some of the guidelines let's start first between the clavical guideline and the oblique guideline what we have there is the heart the pectoral pectoralis major lungs ribs esophagus bronchials and breast the way we want to work this particular reflex is between we we make a triangle between the cuboid oblique guideline and the clavicle we get a hold of the with the holding hand of the toes keep that planter pad of the of the holding hand right there on the metatarsal heads of 2 three four and five now I'm going to take my working hand I'm going to take my thumb and I'm going to start driving into these reflexes between the guideline just like no some wrenching at the same time some will walk slowly remember Force distance and time some will walk slowly I tend to move a little faster because I think it generates a greater reflex if you move quicker over the surface of the skin you don't have to be perfect about this what we don't want to have is a lot of skipping over the skin sometimes the foot is really really dry it makes it harder but we're working right now the heart pector pectoralis major the lungs the ribs the esophagus and the ab bronchials if I come directly into here just on the inside of the spine it's the sternum okay so we work the sternum you can use your thumb to work the sternum or you can work use your f fingers if I'm driving between these metatarsal heads right here we are really getting nice and deep that's also going to H help with plantar fasciitis we're going to keep fluidity to the membrane there we're we're going to keep this area fluid okay so that's the heart pectoral ma pectoralis major I always I always want to call it PEC major from weightlifting but pectoralis major lungs ribs esophagus bronchials and breasts now once I come below that cuboid oblique guideline now we're affecting the adrenal glands the stomach and the kidneys so does it it it really doesn't matter which side of the which foot you're using to make this happen there's two adrenal glands one's in the Left Foot Right Foot we have the stomach Crossing both uh sides of the of the body and we also have a left kidney and a right kidney right so we want to be between the cuboid transverse guideline and the Cub CU cuboid oblique guideline it's a triangle and so we're going to work there too now notice something I can do here as I'm working I can be wrenching simply with my working hand or I can increase by wrenching with the holding hand so now both hands are working hands not simply holding but both hands are working hands and we want to cover every aspect of these areas now for testing if I say I want you to work the adrenal reflex I want to know that you're right in here cuz the adrenal is going to be saddling the kidney right adrenal is going to be saddling the kidney but stomach is in that area most of these reflexes crossed each other in certain areas that they're going to cross like the pancreas is going to be crossing the stomach okay adrenal they're going to be Crossing one another so I'll make some absurdities on the test and I'll know if you know exactly where these reflexes are but now why did I create the cuboid oblique guideline because I believe that that splits right through where the pancreas reflex is and that way if I say where is the pancreas you can go right to that oblique guideline go bam there it is and we know with the pancreas I also want you to give the spleen even though the spleen would be superior to the cuboid oblique guideline I want the spleen and the pancreas to get credit to be right on that guideline so I say what and the left foot is the only reflex to strike through this oblique guideline in the left foot the answer to the test would be pancreas spleen okay if obviously if it's in the right foot what would it be if it's in the right foot it's going to be liver gallbladder okay it's going to strike right through the liver gallbladder we have two kidneys we have two adrenals we know where they lie we have two lungs we know where they lie but when it comes to the Striking through of the guideline and the right foot if this was the right foot it would be the liver gallbladder if it's in the left foot it's the pancreas spleen that makes it real easy because you know if something's superior to the pancreas and spleen it's the lung if it's inferior it'd be the kidney that makes it really really easy to remember remember where things are okay why did I create the transverse guideline the cuboid transverse I wanted to be able to separate the small and large intestine and I wanted to be able to say right where it was at which is true this is anatomically this is correct here's where the transverse colon is and if we come from the transverse colon we know that right here would be the spleenic flexure the spleenic flexure the spleen is above so this would be the flexure that resides close to the spleen if we're in descending we can just simply walk down the descending part of the colon see we could walk the descending colon it's really easy we could do it that way or you could raise the foot up and work it this way you could come across hey that's fine too you could work transversally that's all right either way there's many different ways to reach it but if I say I want to see you working the descending colon you better not have your your your thumb on the right foot it better be on the left foot working the descending value or in this case it would be ano posterior you could work it up sure you go posterior posterio anter anterior you can go that way posterior anterior but I want to see the thumb in this area it better not be over here this is where the descending colon comes and of course we see the sigmoid flexure is going to be here sigmoid flexure is going to be around this area and just before you get to the knee reflex this a knee reflex right in here knee reflex again Drive the thumb all the way through that knee reflex come across the sigmoid flexor that's fine they kind of overlap one another it's only fair to say that they would overlap one another but if I say knee reflex and you're up in here guess what you're off aren't you knee reflex is below the hip sciatic guideline so hip sciatic guideline here transverse guideline here for the cuboid all intestine should be between these two let's say I say work the entire intestinal tract and you're really low well I might think you might not know where it's at so make sure you stand between the right at the hip sciatic guideline where the change of skin is up to the transverse colon you'll have no problem finding that the way it is I notice I'm just moving my hands around you know I'm I'm hey just play with it you know you can come across duy you can work these reflexes all the way up see how much faster I'm going now cuz I want to cross a certain distance on a specific time that's going to charge the reflex faster yeah you could go slower lower I can pop so I'm popping my hands we call that popping or I can do this deliberate slow walk there's so many ways to engage these reflexes okay now where is the arm reflex as we know it's always on the lateral aspect of either of the two feet it's going to be all the way down the side so to demonstrate that Lori give me your right foot so I can show it to the camera we're going to walk up the arm reflex starting here you can feel like cuboid Notch that's right where it begins the cubid Notch and we're going to work our way all the way up okay that is the arm reflex we're going to work it all the way up now here's the cool part right where that Notch is down in here there's a little secret right before you get to the arm there's a softest spot on the right foot only but there's a soft spot you'll feel o see right there that's soft that is the osial valve appendix ilocal appendix right there the osal valve is what separates the ilum from the large intestine the colon It's a little valve there and believe it or not that's exactly where it is anatomically you hit that little baby that's a good one to work especially with people with constipation issues so appendix ocel then we go arm all the way up elbow shoulder that brings us right to guess what the deltoid reflex you can work the deltoid see I'm putting my hand behind here you can work the deltoid by working the anterior up or you could come posterior down which my hand is blocking the view okay so that's basically all the reflexes and how we work them there's several different stretching techniques you want to mix everything in together want to make sure that the client stays comfortable one thing Lori let me see your left foot I want to show you one way getting deeper you getting deeper back into the tissue here if you dorsal Flex the toes that really exposes everything to where you can get root really deep into this tissue okay now I'm only using the most distal uh axis of my fangi it looks like I'm using a flat of my thumb but I'm not I'm actually riding right on this part of the thumb and I'm poking in between these guys as I'm working see I'm going in between them and you can switch hands here see I'm using my back and my fingers as The Leverage so I don't even I'm not even using the holding hand right there okay and you can come across there's different ways of doing it but just remember where the guidelines are remember where the guidelines are and you'll have no problem and and figuring out where these specific reflexes are now another thing that I I didn't bring out is the brain I want to make sure that when we work the brain reflex we come right across the top like this I'm using a rocking motion with my hand back and forth back and forth back and forth that's the brain reflex right there amydala brain actually is medial and lateral but this is the total brain reflex right here and man let me tell you that's a that's an excellent excellent reflex to strike uh just as a reminder too in the intestinal area we also have the the uh not only the small intestine and colon but we have the bladder the ERS the testes the ovaries and the prostate all are in the same general area I don't like getting too specific on the reflexes even though I may point to one or two like IL seil valve occipitalis those kind of but as a general rule we want to be in the the anatomical region of where those reflexes lie but I don't believe there's a absolute specific spot in the feet it's just too hard to pinpoint so as long as we know that all these reflexes lie together and in the general area then we know what we're doing as reflexologist okay we're looking at the dorsal side of the foot to me the dorsal side of the foot is one of the most overlooked by most other practitioners of reflexology I find it to be uh extremely important es especially when it comes to all the back ISS if we look at the body anatomically the the dorsal aspect of the foot represents everything from the neck down to the uh hamstrings so and even though I don't specific Al have a really good reflex for the hamstrings other than the planter pad I want to kind of demonstrate how this follows the trapezius reflexes as we know the dorsal aspect which we call posterior trapezius down is the toes but it goes further than that it actually comes across if you look at the trapesius muscles on a u on a chart they look like a kite in the formation of a kite and that kite comes down at this angle actually let's see I'm doing it in reverse it may be the opposite but I'm looking at it backwards but anyways it is in a formation of a kite take a look at the muscles and realize that the trapezius comes down pretty far and it joins the latissimus dors side latissimus dorsai is all this area here that's the thick bodied muscle of the back or the kind of muscle that when see gu put hands on his hip put his elbows out laterally it spreads like wings that's the latissimus that's the big belly that's the strongest muscle of the back when we work this whole area here we're working shoulders trapezius and back extremely important for people that are under stress when we come across this groove right here you see it's a natural Groove if five dorsal Flex you can see the groove even or actually planter Flex either way you see that Groove that's the gluteous maximum and the erector muscles gluteus erector latissimus dors side trapezius this is all the low-lying back of the muscles extremely important to work I work them from medial to lateral like this I use just digits one and two or index finger and digits two you can do all four if you so choose it's up to you but I work medial to later on these and then I'll switch and I'll go back okay we'll go all the way back across medial to lateral this can be extremely painful to somebody who's never had this exercise before there's also another way to work it you can take the knuckles of your hand like a fist like you're ready to punch something and you stick it right between the first and second metatarsal these bones between the first and meta second metatarsal that's a starting point we Bridge our hand up and over the top of the the most distal aspect of the foot and we work our way down with the index finger we we switch to the second and third meta or uh metatarsal bones and we work our way down we switch to the third and fourth and we work our way down notice the client just kicked a little that means they're feeling pain now again between the fourth and fifth we work our way down so here's our options working our way down between The Valleys of each and every uh metatarsal region okay this is excellent way to strike trap Theus latissimus dorsai or we can come across from medial to lateral doing the same thing and when you get to a real Advanced client you can actually Flex the foot wrench it while you're striking strike wrench strike Ren that see how they're pulling she's pulling now she can that's a lot of pain but you just come all the way across so on the test I want to see the the the practitioner's hands come if I say latissimus dorsai here they're up here that's trapezius that would be a fail trapezius is up here aimus door side is here if I say I want to see you work the ecip Talis we simply work here remember these are General regions as long as you're close there's no problem in testing because I want to see your art take place I want to see your hands all over the place different directions countering one another there this whole thing of perfect practice makes perfect is a bunch of garbage when it comes to the feet we want to make sure that you develop the art to reach these reflexes the best way that you possibly can and that may be so much different than I but one thing that we will never challenge is the anatomical structure of the body okay the anatomical structure is the same you can't put the heart in the pelvis it stays up in the rib cage where it belongs so when we work these feet let's stay close as we can to the anatomical structure let's drive use hooking motions extension and compression um let's do those things and then we know that we're doing the clients the absolute best thank you for watching this video and I hope the students do well on their testing e