Feet first -- The reflexology way
Big toe leads happy feet
By John Quinlan, Journal staff writer | Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Lynda Maggart, owner of the Siouxland College of Massage Therapy in South Sioux City demonstrates reflexology on a student Tuesday, May 13, 2008. (Sioux City Journal photo by Tim Hynds)
"The top of your big toe is supposed to be your brain."
So says Lynda Maggart.
And no, she is not Bill Murray's kooky cousin, riffing on the perceived value of her top sergeant a la "Stripes." That's the movie in which Murray volunteers to be his squad's "big toe" should something happen to their sergeant. After all, an army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. Not that the big toe is the brain. It only accesses it.
So says Maggart, a licensed massage muscle therapist who operates the Siouxland College of Massage Therapy in South Sioux City. She was riffing on reflexology, a therapeutic method of relieving pain by stimulating predefined pressure points. The underlying theory behind reflexology is that there are reflex areas on the feet and hands that correspond to specific organs, glands and other parts of the body. This was once called zone therapy.
"According to reflexology, spots in your feet reflex organs," she said. "Like the tips of your toes and underneath the toes release the sinuses. You can follow your colon through your feet. Your heart works out of those areas." At this point, she is pointing to an area around the ball of the foot which also reflexes the chest area.
"There are places where you could work if somebody has sciatic problems," she said, noting that at times over the years, she has had to dig out her reflexology charts if somebody hast a spot that really, really hurts to find the right pressure points.
Large charts showing the reflexology zones on the feet and hands are posted in her classroom for easy reference.
Reflexology is one of the easier things to learn in the world of massage, she said. Her students have six 4-hour class periods to study reflexology, learning which areas of the feet and hands correspond with which organs, what to work for the digestive system, the urinary tract, colon or sinuses.
During a routine one-hour reflexology session, Maggart said, the client's feet are soaked in some warm, bubbly water, maybe with epsom salt, for 10 to 15 minutes. "That helps soften the feet up because, let's face it, the bottoms of most people's feet are pretty tough. We've got to kind of soften things up so that you can get your thumb working in there," she said.
Then the massage work begins. In most cases, clients prefer the full body massage (which also includes getting your feet rubbed), but there are a few who just want reflexology, she said.
"It's massaging. it's rubbing. It's using a lot of your thumbs just in rubbing them," she said. "And then if somebody says, 'Oh, I've been constipated,' you spend extra time on the colon. Or their sinuses are full. It's like, 'Can you relieve my sinuses?' So you would work on the sinus points."
So what does it feel like?
"It feels good. It feels wonderful," Maggart said. "It's just one of those little perks, Just getting your feet rubbed sometimes after you've been on them all day can just make you go hunnhhhh -- and relax."
But there are times, when a person has a problem, the procedure can be painful.
"It'll smart. You can hit some of those points on the foot or working on a full body, you know that all of a sudden it's like, 'Yaaahhhhh!' A person jumps. So then it would be one of those things where you just kind of hold it and work it and try to get it to release."
And while major medical probems may not be cured by reflexology, it is safe to say it isn't going to hurt anything, she said, noting that even cancer patients can benefit from a massage -- something that was disputed 20 years ago.
"It's going to help clean the body out," she said. "You know, get rid of dumb toxins and get rid of garbage we accumulate from eating wrong,"
If someone has a heart problem, the heart area would be worked but maybe not as strenuously. "You might just want to be able to help the flow of blood and things going on, but you wouldn't want to really stimulate and jump-start something," she said.
And there are occasionally pressure points that should be avoided.
"Like if somebody's pregnant, you stay away from around the foot where it is for the uterus and stuff because if you work it, you could bring on a miscarriage," Maggart said. "That's why we have to take health histories on everybody."
She became a believer in reflexology shortly after graduating from massage school 20 years ago.
While helping her son deliver newspapers, she slipped on some ice, dislocated her elbow and couldn't move an arm. That Sunday, some of her classmates came down from Omaha to kind of work on each other. In the meantime, she stopped at a hospital because something had popped and was told that her elbow was dislocated and she should see her regular doctor that Monday.
"So I'm in one of those sling-type things. I was just holding it 'cause you couldn't move it," she said. "My classmates came down, and I said, 'Well. let's just play with the feet, you know, just to see ... because we had all learned reflexology. So it's like you get over to the side of your foot and that reflexes your elbow.
"And so one of my classmates, she was just rubbing in there. And all of a sudden, my elbow went pop, pop, pop! The pain was gone and I could move my arm again. So yes, there definitely is something to it."
A history lesson
Reflexology is an ancient practice whose origins are tough to determine. The concept is believed to have been first recorded as a pictograph on the Egyptian tomb of Ankhamor in 2330 BC. Reflexology symbols are also thought to be recorded on the feet of ancient statues of Buddha in India and China. In the 1300s, Marco Polo translated a Chinese massage book into Italian, thus introducing reflexology and massage to Europe.
In the United States, Dr. William H. Fitzgerald is frequently referred to as the father of modern reflexology. In 1917, he wrote about 10 vertical zones that extended the length of the body. He found that the application of pressure to a zone that corresponded to the location of an injury could serve as relief of pain during minor surgeries.
Another prominent figure in the development of reflexology is Eunice Ingham, a physiotherapist who studied Fitzgerald's zone therapy. It is the Ingham Method of Reflexology, developed in the 1930s, that has been adopted by Lynda Maggart and the Siouxland College of Massage Therapy.
"Though reflexology has been around practically forever, it is just getting back into the realm of being looked at as a medical alternative, she said.
So says Lynda Maggart.
And no, she is not Bill Murray's kooky cousin, riffing on the perceived value of her top sergeant a la "Stripes." That's the movie in which Murray volunteers to be his squad's "big toe" should something happen to their sergeant. After all, an army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. Not that the big toe is the brain. It only accesses it.
So says Maggart, a licensed massage muscle therapist who operates the Siouxland College of Massage Therapy in South Sioux City. She was riffing on reflexology, a therapeutic method of relieving pain by stimulating predefined pressure points. The underlying theory behind reflexology is that there are reflex areas on the feet and hands that correspond to specific organs, glands and other parts of the body. This was once called zone therapy.
"According to reflexology, spots in your feet reflex organs," she said. "Like the tips of your toes and underneath the toes release the sinuses. You can follow your colon through your feet. Your heart works out of those areas." At this point, she is pointing to an area around the ball of the foot which also reflexes the chest area.
"There are places where you could work if somebody has sciatic problems," she said, noting that at times over the years, she has had to dig out her reflexology charts if somebody hast a spot that really, really hurts to find the right pressure points.
Large charts showing the reflexology zones on the feet and hands are posted in her classroom for easy reference.
Reflexology is one of the easier things to learn in the world of massage, she said. Her students have six 4-hour class periods to study reflexology, learning which areas of the feet and hands correspond with which organs, what to work for the digestive system, the urinary tract, colon or sinuses.
During a routine one-hour reflexology session, Maggart said, the client's feet are soaked in some warm, bubbly water, maybe with epsom salt, for 10 to 15 minutes. "That helps soften the feet up because, let's face it, the bottoms of most people's feet are pretty tough. We've got to kind of soften things up so that you can get your thumb working in there," she said.
Then the massage work begins. In most cases, clients prefer the full body massage (which also includes getting your feet rubbed), but there are a few who just want reflexology, she said.
"It's massaging. it's rubbing. It's using a lot of your thumbs just in rubbing them," she said. "And then if somebody says, 'Oh, I've been constipated,' you spend extra time on the colon. Or their sinuses are full. It's like, 'Can you relieve my sinuses?' So you would work on the sinus points."
So what does it feel like?
"It feels good. It feels wonderful," Maggart said. "It's just one of those little perks, Just getting your feet rubbed sometimes after you've been on them all day can just make you go hunnhhhh -- and relax."
But there are times, when a person has a problem, the procedure can be painful.
"It'll smart. You can hit some of those points on the foot or working on a full body, you know that all of a sudden it's like, 'Yaaahhhhh!' A person jumps. So then it would be one of those things where you just kind of hold it and work it and try to get it to release."
And while major medical probems may not be cured by reflexology, it is safe to say it isn't going to hurt anything, she said, noting that even cancer patients can benefit from a massage -- something that was disputed 20 years ago.
"It's going to help clean the body out," she said. "You know, get rid of dumb toxins and get rid of garbage we accumulate from eating wrong,"
If someone has a heart problem, the heart area would be worked but maybe not as strenuously. "You might just want to be able to help the flow of blood and things going on, but you wouldn't want to really stimulate and jump-start something," she said.
And there are occasionally pressure points that should be avoided.
"Like if somebody's pregnant, you stay away from around the foot where it is for the uterus and stuff because if you work it, you could bring on a miscarriage," Maggart said. "That's why we have to take health histories on everybody."
She became a believer in reflexology shortly after graduating from massage school 20 years ago.
While helping her son deliver newspapers, she slipped on some ice, dislocated her elbow and couldn't move an arm. That Sunday, some of her classmates came down from Omaha to kind of work on each other. In the meantime, she stopped at a hospital because something had popped and was told that her elbow was dislocated and she should see her regular doctor that Monday.
"So I'm in one of those sling-type things. I was just holding it 'cause you couldn't move it," she said. "My classmates came down, and I said, 'Well. let's just play with the feet, you know, just to see ... because we had all learned reflexology. So it's like you get over to the side of your foot and that reflexes your elbow.
"And so one of my classmates, she was just rubbing in there. And all of a sudden, my elbow went pop, pop, pop! The pain was gone and I could move my arm again. So yes, there definitely is something to it."
A history lesson
Reflexology is an ancient practice whose origins are tough to determine. The concept is believed to have been first recorded as a pictograph on the Egyptian tomb of Ankhamor in 2330 BC. Reflexology symbols are also thought to be recorded on the feet of ancient statues of Buddha in India and China. In the 1300s, Marco Polo translated a Chinese massage book into Italian, thus introducing reflexology and massage to Europe.
In the United States, Dr. William H. Fitzgerald is frequently referred to as the father of modern reflexology. In 1917, he wrote about 10 vertical zones that extended the length of the body. He found that the application of pressure to a zone that corresponded to the location of an injury could serve as relief of pain during minor surgeries.
Another prominent figure in the development of reflexology is Eunice Ingham, a physiotherapist who studied Fitzgerald's zone therapy. It is the Ingham Method of Reflexology, developed in the 1930s, that has been adopted by Lynda Maggart and the Siouxland College of Massage Therapy.
"Though reflexology has been around practically forever, it is just getting back into the realm of being looked at as a medical alternative, she said.
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