Sally Kay RLD Interview 19th of June, 2017

okay so my name is Jim Cooper I'm a reflexology practitioner in Australia and also my business owners focus on feet some people would have noticed that on Facebook and I'm very very coverage and honored to be hosting Sally K in Australia later this year she's coming out obviously in October and November so just a little bit introduction about Sally before we get underway this allocator multi-award-winning reflexology practitioner tutor and published researcher selling has developed reflexology lymph drainage our elderly for short from those principles and through extensive clinical practice this innovative approach terrific solid you have attracted national and international awards and widespread recognition sally has been a guest speaker at national and international conferences throughout UK Europe and America she teaches our early terrific ecology practitioners from around the world and established articles in professional journals which include international therapists and reflections clinical experience and third evidence from a growing body of case studies studies suggest early may be useful for clients with non-cancer related autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis fibromyalgia allergies migraine and many other inflammatory conditions so I'll just welcome sally to the call tell if you could just unmute yourself I think you might have already done that can you hear me I can hear you clearly okay it's nice little earphones okay I can eat it I can hear you clearly if anyone can't hear clearly just a hand up but I'm sure everything is okay okay Kelly first of all could you tell us the people on the call tonight are going to be reflexologist so could you tell us a little bit about your background into into reflexology itself okay so I first qualified in 2005 and so I'm kind of relatively new to the reflexology world and but after experiencing reflexology myself and feeling so incredible I was straight off the local college this is what I'm going to do and to be honest I haven't looked back so when I first qualified for about a year after that I started working in Cancer Care as a local hospice with drop-in clinics which was an amazing experience but you never had a whole hour with someone you only had about half an hour because they were dropping people didn't have appointments so I developed a way of working with people where I would just adapt what I was doing to try and make the best difference to that person that I possibly could so after about a year of that I realized that I was dealing you know with complex health problems although it was a very supportive environment and luckily there was a BST honours degree course at the University in car distance as well near where I live so as a very mature student I signed up on that and graduated did that part-time so I could continue working in cancer care and graduated in 2011 at the age of 50 so that's how I got into it and that's also how the research started because for the degree at the end of it you have to do a dissertation and after hospice I was seeing a lot of patients who had lymphedema following breast cancer so there's a high incidence rate in this particular area and patients used to soy because you can do anything to my arm Canyon and there was there was another therapist there who was doing manual lymph drainage massage which I understood because I've also done other therapy modality you know advanced massagin aromatherapy and things although I only ever really really wanted to do reflexology and so I understood how MLD manual lymph drainage worked but I wasn't qualified or unsure to do it so okay I understand that to the limb reflexes on Crete and working with the patients they started to say you know oh I can feel that moving or look my blouse is a bit looser off all of my watch and so here was something but you could measure a measurable change and there is as much concern for people who's got lymphedema it's a question of managing it there is no cure the middle there are no miracle drugs for it so we're not reading on the toes of any drug companies anyway so I went and trained how to measure the volume of the arm which is using this standardized set of measurements that these lymphedema services so we are meeting with the healthcare providers on a like-for-like basis for the research I had to do I had to go to NHS Essex which was a huge undertaking probably more work than the last year of this itself you know I got there and anyway the pace hope the research problem was just it's the first one there were six participants and everybody lost a significant amount of sewage from the arm hm yeah I'm kind of cool so that's an attractive internship background into reflexology and obviously you know like like many of us we move into certain directions don't we that I they come to us or we feel drawn to and obviously we want to work in in cancer count I know marine Darwin came out a couple of years ago and actually hit in Australia for a while and very much involved in cancer care in the UK and I believe you know Murray quite well in the UK yes yes fantastic and so the story behind developing the rlz technique can you explain a little bit about how that supports the theory of of reflexology because that's what we are interested in we're interested in the fact that we reflexologist and we love the modality that we're working with so you just explain a little bit about how our early supports the reflexology modality so and it can't isolate the lymphatic reflexes and work them in the same sequence as manual lymph drainage will be worked on the body we're getting similar results so for me that supports the idea that if you work that area or you know whichever area it is if you work the lymphatic reflexes in the same order that you get to the same results as if you're working on the body and what patients say is that they they like this because they only have to take their shoes or socks off yeah so our basic surgery to be able to only take your shoes and socks off and get a measurable difference in a swelling of the arm which is really simply difference to make obviously that's very much that non-invasive isn't that non-invasive treatment that they can experience but the thing is as reflexologist we know it works we all know we all love it we all know it works but nobody really really understands the mechanism of action and I certainly don't but until we do it's very difficult to prove so green yes really skeptical you know healthcare professionals but we built on this research so because the first piece was they showed very promising results this I presented a research abstract to a conference in 2012 and from there other reflexologist started seeing more helpful you know can you teach us this how to do it mmm and but also the university applied to a local a Welsh campus charity and we were awarded twelve and a half thousand pounds to do some more research now if anybody wants to go on the website afterwards reflexology the integrated code at UK my toes are encircled socially so we can unsee that okay well one of the headings says research and so all the research abstracts to date you can find links there so this second paper was published it was instead of I just use six participants if I study this is 20 six participant and again the results are very very similar so there's now even more research going on using thermal imaging which is very very exciting well it is just mind-blowing to actually watch and this time we've got two groups one all the participants have got breast cancer related lymphedema in one arm one group for having our LD as a protocol and the other group are having a more generic reflexology treatment you know working working everything and not sort of isolating and so we'll be able to compare the difference particularly the price well that's that is a great way of doing that isn't exactly a little bit about filmography and the thermal imaging and you can actually it's a visible thing that you can actually see it is it is just blows me away but obviously that's that studies ongoing at the moment so we're not able to share the details with you but this started off being about breast cancer related lymphedema and it really does make a wonderful difference after quality of life as well and people usually ask for how long does it last it's a good quick yeah people often ask that and because it isn't a cure-all but what we find is that it's lasting quite well and this could be because it's actually enabling people to maybe do their exercises or they feel better in themselves so they maybe join a gym you know I've heard all kinds of steering so overall its overall better for their health and they feel better within themselves yeah and so just when you're talking about that with the with the study that's ongoing what how many sessions are they looking at was in that study four four one four four like like my study so they replicated each time as general researching replicated that because it's giving us a measurable outcome mentorship which is the exciting part and but what we found the more people who do in the UK I've trained now about a thousand people as well as changing people in Europe and in America and Canada and somebody even flew in from South Africa to do the training in the UK he one of my first questions Otis Pacific we're just fine that we're so you think you've been teaching the LD technique now for a couple of nonterminal you the first course was towards the end of 2012 okay but thank you though in which countries now do you think the rld technique has moved to it's all its throughout the UK it's in Ireland Holland as recently at a conference in Switzerland where I ran a big workshop for 48 reflexologists people have traveled from other countries to come on the course last year I was teaching in Toronto and in Seattle and in fact a couple of people have also come from the u.s. to the training because they were they missed the training while I was in America my life so it's a change always done over to a 2-day workshop oranges as they further work to do from there after the workshop there's a case study to be done but it's not a big deal it it's one case study it doesn't have to be a client with lymphedema because I was just coming onto that when is just this is like a byproduct if you like people with other autoimmune inflammatory conditions are getting huge improvements to these conditions when they have rld so certainly in the UK does it increase in the number of autoimmune conditions sort of inflammation in the body fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory skin conditions you know so Gigi okay I thought sorry the screen suddenly distantly mu and so we're realizing that by isolating the lymphatic reflexes it's making a difference - it seems to be having a different spot to the immune and the body's only anti inflammatory response so merely a technique that qualified reflexologist adding the rld technique to what they already have they will be able to use that with so many different clients that they're actually already seeing yes they would yeah and some some people who've done the training just end up integrating it into what they're doing okay there's a place for that some people depending where they're working what they're doing are actually initiating their own small studies so particularly I don't know how reflexology is funded in Australia is it do most people a paid for it or you expect it to do it voluntarily um look at both obviously some people are definitely in a volunteer capacity but mostly in Australia people wouldn't be not very many research soldiers work full time mostly big within a part-time capacity but in Australia we do have health fund providers that actually give a rebate for reflexology back to the client so that that's nothing that reflexology is accepted through our health system here right okay that's fantastic yeah so what I was going to say there is that if you're working in a charity sector where you know people are always competing for funds to fund complementary therapies and this this will give you you could do your own study so from two days training you would get enough to do your own study you learn how to do the measuring and calculate the differences and use other standardized outcome measures so very often if you can't do a little positive pilot study you can then apply for funding based on the results that you can demonstrate that had a good thing about this fantastic so so with some with your coming to Australia to teach the reset the rld in Brisbane and Melbourne and obviously the people that come into those workshops would be qualified reflexologist is that correct yes it you need to be a qualified reflex or to take on this course it's full on it's a very very sore two days the first day we first session is theory and between coffee break and lunch time we learn how to measure and calculate the volume of the arm and then in the afternoon its demonstration followed by practical for the rest a afternoon the second day is reflection and a little bit more theory first thing in the morning then demonstration after coffee so 3/4 of the day of the second day is all practical and there are three that sellers love to be able to they come into a two-day workshop not only the theory but also be able to walk away and feel do you feel that they would feel that they would be experiencing nothing the rld technique should be a lie keep going yes because obviously I give out feedback forms to the training courses and feedback is just incredible so I'm grateful to everybody who comes on the course and I know Kelly you're definitely because you're on Facebook I know you're definitely a person to support your practitioners with this technique and you support them in you know therefore have any questions or anything they need when do you feel the same thing would happen in Australia here because cuz this is your first time to Australia at each one so it's I'm learning rld technique from you so it's just you know it's going to be an amazing and a wonderful experience so just talking about the follow-up that would happen from there okay so follow-up is you and it you'd be surprised at what an intensive two days this is it gives you I feel it's complete it gives you enough to go forward and use it immediately and very often you find after day one when you were a given and received a treatment when you come back the following morning many reflexologist says say you know I will collapse all you my knees no taking or all of the swelling's gone down because we all have our sort of aches and pains and things and so that third session of the second day when people are feeding back many many reflexology are experiencing things after rld saw themselves which they then share which they haven't received that haven't experienced before something youth is happening so that validates it's for them you know you have to feel these things for yourself in order to really read what yeah you need to have your experience yourself and you will get obviously over that weekend you'll get to perhaps what with different people with other practitioners and have your own experience of what's happening and then you can be able to transfer that information back to your clients yes that's right so afterwards something that I feel is very important is differentiating between rld as a very specific protocol because I know this get measurable results and just a more generic reflexology because and if somebody's had breast cancer and then Fatima they may be considered vulnerable they might be online looking for a miracle cure Lee because it nobody told them they were going to get stuck for this lymphedema and it's quite debilitating and they read somewhere all okay reflexology is good for lymphedema but then it went somewhere and it wasn't it didn't work if that would be bad for that person it would also be bad for reflexology and I know what so by having a find a therapist page on the website people can at least find their way to somebody who's done the training and who will be able to help them with that so that's the reason that I asked everybody for a case study I don't know and then what happens from there is that I've noticed on your website you have a list of the countries that exactly have the rld practitioners with the technique I noticed that New Zealanders on it yes and Australia is obviously yet to be on it there is one person in Australia that is on there somebody who's in the UK with me before she moved to us oh okay okay the two people in New Zealand also trained with me in the UK before they went to live in New Zealand and it's for me it's like a magic copywriter I could rain it really yeah that's great so tell me what what are we just lining up with the interview part we'll then we'll just there's a few questions that have come up in the chat box and I might also just open it up to people they'd like to comment or or ask your question but what are you looking forward to the most coming to Australia this is your first visit here and you're going to spend a little bit of time getting to know our country as well yeah I mean I I can hardly believe I'm coming I'm very excited and particularly that reflexology is bringing me down to have this opportunity to meet as a reflexologist is an incredible experience because we we all do a great job and we all do it differently and yes it still works which is fascinating so I'm always interested to meet like-minded reflexologists anywhere and wrote wonderful now got a question here um what first questions from Annette McCarthy who's on the call tonight she jump into what level is the rld technique known and/or accepted in Australia well do you want to answer that all well I meant it isn't really it isn't really Ephrata this is one person at the moment who I believe she integrates it in part of her practice but certainly with published published peer-reviewed published research which we have there's a with first paper that you can have a link to the abstracts on the website with the quantitative paper so that's your facts and figures but we will we will be publishing another papers from that the qualitative you know people's words and experience and it's very very powerful so as more research is published you as reflexologist will be able to say I can do that yes I know that technique I've learnt that technique and blending but I know that once someone somewhere starts accepting this as a treatment then it's going to snowball because yes and we have leap over here we do have the practitioner we're talking we come on the call tonight is not here tonight bit we do have a couple of practitioners who are currently working in hospitals in cancer care clinics so I know they're very eager to learn this and to be able to take that back and be able to work with those patients there so it's a lot of question this is a very good question how long is a full session of RL Glynn well it's 30 to 40 minutes so it's something that you can integrate into what you're doing you can just use some of the reflexes if appropriate in in your work or you can give a set treatment so the only thing that takes a little bit of time differences I finished with linking and depending on the recipient if they're still feeling stuff I hold the link until it stops so you know there's a slight you know a few minutes difference at the end okay right and another question will surly be bringing her chance with so to Australia yes yes helping yes i'll be posting a pack of stuff to Jen yes before I come because I'm actually going I've been invited to go and speak at the ICL conference in Taiwan so I'm going there first and then travelling on to Australia great another question calling can you use rld for swollen legs yes you can so on the second day of the training we adapt the protocol for legs and you know other other conditions so thirdly in the UK there's an increase in have had met counselors so people get sort of swelling here so I how to adapt it depending where in the body the swelling is but we also talked about how you would use it in your practice and as part of the people with rheumatoid arthritis or you know any other sort of information going on in the brain n is saying over the volunteer I was a volunteer at Tiamat Cancer Center which is in Melbourne and I made sure they know we're going to be trained in this technique yeah that's great how does it work on a melanoma on the foot can we work it on the head yes you also get you also get hand shots of how to how to work the hand it's a very inclusive course do you get all the material that you need it's all professionally printed it's evolved and developed into a piece of work that I'm really really proud of fantastic and that will all come with you as well two other questions from Connie Hardy thyroid issues are huge at the moment have you found ourselves with this autoimmune issue well yes and why is that just one that comes to mind one of the reflexologist had thyroid issues and the next day she was also oh my goodness I can't believe what this is done here so yes yeah I mean I I know I sound evangelical about it but if you want to interact on the Facebook group there's a really great group so you'll hear stories from other people not just me on the rld Facebook group is it yeah reflexology lymph drainage it's an open Facebook group right there look case studies and feedback and information and people sharing it's a really good forum we're pregnant thank you without five minutes left I can't believe how quickly good time was gone from me and she has a question about does it work for Parkinson's and motor neuron is okay and I personally haven't got a lot of experience with you know working with those diseases but I have had case studies from people where there has been a positive improvement now so I haven't really got lots of experience that myself but also these these conditions that I think I always believe you have to take each person each case individually and you need to energy expectations because somebody might be very acute of tools out of life and somebody might just be at the beginning of diagnosis so I think when we work it's about managing expectations grown answer I just before we go on to any other questions I'll just go over the actual dates for the workshops in Australia so Brisbane workshop is the 28th 29th you know it's it's a really lovely location down by the water down by the bang in them in Brisbane owns notes a place that Shelly's going to love staying and teaching and then in Melbourne we have the 11th and 12th of November and that's in ball and at the ball and community centre and others on the call tonight going to help host them your than the Melbourne events that are party that's wonderful and of course from their selling you then fly over to um a little bit of trying to unify orbit equipment and there's a lake I'm Karen Middleton who's organizing the the Auckland trip so we've got one more question is from n and she's asking about cerebral palsy okay I I haven't I don't think I've had any case studies about that but certainly I would try I'm one for trying I think if you can justify why you're doing so I'm doing this because it might help that you know understanding the pathology of what's going on with any condition that presents to you I think helps you adapt your logic or that person okay all the dolls are just found barking poner I can hear that we're done all my talking to you isn't it so what we were just um does anyone else have a question that you'd like to ask because if you do I have everyone we use at the moment but if you would like to just ask a question we've got about three minutes less that we can do that and if you would like to do that you just need to unmute yourself or raise your hand and I can do it for you but if you would like to ask a question of Sally before we wind up so there's anything I haven't covered or Sally hasn't covered the need to make sure that we speak about Jenny one of a knack yes you look like you've taken your magnet job yeah see you ask you question I got your DVD Sally yeah and just wondering it's a message to do the priest days you do the three feet when somebody's got lymphedema in one arm so you because manual lymph drainage starts on the good side then what's the other side and then you need to return to the good side clear it so that that was that was me mirroring the MLD principles onto the feet okay so you can just do right and left only yeah if you do if you're treating somebody who's got to an autoimmune condition if you just build it into your practice yes um just feet but if somebody's got lymphedema you want to enter the good search of creative space then you encourage the compromise side to drain towards the nice functioning group of lymph nodes then you are empty vote again so when I did it right one do I do the link or the letter the link laughs all linking is at the end there okay if you're starting with the right right left right and mentally I'm sure the link is anything you look into coming to the Melbourne workshop so that would be yes looking forward to it it have not good results on it yes we have an indication of people who are on the call tonight put your hand up if you're coming to Brisbane or Melbourne either one then I know there are a number of people that were coming on and we've got a few people with their videos to add ultimate I'm sure they're coming along as well well that's fantastic we have any other questions anybody would like to ask any further questions or something that we need to talk about okay if the early bird price surely we must mention that very quickly we're going to extend the early bird price for both the workshops until the end of July so that's a big announcement tonight I literally know there's a lot of them payments.that happy for reflexologists at this time of the year with a membership fee and insurance so we've extended the early third price to the end of July which means you can still make a deposit and then pay the balance or you can actually pay it in full so we've just extended the time on that just to give people a little bit more leeway with things and Connie would like to say a big thank you to Sally and myself forum for having this tonight it's been a wonderful experience Sally I'm so pleased we've been able to have this organized we've been months haven't we in the planning and I love the trip to Australia and it's just been for me it has been such an honor that you're coming and everything is everything is happening and tonight was just a wonderful experience to bring people together on this call thank you Thank You Jen for making this happen I have I have to say that because we you know you can't do this on your own we need help and stormy and many of us work on our own so it's great to be able to connect with each other as well sure Thank You Jen now know much you just raised your hand you're wanting to ask a question we've got about a minute left do you want me to unmute you not long at 20 and I'm looking forward to actually booking for Sally's workshop um so I just wanted to see what she had say no thank you except about it but nice thank you and Norma centerpiece that is thanks Ellen they're not gonna lie I'll just go to unmute everyone everyone can say be um yes I and with Australia Ricky hi