It’s been about 10 years since I’ve taken any reflexology classes. It was back in school at the Florida School of 장유출장마사지 Massage, thanks to Karen Ball, and I’ve forgotten a lot since then. I don’t know anything about meridians, I don’t know anything about what pertains to which organs, etc.

I just remember how to do the techniques, and I’ve been using them ever since. There’s a lot of value in those techniques. They feel very different from Swedish-style foot massages. You’re able to interact with the foot in a way that is kind of new and unusual and that allows you to concentrate on this very important area of the body for up to, say, 15 minutes per foot.

So at the end of this video, you won’t be able to do a reflexology 장유출장마사지massage, but you will be able to do your version of my version of a reflexology-style massage. Right now I’m just warming the foot up using the techniques that I’ve already shown in another video on general foot massage.

If you’d like to see that, you can click in the corner. I’m making sure to come at it from a lot of angles to be comprehensive, to work with the ankles, to work with the arches, to work with the individual toes.

I am using some jojoba oil on here right now, but when you’re doing any sort of reflexology-type 장유출장마사지 massage, you want either minimal or no oil or lotion. So a good next step here is to use a hot towel. I don’t have a hot towel; I have a regular towel.

I’m just going to show you what I would do if I had a hot towel, and it goes something like this. Pick the foot up. Cup the heel. Squeeze it. Allow the heat to soak in. Bring the towel up away from the sheet so you don’t get the sheet wet.

Fold the towel over, nice squeeze. Draw up, nice squeeze. Keep those toes warm. And then use a part of the drape that you’re never going to use again and it’s never going to touch the client’s body again because it’s about to be wet and cold, cover up the foot as you take the towel away.

So there’s no point at which the foot is left being just wet and very soon cold. Now I’ve got a relatively lubrication-free foot that’s ready for reflexology. The basic technique that everything else is based on in reflexology is just compression and then a straightening of the thumb, and it looks like this.

Compress, straighten. Compress, straighten. I’ve heard it called “the inchworm.” What I’d like you to notice is the angle of my thumb compared to my hand. If you’re going to be doing 장유출장마사지 massage with your thumbs for more than just a few minutes at a time, you need to be very careful about how you use them, and reflexology is pretty thumb heavy.

There are some other ways of applying your hand tools that don’t use your thumbs quite so much, but this is how I go about a reflexology massage, sometimes for a half hour at a time. The important thing when working with this thumb for a full 15 minutes or maybe a half hour is to think about the angle at which you’re using it.

My thumb is always going to be as close to my hand as possible. That’s going to be a position of power, one through which I can deliver a fair amount of strength and one that’s not going to tax my intrinsic or extrinsic thumb muscles.

Try this first on yourself. You’re going to be keeping your thumb close to the rest of your hand. Try it on your palm if you like, or on your foot, which is even better. You’re going to be compressing and then straightening that thumb, compressing then straightening.

The whole time, I’m going to be keeping a very conservative angle with this thumb compared to the rest of the hand. It’s never going to be way out here. That could cause some pain. And all of my pressure is going to be delivered through this angle.

Your thumb is going to bend here at this interphalangeal joint, and then you’re going to apply pressure. Then as you straighten, you kind of maintain the pressure or let up slightly; and then compress again, straighten, compress again.

When you’re doing this, notice that I’m using the word straighten, not slide. If you’re concentrating on the slide portion of this, if you’re pressing in as you slide upwards, you’re going to start feeling that right here or along these ligaments right here.

This can create some pull under your thumbnail, and that can be kind of unpleasant after five minutes or ten minutes. So compress, straighten, compress, straighten. If you let up just a little bit while you straighten your thumb, that’s okay.

It’s a bit of an awkward tool as you start, but as you get experience with it, it’ll just become second nature. I have never experienced pain from using my thumb this way. I think it’s a really nice way of learning how you can apply power through your thumbs without straining your joints.

Let’s do a basic reflexology-style foot 장유출장마사지 massage routine. It’s going to go like this. We’re going to start at the bottom of the foot and go up five times, following the lines created by the toes. So this is line one, this is line two, this is line three, line four, and line five.

Then we’re going to create kind of a grid by going across. Then we’re going to include each toe. We’re going to go around the foot, then we’re going to include the dorsal surface of the foot, and then finally end in the ankles.

As I’m doing this, you’re going to notice me switching hands a lot, and it’s going to look like this. Just a gentle transition from hand to hand, always cradling the foot and making sure that it’s never just left to flop around.

This is a nice, comforting, cradling experience. It can help to make this new sensation feel that much more comfortable, because this way of compressing into the foot can feel a little bit extreme at first.

When you first try it on yourself, you might think, “Wow, that’s direct.” But as you learn the amount of pressure that’s appropriate for your foot, and then you try it on some friends and see what’s appropriate for theirs, you’ll find a good pressure level.

That plus this comforting touch is going to make this a very supportive experience. I think you’ll find that working with the foot in this way has a much different effect than working with it in the normal Swedish way.

Your foot will feel different at the end, and you will feel different at the end. To begin, start near the bottom of the foot. If it strains your thumb to start too far down, then don’t start too far down.

Follow that metatarsal, then up toward the base of that phalanx, and then start again. This time we’re thinking of that second line, going up toward digit number two. You can rest your elbows on the table here.

If the feet are at the end of the table, you can rest your elbows on your knees or you can sit up straight. Find what works for you and your posture. When one thumb gets tired — this is very important — switch to the other thumb.

You can support around the back of the foot using your fingers. Just don’t press into the back of the foot with those fingers. Be mindful of how you treat the dorsum of the foot because it’s very sensitive.

This is a complete tangent, but think about that when you’re doing salt scrubs and sugar scrubs. The dorsum of the foot is very sensitive. Bottom of the foot, go crazy. Just keep that in mind. Anyway, going up that fourth line right now.

You’re going to feel a lot of interesting sensations as you inchworm your way up this foot. You’re going to feel crunches and bumps that you’ve never felt before in a foot, and that’s just gristle. There’s a reason why people use feet, chicken feet, and pig’s feet, to make stock.

It’s because they’re very rich in collagen. Now we’re going to go across, starting at this wrinkle that forms right about here, so right under these metatarsophalangeal joints. This thumb is a little bit tired, so I’m going to move to this thumb.

I’m trying to keep my arm out of the way, so I should have my arm up here, but I’m keeping it out of the way. Anyway, crunchy foot stuff. You might hear some teachers tell you that this is the lactic acid that we’re breaking up, that these crunches have something to do with areas that need more work.

But the foot is a responsive piece of your anatomy. As you walk on it over decades, it changes to make itself more resilient and to respond to the pressures that you put on it, so it starts to create things like little tiny bones where there were no bones.

It creates extra bits of connective tissue where there was no connective tissue. In doing so, it creates a very lumpy, bumpy, weird texture. This is nothing that we need to correct. It’s just how human feet are.

With the other thumb, that looks like this. I’m just passing from one side to the other, resetting my fingers back here as need be just to give me better leverage. Apply your pressure to all of these different angles.

So don’t ignore this topmost part. Don’t ignore the sides. Come all the way across, come to this most distal portion. Finally, let’s work with the individual toes. Whichever thumb is less tired can work with these toes.

Support the dorsum of the toe using your fingers, and then do kind of a backward inchworm. We’re not sliding between. We just compress, release, compress, release. With the hallux here, I like to come up with at least three strips because there’s so much of it to work with.

Starting from the second digit onward, it doesn’t matter. Just make sure to keep a curvature in your fingers as you work so that their toes don’t get bent backward during this. That feels funky.

Come to that most distal phalanx. By the way, did you know that the singular of phalanges is phalanx? Because it is. Include all the toes. You can give some extra love to these metatarsophalangeal joints here if you want to.

We’re not doing strict reflexology here, so you can add your style. Now that we’ve worked up the foot and across the foot, we’re going to work around the foot. We’re going to hit these arches, and we’re going to work a bit more with the calcaneus.

Starting just proximal to this metatarsophalangeal joint, so right here on the side, we’re going to be following this metatarsal, but just inferior to it, just in front of it. Sink in and do the inchworm.

This is a part of the foot that doesn’t receive a lot of direct attention, but it should. This is a part that is often quite tense. This part can feel really good. Continue around just however you can.

I like to switch to a finger here, and instead of inching, I just go around like this, basically using this to create a little comma. You’re going to hear me use that term again in just a second. Compress and then go around, and then continue up the other side of the foot.

Try not to squish the foot in from both sides like this. That could feel a little bit funky. Instead, just support yourself with a broad hand. Keep this thumb close to your hand, and come up to the side of that pinky toe.

Once I’ve done that, it’s time to work with the dorsum of the foot. Here we’re going to be using our crooked fingers like this, mostly just these first two, and we’re going to be going between these metatarsals instead of following the metatarsals.

So dip into that squishy area between the metatarsals, but don’t feel like you need to strip this area out. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re compressing an area and moving on, compressing and moving on, compressing and moving on.

We’re going to be following imaginary lines once these squishy parts run out, and then following it up to the ankle. It’s going to look like this. We’re going to apply pressure with the crooked fingers, swoop downwards, apply pressure, swoop downwards, apply pressure.

This is that comma I was talking about. I’ve also heard it described as a semicolon. I think it’s a comma. All the way down to the ankle, up to that second line. I’m just concentrating on these first two fingers.

The others are just there for support. All the way down to the ankle. Fingers were getting tired, so I’m switching sides. All the way down to the ankle. From here we’re going to start working more directly with the ankle.

I’m plunging my fingers into this connective tissue, gristly area around the ankle. This is an area full of tendons, full of ligaments, full of joint capsules. I’m just doing some deep friction. I’m moving skin over underlying tissues and moving my fingers over skin.

Try this on your own ankles. This may look like it wouldn’t feel great because I’m not working on muscle right here, but it feels pretty great. To finish out our reflexology routine, we’re going to be making a circle around the ankle just distal to these malleoli.

Starting right here, find a squishy spot, and then guide the foot, clamp down on these knuckles right here, just proximal to the toes, and guide the foot through some gentle circles. Find a new squishy spot.

It won’t be very squishy because there’s so much bone here, but again, we’re just distal to that medial malleolus. Find another squishy spot. Continue that with your other hand. You’ll have to imagine this because there’s no room for the camera over here.

Again, I’m making a clamp with my hand there and taking the foot in a circle as I change its angle, so it’s kind of a wave. It’s just a nice way of mobilizing those tarsals and metatarsals. All the way around until your thumb is making contact with the lateral aspect of the Achilles tendon.

From here, do some direct work with the Achilles tendon. Just pinch it between a broad thumb and a broad finger, and you can still manipulate the foot as you do this. To close this out, I like to do some 장유출장마사지 feel good stuff.

For one, I like to continue with this work I’ve been doing with the Achilles tendon. I will compress the foot upwards as I work all the way up, just doing some nice compression up the calf. As you squeeze the calf, the foot is going to go into plantar flexion.

Allow it to, or resist it. Just seesaw the foot as you work with the calf. Then do some nice wringing of the foot, do some nice compression. Finish with some more of those squeezes with both hands. Wrap this foot up because you’re going to be working on the other foot for a while, and then move on.