Emergency Golf Ball

Reflexology can be done just about anywhere. Working on the hands is more accessible in most cases. But we know of people who have even slipped off their shoes in board meetings.

A handy habit is to carry a golf ball with you wherever you go. Stick one in your purse or coat pocket particularly if you know you can find some time. “Found time” is waiting for appointments or waiting to board an airplane or any number of activities that don’t require your full attention. but we don’t suggest these techniques for activities like driving a car.

Golf ball techniques are easy, can be somewhat mindless and effective. We like to take golf balls on long trips. And we like them for emergencies like when your allergies flare up or your stomach is upset.

There are a lot of golf ball techniques in any of our DK books. Reflexology: Health at Your Fingertips, Hand Reflexology and Complete Reflexology for Life all have golf ball techniques.

Pick several so you don’t wear out an area. And just roll on.

Kevin Kunz

The World is Not Flat- It is rather bumpy

When I take my walk I look for rough and irregular surfaces rather than flat and perfect sidewalks. The variety is a “smart way” to walk and it may save your life.

We frequent flat surfaces to our detriment. We adapt to the sameness, flatness and boring surfaces. Our feet, ankles and legs become stiff and inflexible in response. The communication that is needed to make locomotion possible becomes less and less. The brain stops talking to the feet and the feet stop talking to the brain. And that spells trouble.

It is quite common for the elderly to fall. As we age the muscles involved in locomotion start working in tighter and tighter ranges of motion. As we age it is common to shuffle. The hip muscles that are supposed to cantilever our hips to lift the leg in a swinging motion stop doing their job. Any irregularity in the surface when encounter by a shuffling foot can lead to a fall. And falls can be life threatening.

Our feet, ankles and legs actually thrive when given challenges. Feet and ankles in particular become smarter when meeting irregular surfaces. In fact, there is a counterpart to eye- hand coordination. It is called, of course, eye- foot coordination. In sports they talk about this with good athletes. They are said to have “smart feet”.

Now don’t go and break your neck trying to scale up rough and irregular surfaces. Get smart and try the poles used in “ski walking”. That’s right just like skiing poles only rubber tipped for non- snow surfaces.

Ski walking is much more stable than a cane. Instead of three point support you now have four point support. Whatever is under foot has less impact since you have the stability of a quadra-ped.

But the one downside are the jokes from your friends and neighbors. “How is the skiing?” “Don’t you know the mountain is over there?” and so forth. But after everyone runs out of one-liners you can enjoy the fun and healthful benefits of walking the rather bumpy earth.

Kevin Kunz

Ski Walking poles

Kevin is moving them

Recently a woman from England posted a question on quadriplegics on our Reflexology Forum.

The question brought back a lot of memories of Barbara and my work with paralysis. It first started years a go innocently enough. We were asked by one of our clients to work on Jimmy who had been left disabled by a car accident. His family didn't have much money so we worked for "worm money' or the two or three dollars that his mother gave us from her selling worms.

We would swing by after our office closed and worked on him. Barbara started working on his hands since I was working on his feet. We worked in a cramped room that was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

One day Barbara noticed that his fingers on the hand opposite to the foot I was working on were moving. (We worked this way because of the tight quarters.)

We didn't know much about quadriplegics at this point in time. Barbara asked Jimmy if he was moving his fingers not knowing that he couldn't. Jimmy replied that no, "Kevin is moving them". We thought he was joking. It took us awhile to realize that in fact you could press on one part of the foot and the fingers on the opposite side would move.

It was fascinating and we filmed it. While we were filming it Jimmy complained that I was pressing too hard, another anomaly. It hurt below the break.

Bottom line we had the same effect on two paraplegics only their crossover went from one foot to the other. We worked with paralysis for quite awhile but actually achieved more results with Jimmy. He was able to recover bowel and bladder control, a lot of body sensations like heat/cold and some pressure. He was able to switch to a manual chair from an electric. We were teary eyed when he wrote us a letter unaided by any device.

The two paraplegics never had a bladder infection the whole time we worked on them and maintain a certain amount of muscle tone. They both went on to get married.

We always wondered if we could have helped Christopher Reeves. But it was impossible to reach him.

The key to the effect we observed was the eye/ear area. For some reason it triggered this "crossover effect" and it seemed to have a profound effect on them as well.

More information- http://www.reflexology-research.com/paralysisrepor t.htm

Kevin Kunz

Children (Mainstreaming); Aggressive, Anti-Social Behavior

I said I would explore some of the newer research. This is a really interesting research study. Gives hope to parents.

Reflexology was applied to children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. The goal was to “calming down the children and young people so that their behaviour becomes less challenging within the classroom and generally, making the mainstream more accessible. The children and young people’s difficulties can vary from bereavement to neglect, sexual, emotional, mental and physical abuse as well as exposure to drugs and alcohol. Some have witnessed and experienced horrific events within their country of origin and are separated from family members.” Changing aggressive and anti-social behavior is a key to mainstreaming the children, returning them to a traditional classroom.

“The results from evaluation to date show a reduction in aggression, stress and anxiety and an improvement in focus, concentration, self esteem, listening skills and confidence.”

BUD, Therapies for Life, Accessible complementary therapies for vulnerable children and adults to improve quality of life

Good news.

Kevin Kunz

Recent Reflexology Research

Just put up a whole batch of studies at our web site- http://www.reflexology-research.com . Try http://www.reflexology-research.com/newabstracts.html

There are some very interesting studies in this list. I plan to comment on some. I was particularly interested in Children (Mainstreaming); Aggressive, Anti-Social Behavior. Very interesting reading.

Kevin Kunz