How to Start a Reflexology Massage

Video Transcript

"So we'll go ahead and now start our massage. One of the really important things to remember is that if you are giving a massage of any kind is to value what the client needs and in order to do that, you'll want to keep asking them if they want more pressure or less pressure or if they are experiencing any discomfort. You want to avoid using the word pain or any other word that is going to lead them or suggest "oh, I should be feeling pain right now," or influence their responses in any way. And because "discomfort" really covers a broad range of pain, tickling, sensitivity or any other sort of uncomfortable sensation. So, we'll want to really honor the clients needs by asking "are you comfortable with this, or do you want me to give more pressure or less pressure in a certain point?" For Reflexology, you'll want to start with the left foot (which, I'll explain a little bit later why that is the case). And we'll start with the heel of the left foot. You will interlace the fingers under the Achilles tendon and grab the heel on both sides with the palm of your hand. And you'll squeeze with a nice, firm pressure about five times. This helps, again, circulation of spinal fluid, lymph fluid and blood up through the body. And once we've squeezed the heel, we'll squeeze the entire foot from the heel all the way up to the toes. We'll do that about five times. You want to have your palms on the sides of the foot. Your fingers up on the dorsal side (or the back side) of the foot. And then your thumbs and the heel of your hand on the sole of the clients foot. And so we'll go along, distributing equal pressure on all sides of the foot. And grabbing the toes with both hands. I try to grab the big toe and the second toe with one hand and then the three smaller toes. You want to make sure you give attention to all parts of the feet so that the client feels balanced and so that you're not leaving out any sort of nerves or leaving out any pressure points which will lead to imbalances in the body. And I'll go ahead and start asking her now "Is this pressure comfortable? Do you want more pressure or less pressure?" (I would say a little bit more.) Okay, great, great. And now that we've squeezed the foot to increase circulation, we'll go ahead and start stretching out the ligaments and tendons of the foot. "