Thai Foot Reflexology Massage Techniques

[Music] here's a really nice massage technique for this sequence too is to start at the top of the foot towards the toes and then you're gonna just go all the way down this is really nice for the extensor retinoculum and you're just gonna roll around the malleoli and a light touch over the malleoli and then back down into the toes you can even stretch the toes out here and then once again repeat and you're gonna do this five times now you can move quite fast or you can go slower i'm more of a fan once again of this kind of slow burn because i just think it feels so so good but i'll leave that up to you guys as to what you want to do going faster is more of the thai tradition and then as you finish the fifth pass you can just roll up and then traction all the toes this next step is actually one of my favorites so it's this zigzagging motion with your thumbs just over the top of the foot and my god this feels good at the end of the day i wish i was having this done right now and just follow that all the way back up and you want to repeat this one five times and you're just kind of envisioning that you're wringing out the foot with your thumbs and you're being a little bit sensitive in this area because it can be quite bony there's not a lot of tissue there so it's more about the movement of the tissue from side to side and being aware of the pressure that you're placing over the bone so this one with a hooked finger once again you can use the flat of your hand here and with this one i like to use two knuckles and you're just rubbing from the malleoli kind of down into the heel you're doing that five times just getting a nice stretch in that area and then you can also do some nice little like circular motions which feels really really good you're just rubbing all the way down into the heel and then after that's done you can do the same thing on the outside of the foot five times rubbing down the foot into the heel and then this is actually one of my favorite parts of this entire sequence i don't quite know why i just think it feels really really cool and that's that you can use the flat of your knuckles and then what you're going to do is you're just going to rub from the top of the foot into the ankle joint and it's just a very light kind of gliding pressure and you're using this kind of downward to upward motions it's almost as if you're doing like a little bit of a scrub here or an exfoliation but i just think it's such a unique feeling to have someone's hand doing this and you could just do this for about five times but since i love it so much i tend to do it like 15 to 20 times once again that's up to you guys you can even follow this up more into the ankle and yeah that's definitely one of my favorite techniques after you've done that what you're going to do is take your thumb or your fingertips and you're going to press in between the tendons in between each toe so we'll go down there and do this five times and i was talking to kate as we were filming and she was saying that this is definitely one of her favorites and we're sliding up five times and then just you want to follow that along in between each of the toes so then here slide down and once again five times you can use your thumb i find sometimes i'll use my thumb if i have someone who has a bigger foot but kate's foot is quite small in comparison to my large hand so i'll use fingertips when i need to get more specific with someone who has a smaller foot and i'm rolling down and just getting in between the tendons you can split the toes apart just to create more space you can even kind of like visually see the tendon there and that makes it a little bit easier to get in between both of the tendons and break up all of those fascial adhesions and little scar tissue that builds up in this area now we're going to move into the massage portion for the lower leg in the traditional thai massage sequence they'll roll up the leg sequentially so they'll go up one time like this and then go a little bit more medial and then even more medial with the thumb and i find that this can be quite strenuous on the thumb joint so i like to take three fingertips and then i'll start just above the ankle and then i'm moving up towards the knee and you're slowly breaking up all those adhesions and this is really nice because you're working in the soleus which is a very important muscle and it plays a strong role in returning blood from the leg to the heart another thing you can do here is these kind of circular motions it's nice to work the tissue in different ways you know you you just work up like this you're kind of pulling the tissue in one particular direction but it's nice to kind of break it up at different levels and just work it in different patterning here's a really nice one for the knee people who are runners are really going to appreciate this technique so what you can do is hook in above the kneecap with once again the flats of your your knuckles and you're just hooking in being a little bit sensitive in this area and then you're rolling around the kneecap once again being a little bit sensitive here and you're just stretching out the tissue traditionally in thai massage they will use a eucalyptus based bomb at this point and that feels really really nice we have that in the clinic here and it also just smells amazing so you're adding that kind of extra layer of aromatherapy to the treatment which is a very thai reflexology thing to do you can do this five times and you're just kind of stretching all the tissue over the knee it's kind of like a nice lymphatic drainage technique as well it feels really nice so with this technique what you want to do is hook your fingers and then you're going to grab the leg underneath the calf and then you're going to kind of spread down the leg this is a really nice massage technique not even just for this tie sequence but this is something that i use in my practice all the time so you kind of grab on here and then you can kind of split the gastroc heads with your fingertips i'll try to show you guys as much as possible you're splitting the heads like that but as you're doing that so i'm rolling down the leg here and as i roll down the leg you're stretching out all that tissue and then once you get to around the tendon you're just going to make sure that you work laterally off the tendon and you're not going to press into it it's just something to note so work down get all the way down the leg and then stretch it out and this is a downward stroke only so once again pick the leg up split the gastroc heads like so and then roll down the leg and repeat this five times in a downward only motion and making sure to avoid the achilles tendon all right guys congratulations we are done the left foot what you want to do after you've done that is fold one corner of the towel over fold the other corner of the towel over and then bring this side around bring this side around and then just tuck in here and you want to make sure that everything's nice and snug but still loose enough to be comfortable just to keep the foot warm as we're going to move on to the right foot