Our Reflexology Story

Barbara and Kevin Kunz

People always ask how we got started in reflexology. Kevin tells them how he was walking down the aisle of a book store and found a book on reflexology. It’s one of life’s little moments where we always wonder what would have happened if he’d been walking down another aisle. 

For Barbara it was experiencing the results of Kevin’s work. His work provided a solution to her sinus headache problems and was the beginning of Barbara’s interest. For her, development of self applied reflexology techniques and hand reflexology techniques followed.

Our on-going in depth exploration of reflexology was launched by a question Barbara asked a client while she was doing reflexology on his hands. The question was “Jimmy, are you moving your fingers?” His answer was, “No, Kevin is.” That was quite a surprise. Our client was a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down. Yet, his moving fingers had interrupted Barbara’s work. As it turned out, Kevin’s reflexology work on Jimmy’s left foot had prompted the fingers of Jimmy’s right hand to move. Why? The answer took a year to research and realize. The discovery was to change everything for us. We discovered reflexology’s value is in the pressure it provides to the feet and hands. Just as vitamins serve as nutrients, such pressure application provides nourishment to the body and creates healthful changes. We were off on our journey to work with further clients and make more discoveries. 

It’s been a forty-year, never-ending fascination with reflexology. Every pair of feet and set of hands are unexplored territory waiting to be discovered. The greatest excitement and reward has been helping others. Every one of our 22 books is an effort to research and explain about how and why to use the incredible healing tool of reflexology.

We invite you to come along, to start your own journey, helping yourself and others feel better.

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

What a reviewer thought of reflexology in 1982

The Complete Guide to Foot Reflexology

There’s nothing like being a first-time author and  receiving a book review from a major newspaper. And then, you read it.

The newly published book The Complete Guide to Foot Reflexology by Kevin and Barbara Kunz is reviewed. The author concludes that "I had never heard of foot reflexology until I discovered this book. It's full of anatomical revelations of the bizarro kind, even more fun than acupuncture … “Foot fetishists everywhere will understand, and probably wish, they'd invented foot reflexology before the Kunzes cashed in.”

Oct. 11, 1982 San Francisco Examiner, "Getting to the foot of all of your problems" by Nickie McWhirter,

How to Be a Reflexology Writer

© Studio Araminta. Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

We talked earlier about why it is a good idea to become a writer if you are a reflexologist. The next step is how to get started. And the trick here is surprising simple but yet deceivingly difficult. JUST START.

First tip- Take your pen, pencil or computer keyboard and start. That it the greatest advice I can give you. Most people mean to get started but never do.

My father gave me this piece of advice. Just start writing. Don't worry about perfection.  Just put something, anything down to start the process. You or someone else can edit it after you have written it down. Or you can delete it or throw it away but you are started. Success!!!

Second tip- Never stop writing. If you are always writing down your observations, thoughts and so forth it gets easier and easier to express yourself. A journal is a great way to keep the ball rolling. Index cards in your pocket can be a great way to write things down on the go. Scribble with a crayon but do whatever you can to keep writing.

Third tip- Mind map your ideas to get going. (Just Google "Mind mapping". There are a ton of resources.) Mind mapping is a great way to jump start your writing. Simply put you can take a piece of paper and put your central idea in the middle. Then you draw out branches with ideas you think are associated with this idea.

Fourth tip- Find writing you like and then decide why you like it. Break it down and study what it is that appeals to you. Is it a newspaper, a book or a blog? What do you like? what writers do you like?

Fifth tip- What is your passion? What do you have an opinion on? What is interesting to you? Tell me what ignites your interest. Have you observed something you think other reflexologists should know about? Is there a technique you want to talk about? Has a client presented a challenge that you resolved? Remember a simple observation that you may take for granted may be a real revelation or very valuable to another reflexologist.

And example of this is an observation I had made for years on how to spot a tailbone injury. We were doing a class and I happen to mention it. The class was extremely excited to find out about this technique. That one observation lead to the writing MyReflexologist Says: Feet Don't Lie and a revision of The Complete Guide to Foot Reflexology as well as a whole system for stress cue assessment. And we are still writing on it.

Now time to get to it. What do you want to say?


Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz

   

Why Reflexologists Need to Be Writers

The other day I made the comment that reflexologists need to become writers. There was quite a bit of reaction to my comment. So I thought I would clarify my thinking a little more.

Please understand we never set out to become writers. We were happy to be reflexologists. But as fate would have it there was no book outlining the practices of reflexology and there was a serious threat.

The serious threat was that the techniques and practices had not be documented. And like anything that has not been written down there is a real possibility that these practices can be lost or altered so the existing practices fade out of existence.
© Digimist523.Image from BigStockPhoto.com.

There have been many reflexologists over the years who we have encourage to write down their experiences. Many have been reluctant and some have even passed away taking their experiences with them.

Excuses abound from being too busy to not being a very good writer. The bottom line is that if you don't write it down it can slip away very easily.

So here are my reasons to become a reflexology writer.

1) Becoming a writer helps you to become a better reflexologist. Writing helps you to focus on the issues at hand. We are credited with being international experts on reflexology. That didn't happen overnight but there is no question that writing made us focus on what we were observing. It also left a trail that we could pick up on at a later time. It made us focus on each and every pair of feet as a story that need some telling.

2) Becoming a writer documents your work. This isn't just record keeping but it is also documenting your observations. What unique elements did you observe? Or what elements do you see in a fairly consistent basis?

3) Becoming a writer gives you an ability to compare and contrast your results with past results. Or it gives you the ability to compare and contrast the stress cues with other stress cues you have seen. Our whole approach to reading the feet comes from our writing. (We even wrote a whole book on a longer second toe which lead to some really interesting conclusions.)

4) Becoming a writer  promotes a good profession image of you. People respect writers in general as having a purpose and a focused approach. It gives you credibility with not only other your clients but other professionals. Writing is an important part of respected professions.

Finally writing can be a joy. It can let you explore an idea and help it grow. It can be very satisfying to see it finally in print. (I will cover this in the next blog.) Becoming a writer can make you grow as not only a reflexologist but also as a person.

With 17 books in 19 languages we have had a great deal of joy from the letters we have received telling us of the help reflexology has been to them.

Writing is somewhat like touching your toes. If you practice enough it becomes easier and easier.

So get writing and don't stop. What would you write about if you were going to write about reflexology?


Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz