Reflexology Association of America

Part I: Bill Flocco

By Linda Frank, NBCR, NCREd (WA)

I love the notion (and fact) that we stand on the shoulders of those from whom we’ve learned our professional, and life, lessons.

When I teach, I like to invoke the names of the reflexology educators who’ve left me with gems too valuable not to pass along to the next generation of reflexologists.

One of those giants in reflexology whose shoulders I stand on and from whom I’ve gotten such riches is Bill Flocco.

I‘ve invoked Bill’s name in literally every class I’ve taught.

Months ago, I thought I’d start documenting some of the valuable things I’ve learned from Bill that I might share in an article about him someday.

That someday, it turns out, is now. With Bill’s proposal for a RAA conference presentation having been chosen, the timing seemed ripe to share with you some of what I consider Bill’s gems – in part to underscore how lucky we are to be learning from Bill this April*.

Bill would ask at every CE class I attended who’d come the farthest to be there, and he’d give that person a little gift. I so loved that gesture that I’ve made a tradition of it: in every CE class I teach or host, I tell about Bill’s ritual; I ask his same question; and I give that attendee a gift to acknowledge the extra miles they came for the class.

Another treasure I got from Bill is back-filing nails. It’s received with great appreciation from my Program and CE students, especially after they’ve had the experience of clipping their nails short, filing them, and still having a client feel a pinch. The back-filing – drawing the file across the nail towards you (pictured below) – takes the edge off nails that a scissor, clipper and sometimes even a nail file will leave behind.

I also like to share Bill’s caution that charts on a treatment room wall depicting only organs need a practitioner’s explanation that pain in an area doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the organ depicted on the map (lest a client feel pain in e.g. the area of the heart reflex, look up at your chart, and think they’ve got a heart problem).

Back to top Click here to see Bill Flocco's Post-Conference Workshop details

Part 2: Dr. Carol Samuel

By Linda Frank, NBCR, NCREd (WA)

I still remember how excited I was reading about Dr. Carol Samuel’s reflexology pain study. I was new to reflexology, and most of the field’s studies I’d read or heard about were anecdotal rather than quantitative (with the exception of Bill Flocco & Dr. Terry Olson’s PMS study).

Not only was Dr. Samuel’s study evidencing improved acute pain tolerance and threshold impressive – so was the fact that her study was a single blind randomized study that employed a placebo. These are factors that orthodox medicine considers credible research.

I don’t know which impressed me more: Dr. Samuel’s research, or the fact that it earned her a PhD in reflexology – the first and only of its kind in the world.

I remember thinking back then that Dr. Carol Samuel was someone who’d be great to learn from in-person someday.

Thanks to the RAA conference, that someday is just a few months away.

I’ve learned a fair amount about Carol over these eleven years since that first “encounter” with her pain research and the fact of her PhD in Reflexology. A few years ago I read her 2021 book The Tenacious Student: Non-academic to a PhD. Carol’s tales of navigating academia to achieve her doctorate were not only inspiring but riveting. A bit surprisingly -- given the subject matter isn’t like a Dan Brown or Louise Penny mystery novel -- I found her book to be a real page-turner.

Over the years I’ve come to know Carol a little bit through email conversations, as well as through news of her Pain Relief classes and presentations at various conferences on pain in cancer survivors. Carol is one of only a few instructors sanctioned by Nico Pauly to teach nerve reflexology. She’s produced beautiful, detailed charts of the autonomic nervous system and spinal nerves & plexuses.

I did get to meet Carol in person last year in Portsmouth, UK when she hosted Christian Slot and his Muscular Reflexology class.

Now I look forward to learning from Carol at the RAA Conference in Milwaukee about her work and research with Nerve Reflexology for Cancer Pain.

Carol is also co-teaching a pre-conference class, Managing Pain in Female Reproductive Health, with Barbara Scott on April 22nd in Milwaukee. I sure wish I could take it. Sadly, an all-day, on-site RAA board meeting that day precludes my doing so. I’ll just have to put a return trip to the UK on my wish list for the coming years so I can catch their class there. However, as much as I love visiting England, it would have been so much more convenient (and less expensive) to take the class right here in the USA. Lucky you who can.

In the next Presenting the Conference Presenters email I’ll share some of what I’ve experienced of another giant in reflexology, Barbara Scott, and her work.

PS: You might want to also read Dr. Samuel's blog posting about her experiment with differences in reflexology pressure https://www.reflexmaster.co.uk/blog/archives/10-2021.

Back to top Click here to see Dr. Carol Samuel's Post-Conference Workshop details

Part 3: Barbara Scott

By Linda Frank, NBCR, NCREd (WA)

For a working marriage of reflexology and conventional healthcare, take a look at Barbara Scott’s Reproductive Reflexology. Results can be measured (e.g. sperm count) and outcomes often undeniable, as in this data collection cited on the website of The Association of Reproductive Reflexologists, which Barbara founded: of 180 clients trying to conceive with reflexology, 68% conceived while receiving treatment (what we in the US typically call “sessions”). There were 100 natural conceptions.

I first heard about Barbara Scott from reflexology researchers Judith Whatley and Sally Kay when Jan Weal-Grubb and I met with them in Cardiff, Wales the day before our Orthopody class (Anatomy Trains on the feet) with PodyCharts authors Sue Evans and Annie Trigg.

After hearing wonderful things about Barbara and her work, when I returned home I bought Barbara’s book Reflexology for Fertility: A Practitioners Guide to Natural and Assisted Conception to add to my school library.

The book’s write up promised “…a step-by-step guide, giving practitioners a structured format on how to obtain the information they will need from their clients, how to interpret it, how to plan treatment, and what techniques they will need to use. This allows practitioners to work, not only with clients who are trying to conceive, but with a wide range of reproductive conditions.”

At 304 pages, the book was all it promised. It was thorough, and as I later learned from webinars Barbara gave, hosted by the ICR (International Council of Reflexologists) and RAC, The Reflexology Association of California, “thorough” is a word that aptly applies to Barbara and her work.

As mentioned in the above book blurb, it’s not just fertility Barbara works with, “…but with a wide range of reproductive conditions.”

With pain being such a huge factor in many women’s health issues, Barbara – along with reflexology pain expert Dr. Carol Samuel – will bring 50+ years of combined experience to their pre-conference class Managing Pain in Female Reproductive Health.

The class, which is otherwise only given in the UK, consists of a convenient one-day online class coupled with the one-day in-person hands-on class in Milwaukee on April 22, before the conference begins.

Whether you’re considering a specialty* in Reproductive Reflexology, or “just” want to learn how to address female reproductive pain from the masters - as well as getting to practice the incredibly-powerful nerve reflexology technique - the size of this class is limited to 20 so you may want to register sooner than later.

Back to top  Click here to see Barbara Scott's Post-Conference Workshop details

Part 4: Lee Anthony Taylor

By Linda Frank, NBCR, NCREd (WA)

Understated. Tuned-in. Ahead of the curve. That’s how I think of Lee Anthony Taylor.

I first met Lee at the 2019 conference in Anchorage hosted by the ICR, (International Council of Reflexologists), for which Lee now serves as President. I bought his book, Effective Reflexology, and found it to be a treasure trove of information and techniques.

One technique that still stands out all these years later is Lee’s connecting spleen and liver reflexes. That’s even more memorable after learning in more recent years that when someone loses a spleen or spleen function, the liver takes on many of its duties.

Effective Reflexology, published in 2004*, was one of only two books I’ve seen from that era that referenced what’s now commonly called and taught as “linking” (Lee calls it “bonding”).

Ever the pioneer, Lee developed Coronal Zone Reflex Therapy™, a unique technique that accesses the body via the medial and lateral aspects of the feet, or coronal zones. It “…allows the [practitioner] into the deepest recesses of the human body to move the [client] out of stagnation”.

The results of this light-touch energy technique, which Lee is teaching in a post-Conference class in Milwaukee, are reported to be profound: “The powerful effects of Coronal Zone Reflex Therapy™ can be registered within the [client’s] body and acknowledged by the practitioner almost instantaneously. The energy perceived during this exchange can be tangible and exhilarating.”

Whether or not we think of reflexology as energy work, it is. Quantum Physics deems everything to be energy before its matter. According to astrophysics and NASA, only 5% of the universe is visible matter. 27% is dark matter, and 68% is dark energy. Einstein’s E=mc2 deems matter to be compressed and stabilized energy.

“Energy medicine” is one of five areas defined by the National Institutes of Health within their Complementary and Alternative Medicine categories (the NIH renamed their Center Complementary & Integrative Health, eliminating the term “alternative” that some thought might incline MD’s to think complementary modalities were being proffered in lieu of allopathic medical care.)

Lee’s new YouTube Channel Energy Matters was created to address the topic of Energy Medicine in and of itself, as well as how it pertains to reflexology. In his first episode, Lee shares what sparked his interest in reflexology while on assignment as a reporter in India decades ago. There are segments with reflexology legend Christine Issel and RAA conference Keynote Presenter Kevin Kunz.

You can read more about Lee’s light-touch energy technique that Lee will be presenting on and teaching in a post-conference class on Lee’s website www.effectivereflexology.com/. There’s also a terrific nine-minute video about the technique on David Wayte’s Wednesday’s Reflexology Wisdom channel.

A quick aside, if anyone wants an Anatomy & Physiology refresher course, Lee’s teaching one online. Lila Mueller, a RAA Discovery Lecture Series webinar presenter and longtime reflexology educator told me that “Lee’s A&P class was the most comprehensive …I've ever been in. His presentation style is outstanding. Students can download his class presentations for future reference.”

I think we’re in for a fabulous new, unique dimension to reflexology with Lee’s Conference presentation which he says “will focus on the theories and philosophies behind the work whilst the accompanying workshop will draw attention to the mechanics behind the therapeutic process.”

And then there’s the post-conference Coronal Zone Reflex Therapy™ class for those of us lucky enough to get a seat at the table.

If you must get back “home” right at the end of the Conference – or you’re having a tough time trying to choose between Bill Flocco’s post-conference class and Lee’s post-conference class -- you’ll have two more opportunities later in the year to learn Lee’s “new dimension to reflexology” here in the States: Stefanie Sabounchian will host Lee’s class Nov 7 & 8 in the Los Angeles area; and the WRA (Washington Reflexology Association) will host Lee’s class in the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area Nov. 14 & 15.

PS - *Unfortunately, Effective Reflexology is now out of print, but Lee’s new book Effective Reflexology – The Way Forward is available. So, soon, will his new e-book, Don’t Shoot the Messenger.

Back to top  Click here to see Lee Anthony Taylor's Post-Conference Workshop details

Part 5: Kevin and Barbara Kunz

By Linda Frank with Christine Issel, Laura Norman

Late breaking news for the final piece in this Series:

I learned from Kevin Kunz last week that we reflexologists have an opportunity to contribute to the impact that his, Barbara, & Dr. Stefan Posse’s Neural Pathways of Applied Reflexology research makes in the worlds of reflexology and neuroscience – a study that we all will benefit greatly from.

If you’re unfamiliar with the study, which uses fMRI machines to map which areas of the brain light up when certain areas of the feet are reflexed, here’s a nice synopsis, with photos.

While Kevin & Barbara will present the study to us at the RAA Conference in April, Dr. Posse will present the study in May to thousands of neuroscientists.

Why new donations are needed, and how to donate

More images before the May neuroscience conference will add to the body of evidence of reflexology’s remarkable impact on neurobiology.

The fMRI machine costs $600 an hour to run.

The images thus far tell a compelling story, one that Kevin says is making the world of science sit up and take notice of reflexology. For instance, the Vagus nerve reflex lit up the brain in 28 areas!

If that doesn’t inspire you to donate to help neuroscience stand up and take notice of reflexology, this most recent video interview of Kevin and David Wayte may.

As compelling as the study’s findings are thus far, when it comes to allopathic medicine, size often does matter. In this case, the number of scans.

David and Kevin concur that if everyone gave a donation equal to the cost of a cup of coffee (about $5 USD) the additional images could be made to bolster the existent scans.

Of course, some will want to give more to ensure as many extra scans as possible.

I just made my donation via the link Kevin sent me and it’s as easy and quick as can be. The link goes right to the page on Univ. of NM’s website that’s dedicated to the Neural Pathways of Applied Reflexology study https://www.unmfund.org/fund/npar-fund/.