Thumb Walking Tips for Reflexologists

[Music] Hello, I'm Tracy Smith, reflexology and research manager for the Association of Reflexologists. Today we're going to talk about thumb walking. We do already have a video about thumb walking on our website, but there's an area that's slightly obscured on the vision on the visuals, so we're going to repeat that today. I'm also going to apply a little of the reflexology salve that we sell in our sales shop so that you can see how easy and how little you need, how easy it sinks into the skin. As you can see, that has already gone. Okay, so thumb walking. It's very easy when you stop having a tutor looking over your shoulder to do thumb walking in an incorrect manner. This is a particularly bad version of thumb walking. As you can see, the end of the thumb is flicking up and back. And this puts a lot of movement and stress into many joints that is not necessary. The joints that are involved in this type of sun walking are here, here, into the wrist, and then up higher into the shoulder and elbow. Good thumb walking shouldn't put stresses on anything but this joint here. I am indebted to my tutor when I trained 16 years ago who showed me this technique and it's the best way to find out whether you're doing your thumb walking well. Take a whiteboard pen preferably because then you can wash it off and color in the end of your thumb. Obviously I've chosen green so that you can see it easily. When you start doing thumb walking badly, you can see the green on the end of the thumb on the tip of the thumb. But good thumb walking which simply applies pressure and then the thumb moves across the skin. Applies pressure and the thumb moves across the skin. applies pressure and the thumb moves across the skin does not show the green end but of the thumb. So poor thumb walking, good thumb walking. As you can see, this is putting much less stress on these joints and keeping it all on your thumb joint here. I hope this has helped you with your thumb walking. Perhaps you'd like to go and try for yourself and color your thumb in. Thank you for watching today. Goodbye. [Music]