Wow, what a busy six months.  It started at the end of January when my friend and colleague, Gunnel Berry and I were invited to promote reflexology at the Royal Naval Health Day here in Portsmouth.  It was an interesting day with lots of questions from the delegates.  Gunnel is a retired physiotherapist and reflexologist who teaches advanced training courses in ‘Adapted Reflex Therapy for Spinal Pain and Whiplash Injury’. 
Our shared interest is PAIN and judging from the activity at our table there is still a huge untapped market for reflexology support in pain management.  We didn’t stop from the moment we arrived until the moment we left, four hours later.   
Gunnel has saved the NHS thousands of pounds with her work and demonstrated through dedication and hard work that reflexology is an amazing therapy.  Do take time to consider purchasing her book ‘Adapted Reflextherapy – An approach to Pain’  http://gunnelberry.com/adapted-reflextherapy-an-approach-to-pain-by-gunnel-berry/  .

NERVE REFLEXOLOGY DIPLOMA
My year continued with the first ever Nerve Reflexology Diploma in Ireland where I am currently two-thirds through the teaching with some amazing practitioners.  It is an extremely challenging subject and these ladies have shown dedication and commitment in their training.  Their case-studies make fascinating reading and one of our ladies has seen amazing results from a paralysed individual who has urinated without catheterization 5 times in one week, having not been able to do so for the previous 5 years since the operation that left him paralysed.  This client also gained some movement in his left foot which had only 1st, 2nd and 4th toe movement!!  Reflexology and all its’ attributes never ceases to confirm my beliefs in its functionality.  The final workshop (Level 3) is in October and I look forward to seeing out practitioners graduate as ‘Qualified Nerve Reflexologists’.
The next Nerve Reflexology Diploma training will be held in Portsmouth in 2020.  If you are interested in joining me, you can register your interest via email to:  carol@reflexmaster.co.uk   

This year marked the 50th Anniversary of the RABC in Harrison Hot Springs in Canada and I was honoured to be invited as their guest speaker for the conference.  Two, three-hour sessions of combined presentation and practical work meant that I had quite a challenge on my hands with such a large group of practitioners, but I am delighted to say it went down extremely well.   Harrison Hot Springs is such a beautiful place to be and my husband and I were honoured by the hospitality on offer and met and shared stories with some lovely people. 

One of the people I had the privilege to meet was a 99 -year old lady by the name of Martha Wushke who received an Honorary Lifetime Membership to RABC.  She was a long-time member who practiced reflexology for anyone who would sit still for her from 1972 to 2007, when she retired at the grand age of 87.  She began her career as a reflexologist in the early 1970`s when her husband bought her a book from a thrift store – entitled ‘Stories your Feet have Told’ – by Eunice Ingham.  She was very intrigued by a reflexology session she received from a lady called Mrs Kennedy who charged $2.00 for the session and it was that session that set her on her life-long path and love of reflexology.  She taught herself from Eunice Ingham`s book, and many years later took a clinical course from the New York Academy of Reflexology. Her neighbour bought the same book at the same time, so Martha felt this was good karma and pursued her career as a reflexology therapist from that day forward. Both of her daughters and their husbands have fully embraced reflexology and practice it daily.  Martha is a true testament to how daily reflexology can enhance your life as she was able to walk into the celebration on her own two feet, stand up straight and able to engage in meaningful conversation throughout the special lunch that was provided. Holding her hand at the celebrations bought me to tears, she has such an amazing energy and it truly was, wonderful to meet her.  

VICTORIA 2020
I have been invited to speak at the Reflexology Association of Canada conference in April 2020 and will be offering another post-conference workshop on 'Pain in Cancer Survivors'.  If you didn't manage to get to it this year, please do take a look at the RAC Conference page:  https://reflexologyconference.com/pain-in-cancer-survivors/reflexologyconference.com/pain-in-cancer-survivors/

PAIN IN CANCER SURVIVORS
Christopher Shirley who runs Pacific Reflexology in Vancouver was a great host for my workshop on Pain in Cancer Survivors.  I met a fantastic group of practitioners who are getting some wonderful results from their treatment protocol.    
One of the challenges for this workshop hit me when I met the lovely James, a 70+ year-old gentleman who was hard of hearing.  He had been a former Geologist and lost his toes and some of his fingers to frostbite, but he embraced the routine acting as my model and was able to participate with the other practitioners during the workshop. 
It was a challenge to get the video routine produced on time, but I am so pleased with the result and now have a downloadable ‘Video on Demand’ available to all practitioners who have completed my training via my VIMSY site:  https://reflexmaster.vimsy.co/   
Workshops for the remainder of 2019 will be held in Aberdeen, Kent, Dublin and Guildford and may be also Portsmouth.  For information on joining one of these workshops visit:  https://www.reflexmaster.co.uk/pain-in-cancer-survivors.html
Meanwhile the research protocol has been prepared and I am now waiting to see if I can get funding for the next stage of development, so watch this space.

PAIN MANAGEMENT – AN INTRODUCTION TO NERVE REFLEXOLOGY

This was one of the first workshops I offered to practitioners and I am delighted to say that it continues to do well across the UK.  I developed it to introduce practitioners to Nerve Reflexology without them having to commit to the full diploma.  It offers an insight into clinical reasoning skills, some general nerve reflex points for low back and neck pain and helps you develop your own protocol to combine Nerve Reflexology with other tools you may have in your reflexology tool kit. For information on the remaining course dates for 2019 please visit: https://www.reflexmaster.co.uk/course-dates.html
 

Nerve Reflexology Diploma

2018 saw lots of changes for me in terms of what I teach in my CPD workshops but importantly it was an absolute pleasure to meet so many new practitioners and share my knowledge and experiences in the field of Pain Management in Reflexology. 
Nico Pauly of MNT-NR International, with whom I was an assistant teacher for almost 13 years handed me the reins to the UK training of the Nerve Reflexology Diploma and it is set to run for the first time this year in both Northern Ireland and Leicester.   https://www.reflexmaster.co.uk/nerve-reflexology-diploma.html .

When I originally trained in Nerve Reflexology I found it difficult to understand all the new terminology, the clinical reasoning and the finite details of the Nervous system.   So, before I started developing it here in the UK I decided to carry out some research utilizing skills from business students at the University of Portsmouth. We sent out a survey and those of you who responded told us that you wanted to learn the theory online with face to face practical days. Unfortunately, after doing a full cost-analysis on my behalf, it turned out, this is not a cost-effective way to learn.  It also turned out that despite already offering the diploma in module format not everyone was able to, or indeed wanted to, continue past the first module.  I travel across the UK to teach these modules and as time went by, it became less and less viable to continue teaching the diploma in this way.  In June 2018 we held a meeting of teachers with the MNT-NR board and agreed to retain the original format of teaching the diploma at three separate levels.   The ideas being, you can dip in and out when/where you choose, for example, you can do Level 1 here in the UK, and perhaps go across to Denmark and do Level 2 with TouchPoint, or perhaps to Belgium with the Master himself, Nico Pauly and his team.