Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Michelle's Salon in Roanoke is a head-to-toe operation if there ever was one.
It provides the usual array of hair services - cuts, perms, coloring - plus manicures and pedicures. But this shop goes a step further and offers reflexology.
Becky Paxton, a hair stylist at the shop owned by Michelle Balow, is a certified reflexologist. She knows where to massage a hand or foot to possibly help another part of the body heal or just to relax a customer.
While reflexology is touted to help everything from headaches to bladder infections and the hot flashes of menopause, Paxton views it mainly as a stress reducer.
Customers do go to sleep while she works.
Paxton, a Covington native and a 1988 graduate of Alleghany High School, heard about the procedure two years ago. She already enjoyed giving manicures and thought reflexology applied to the hand would help her build "a nail clientele."
Though she didn't know the first thing about reflexology, she found her way to Lynchburg and Terry Mann. Mann divides her time between running a forklift for Rock Tenn Co. and teaching classes for Digits International School of Reflexology.
Paxton paid Mann about $500 to study the technique through three levels of difficulty and was certified in April.
During her training, Paxton also discovered that she'd rather apply her knowledge to feet than hands because hands are more compact and not as easy to work on. If a customer wants the hand massage, she'll provide it, but her forte is feet.
For $35 an hour - $30 for a first-timer - a customer first gets a foot soak. Then it's time to lie back in a recliner and listen to music on headphones while Paxton gets to work. To kick customers into relaxation, Paxton might apply "the wave," or rapid one-finger massage movements just behind the first and second toe.
Then slowly and one foot at a time, she will work the brain through the big toe, and the sinus passages by putting pressure on the backs of all toes, and so on.
Occasionally, she might pause to ask, "Are you having any trouble with...?" - and fill in the blank with stomach, head or back or any other body area that Paxton senses is out of tune.
Reflexologists claim to be able to feel a spot on the hand or toe and sometimes tell if the corresponding body area or part is not up to snuff.
Paxton prefers to focus on the stress-relieving properties of reflexology. She fears that to suggest it has value beyond that might scare away customers who view the massage technique much like her brother, Mike Paxton of Covington, did.
When she offered to "do" his feet right after he'd been in the hospital, Mike Paxton asked his sister if she was going to be "voodooing and blowing smoke" around him.
"I've found some people don't understand," she said. "Many people are just now accepting chiropractors."
Becky Paxton has been a hair stylist for five years, since graduating from the Staunton School of Cosmetology. She quietly began offering reflexology in the shop where she used to work, before Michelle's opened eight weeks ago and she hung out a sign advertising her specialty. She now gets four or five reflexology customers a week. Some combine the massage with a pedicure, which can be done for $55.
Linda Moyer, Balow's mother who helps out with phones and scheduling at the shop on weekends, also has been turned on to reflexology. She took her first class in it Sunday from the Lynchburg instructor.
Two reflexology rooms are being outfitted at the hair shop, Becky Paxton said.
No one seems to know exactly why reflexology works, but a relationship between areas on the hands and feet and the body's organs, limbs and nerves has been recognized for centuries, wrote Stephanie Rick in her introduction for "The Reflexology Workout."
At the turn of the century, according to Rick, American physician Dr. William Fitzgerald determined that by pressing on the related areas, he could influence organs. He divided the body into 10 longitudinal zones - five on each side of the body's midline - and then related those zones to body areas. Because the inner edges of the feet were in the same zone as the spine, Fitzgerald believed that stimulating that zone would influence the spine, too.
Though once mainly associated in this country with the New Age movement, reflexology is becoming more widely known. Rick's book is mainstream enough to be found in the sports section at Ram's Head Book Shop at Towers Shopping Center in Roanoke. Internet users can view a diagram of the foot reflexology zones by going to http://galen.med.virginia.edu.
Whether a person thinks there is a real relationship between a foot point and a body area or that the whole idea is just smoke, the massaging relaxes, Becky Paxton said.
The technique can be effective on anyone, but especially on someone who is ill or uncomfortable, instructor Mann said.
Mann became interested in reflexology when her father was ill and she was looking for ways to make him feel better. She met a Lynchburg hair stylist who offered reflexology in her salon; remembering that her father liked to have his feet rubbed, she decided to learn the massage technique.
Mann ended up studying at the International Institute of Reflexology in St. Petersburg, Fla., and with Digits International, which offered classes all over, except in this area.
Two years ago, she became an instructor for Digits and began offering classes. She now has an office and an 800 number. A basic course costs $225 and includes the materials and at least one day of hands-on training.
Many people take the classes just so they can work on themselves or family members, Mann said. Others, like Paxton, want to go into business.
Slowly, insurance companies are recognizing reflexology as a legitimate form of therapy, especially with a referral from a doctor, Mann said. She works with a psychologist in offering the service.
Paxton said she also is prepared to work with insurance companies, but is happy just to be building a business. Money isn't all she gets from reflexology, she said.
"When I'm giving, I'm releasing also," she said. "Afterward, it's like I got a massage."
by CNB