PART ONE

ZU REFLEXOLOGY

What distinguishes the ZU method from other interpretations of Foot Reflexology is the in-depth, analytical study of the identification of reflex points on the foot, otherwise known as I.S.R.A., or Identification of Sensitive Reflex Areas.

All the points described have been localized in relation to the bones and by aiming at the epicentre of the pain in each sensitive area. A foot can be long, wide, short, large or thin; pathologically, it may be a flat foot or a hollow foot, a horse foot or a club foot, varus or valgus. This type of reading objectifies the reflex points.

At the beginning of my studies into Foot Reflexology I explored everything that had been written on the subject from all over the world. The result was disarming from a critical point of view, since every chart and every drawing was represented with total subjectivity by the various authors, as regards both the location of the reflex organs and the colours used.

For example, the reflex area of the liver was represented in a variety of ways: oval-shaped, roughly oblong, triangular, at times overlapping the reflex area of the lungs, in some cases situated above the heads of the metatarsals, in others below them, sometimes centrally, sometimes laterally. In addition to this variety in the drawing of the area and its position, the colours used also differed widely from author to author.

If we look at a book on Western, Asian or African anatomy, obviously the organs are all situated in the same areas. A pygmy is short-statured, a Watusi is longilineal, but their organs are proportionately arranged in their bodies in the same way. In the various races the colour of the skin and the shape of the eyes and cheek-bones change, but anatomically the various parts of the body are structured in the same way. There must be something wrong, therefore, when after comparing the many books and charts on the subject we verify that they are all different. This hardly encourages a serious approach in those who with a critical eye approach the study and interpretation of Foot Reflexology.

In the early days of my own study I worked in a hospital, the Tumour Research Institute in Milan, after having worked for some years in hospitals in southern Italy and in the Amazon. There was no shortage of material for verifying the first ideas I had acquired of Foot Reflexology. I touched the feet of patients, nurses, doctors, friends and relatives, anyone I came across who was willing to have his health checked with such an unusual technique. My enthusiasm was boundless. Day after day I confirmed important intuitions, observing and resolving problems with acute symptoms in a very short time. The side effects of the chemotherapy were significantly reduced.

One day in Abruzzo I had the occasion to verify the condition of a person who I had not seen for some years, using this technique. Pleasantly satisfied, and interested by what I had succeeded in telling him after examining his feet, he asked me if I had noticed anything special relating to his heart. I had already touched the reflex point of his heart, but there was no sign which might have indicated any suffering there. I felt the area again, concentrating on it much more than I would have normally, but there was no reaction of any kind. I therefore concluded that from a reflexological point of view, at least as far as my own knowledge at the time was concerned, his heart showed no pathological symptoms. He then told me that in the last two years he had had three heart attacks. Although he did not say it in a derisory way, since there were many other symptoms I had succeeded in pointing out to him, I was utterly crestfallen. That day threw me into turmoil. If through the foot I was unable to identify the suffering of such a seriously damaged organ, how many other reflex points might react in the same way.

At that time I had also begun to attend a school of acupuncture, and later I spontaneously applied the various techniques, philosophies and principles. I noticed that the zu meridians (i.e. those of the lower limbs) arrived in the feet: the spleen, liver and kidneys, organs which are zang (full), and the stomach, gall bladder and urinary bladder, organs which are fu (empty). The heart meridian was not among them, and from this observation I began to associate, verify and catalogue an enormous quantity of information I had obtained from patients with the most wide-ranging pathologies. One of the conclusions I reached, which forms one of the corner-stones of this innovative method in the study of Foot Reflexology at an international level, is that lungs and large intestine, heart and small intestine, organs associated with the shou meridians (those of the hand), do not produce the same kind of response on the sole of the foot. It is easy to observe, for example, that a mild disorder in the gall bladder, which has its reflex point on the right foot, fourth metatarsal, distal epiphysis, will be much more evident than a serious disorder of the heart which will be found in the contra-lateral area of the left foot. However serious the disorders of the lungs, heart, small intestine and large intestine may be, they will never manifest symptoms in proportion to their seriousness on the reflex areas of the sole of the foot.

At this time I was intensely, almost maniacally eager to further my research. I was receiving charts, posters, books and other publications relating to Foot Reflexology or to feet in general, from all over the world: the eroticism of Chinese feet, paradysmorphisms of the foot, articular physiology, treatises on the horse's hoof. The foot was becoming a whole new world for me to explore. Every book, every publication, especially the most rare and difficult to find, like those on the pathologies of nails, thrilled me. My study and research led me to a deep level of involvement. I waited for the postman daily. Each new text opened up new horizons, opened a new window.

What up until then had been just feet started to become "the feet universe". I started to question the tiniest detail. At times the response was immediate, at others it had to be researched and pondered at length. With the passing of months and years I realized that too many texts, with their axiomatic or mechanistic assertions, no longer gave me adequate answers: overlapping and underlapping toes, hammer toes and hooked toes, onychogryphosis (claw nail) or tending to koilonychia (spoon nail), all themes dealt with and explained in the space of a few lines. The weevil of reason was boring its way through my brain and gave me no peace in my yearning for knowledge. It longed not for axiomatic knowledge, but logical knowledge, a knowledge that would gratify my scientific mind, my rationality.

Undoubtedly the Chinese vision of the Tao, my complementary approach between analytical and analogical, has been and still is one of the mainsprings of my research. Why is one toe hammer and another toe hooked? Why the second toe and not the third? Why the left foot and not the right? Here was the impulse behind my studies: an insatiable craving for knowledge and rational fulfilment.

Observing the considerable quantity of material that continued to arrive from all over the world and accumulated, thanks also to the contribution of travelling friends and relatives who were requested to go over with a fine toothcomb the oldest, smallest and most obscure bookshops in so-called alternative places, I realized that much of what had been published on Foot Reflexology seemed to have been written at a desk, without the least form of genuine experimental research. The computer catalogation of information, fundamental for anyone wanting to study Foot Relexology seriously, was an important leap ahead for me, leading as it did to the Identification of Reflex Points on the Bones, which I later called I.S.R.A., the initials for Identification of Sensitive Reflex Areas.

Every chart in my possession presented an overall form of the foot that was different from all the others. In almost all of them only the outline of the foot was drawn and long, wide, large and short feet were filled in in a way that certainly reflected the subjectivity of the author. The various organs were arranged in an approximate fashion and represented graphically in a variety of ways, and the colours too were chosen with total subjectivity, the only apparent logic being the relative agreeability of the combinations.

I have a gallery of the most important charts from various countries, and by various authors. The only thing they have in common is the evident fact that they are outlines of feet filled in diagrammatically. The need, therefore, for an objective determination of a certain quantity of identified reflex points, which are the same for everyone and located in relation to the bone structure, became a fundamental principle of the research. What previously had been mere bones started to become projections of bodily systems and organs. Each bone became the representation of a corresponding organ. Those twenty-six bones of the foot began to speak, to tell a story, and increasingly to acquire meaning.

 

THE TAO 

«In ancient times those people who understood Tao patterned themselves upon the Yin and the Yang and they lived in harmony with the arts of divination. There was temperance in eating and drinking. Their hours of rising and retiring were regular and not disorderly and wild. By these means the ancients kept their bodies united with their souls, so as to fulfil their allotted span completely, measuring unto a hundred years before they passed away. Nowadays people are not like this; they use wine as beverage and they adopt recklessness as usual behaviour. They enter the chamber (of love) in an intoxicated condition; their passions exhaust their vital forces; their cravings dissipate their true (essence); they do not know how to find contentment within themselves; they are not skilled in the control of their spirits. They devote all their attention to the amusement of their minds, thus cutting themselves off from the joys of long life. Their rising and retiring is without regularity. For these reasons they reach only one half of the hundred years and then they degenerate».

This discourse was addressed by Qi Bo, prime minister, to his emperor Huang Di. Words which sound incredibly modern but were in fact written some 4,000 years ago.

Yin and Yang are the two forces that move the world, two manifestations of being, two complementary and contrasting energies. For the Chinese, Yin and Yang do not exist separately. Yin and Yang correspond to the two sides of the same coin; being a single principle they cannot exist in isolation. Day and night are inseparable; one cannot exist without the other. Yin and Yang are in a state of continuous movement. Energy is not stagnant; energy by definition is movement. Pathologies, therefore, are an energy blockage caused by problems of excess or deficiency: excessive fullness or excessive emptiness.

Illiteracy is a problem in China even today, but because the Chinese "breathe" Taoism in the air rather in the same way that Brasilians "breathe" the samba or Italians spaghetti, it is something profoundly rooted in their culture. The Chinese are intimately linked to the earth, are profoundly peasant, have always experienced a relationship with the earth in a total way.

Four thousand years ago it was written: «one can travel without limits!». This sounds almost ridiculous when compared with today, given the speed of movement reached by modern forms of international and intercontinental transport, not to mention journeys made beyond our planet. This feeling was associated with the fact that it was impossible to abandon the earth and the farm animals even for a day. Therefore journeying without limits signified distancing oneself from everything that furnished daily sustenance.

The Chinese peasant, like the western peasant or the peasant of any other part of the world, although unfamiliar with the written laws of the Tao, is Taoist par excellence. The word Tao, which will inevitably pervade this book, must be explained, intellectualized at least a little, so that we westerners can experience it in a way that is closer to our own culture, in other words learn to live our daily Tao, whatever our professional activity, and whether we live in the country or in a small town, in a large city, on an island or in the mountains.

The laws of the Tao are universal. The word Tao signifies "the right way". Elsewhere we find it as Do, which is the equivalent of Tao in Japan (do-in, shiatzu-do, ai-ki-do, ken-do) and Dao in Vietnamese (viet-wo-dao). Thus Tao, Do and Dao have the same meaning in different languages. The literal meaning of the word Tao is Path or Way. If used as a verb it takes on the meaning of following a path, or discussing. Lao Tzu also defines it as Yu, which means "being", as opposed to Wu, which is "non-being", or even Wu-Ming, the "nameless". It is the principle of the world. Every thing originated from being and the origin of being was non-being.

The Tao has no well-defined characteristics. It is not the void, since what produces all things is a force that derives from an energy. It is that which is at the base of life, that which has always existed, in any case, before all things; it has no beginning and no end. The Tao produced the one, or rather generated itself, was manifested unto itself. The one produced two, that is the generating force, the principles Yin and Yang; the two produced three, the harmonious union of the two principles; and the three produced all things and all beings.

The principles of Yin and Yang are extremely old. Their theorization was already familiar in the Shang period (16th-11th C. BC), but they originally date to the more ancient prehistoric period.

The Tao is not a religion. It is not a philosophy in the western sense of the word. The Tao is the natural, perpetual movement of these two complementary and opposite energies.

It is not my intention to intellectualize this principle excessively; that is not the aim of this book. I shall limit myself to enunciating the general principles by which it is governed.

The Tao is not immoral as some ill-advised person has defined it, but amoral. Its general principles can, and in fact should be applied at any moment of our existence, whatever our religion, system of ethics, profession or activity. The principles that regulate the Tao are called Yin/Yang.

To facilitate my line of reasoning I shall sometimes use the terms Yin or Yang on their own, as if they were two separate and independent things. However, it is important to understand and interiorize the idea that Yin and Yang are two indissoluble entities. Therefore when I mention them in reference to something, to an event, to a situation, this should be interpreted in relation to its complement.

Let us make a list of words in two columns, one Yin and the other Yang. In one column let us put everything that corresponds to Yin and in the other everything that corresponds to Yang. For a correct interpretation the absolute complementarity between one and the other must be considered. There is no question of the superiority of one over the other. At any moment that which is Yin can become Yang and, at the same time, every situation is at the same time both Yin and Yang.

To the question «is a ten year-old child big or small?», if you have already answered you are mistaken. There is no logical answer to the question posed in these terms. There will be, however, when you ask «relative to what?». At this point the ten year-old child will be small compared to a youth of twenty and big compared to a child of two. Thus the ten year-old child is both big and small without any contradiction.

The symbol of the Tao is represented by a circle divided into two equal black and white parts. We may observe that the black and white are not divided like a cake cut in half, half white and half black, but that the black enters into the white and the white enters into the black. To emphasize this Yin and Yang complementarity, in the black there is a white part and in the white there is a black part.

The classic symbol is represented with the larger part of the white on top and to the left and the larger part of the black below and to the right. There is a good reason for this.

The white refers to light, the black to darkness. Emotionally we associate light with the sun; its complement becomes the moon. The sun is hot, the moon is cold. Heat is Yang, cold is Yin. The hot air of Yang rises upwards, the cold air of Yin descends. In a closed environment, therefore, the higher layers will be warmer than the lower layers which will be cooler. High Yang, low Yin. That which rises upward is lighter, Yang, as opposed to that which is heavy and tends to sink, Yin. Light and fast, heavy and slow, one Yang the other Yin. The light, fast, upward-moving Yang is such because the molecular density is reduced compared to that which is Yin, i.e. heavier, slower and tending to descend. That which is hard therefore becomes Yin, that which is soft Yang. In nature, soft, fleshy Yang fruits contrast with hard, contracted Yin fruits; these are in fact relative to summer and winter respectively. Summer, the warm, light season in which we wear fewer clothes, offers us sweet, watery fruits like melons. Winter, the cold, dark season, forces us to cover up and produces fatty, contracted, protein-rich fruits like walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds.

For a rapid, concise synthesis which could actually be infinitely long, we can say that man, fire, high, peripheral, emptiness and fast is Yang; conversely, woman, water, low, centre, fullness and slowness, etc. is Yin. Yang is heaven, Yin is earth.

Returning now to the Chinese peasant, we now see how he started to notice that everything was strictly regulated, though not in a rigid, Manichaean way, by these two fundamental forms of energy.

The moment separating day from night, like the moment separating night from dawn, does not exist. Nature shows us softness, the absence of absolutes, everything a perpetual gradation. The passage is gradual, always. No man is 100% man, no woman is 100% woman. Nature has made us in a way that even at the level of chromosomes each sex has in itself the hormones of the opposite sex, a fact that is very clear at the time of the menopause and andropause, when in the woman, as the female hormones disactivate, bodily hair increases and the voice can become deeper, secondary male sexual characteristics. In the man, especially if he has a tendency towards obesity, his breasts can become more pronounced.

The Chinese divide the year into four seasons, two of which, one cooler than the other, with a movement of increasing physical activity outdoors, go from spring to summer; the other two, with a gradual movement towards an increasingly intense cold, go from autumn to winter, with a reduction in physical activity. This corresponds to the Yang manifestations of spring and summer, which we may call lesser Yang and greater Yang, and those of autumn and winter, which we may call lesser Yin and greater Yin.

Man experiences this relationship with nature not like a bird in the sky, and not even like an animal only on the ground. Man lives a special condition between the sky and the earth. The ideogram which represents this principle indicates schematically that the fist is round like the head and the celestial vault, whereas the foot is rectangular like the body and the earth. Between heaven and earth is man, at the meeting-place of the Yin energy of the earth, which rises, and the Yang energy of the sun, which descends.

Simbol of the Tao  

The principle expressed by this ideogram is also represented in Chinese coins, which were circular in shape with a square hole in the middle. The peripheral circle of the coin is projected towards the infinite, whereas the square in the middle is limited like the earth. Man is situated between the inner square and the outer circle.

We find the same principles with different symbols in apparently distant peoples and cultures: Assyrians, Indians, masons. Common symbols are the compass and the set-square. The compass represents the circle, perfection and therefore the projection towards the infinite, the set-square represents the rectangular, the earth, the finite.

Man, although situated between heaven and earth, in reality has a privileged relationship with the earth, for it is on earth that he lives and leads his life. His is a geocentric observation point. The earth is cultivated by the peasant with procedures that depend on the seasons. Consequently, the earth offers products that can grow above it: cereals, legumes, fruit, or products that can grow below it: roots, potatoes, carrots, fennel, beet. In his relationship with the earth the Chinese peasant, the Taoist observer, notices that the earth is not always the same, that astonishingly, together with the air (the winds, temperature) and the emotions, products change accordingly.

The Tao creates a single, overall, universal relation. There are four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, defined and separated by astronomical dates. In his observation of nature the Chinese peasant includes another season - late summer, or the fifth season. This concept is extraneous to our western system, but the Chinese place it in the period called dojo, which means transformation. This late summer is in fact the period between the two warmest seasons, spring and summer, and the two coldest, autumn and winter. When this fifth season (associated with Earth Movement) is extrapolated beyond the square represented by the four seasons, a pentagon is produced.

The Chinese do not express the Tao diagrammatically in a way that is limited to the seasons or to the organs of the body or to the emotions, but use a vaster language with the definition of Five Movements. The concept of non-stagnation is intrinsic in the word "movement" and thus the narrowness of a reductive definition is superseded.

The figure of the pentagon serves to introduce us to the understanding of various fundamental laws which govern the universe.

The first we encounter are the laws of generation and the laws of control. Depending on the western translations, they are also called mother-child laws and grandfather-grandson laws. In some texts they are referred to as laws of generation and laws of destruction. The concept of destruction recalls death as a negative element that leads to the end of something. This is extraneous to Chinese culture. Even Lavoisier claimed that «nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed». St Paul taught that in baptism the old man dies and the new man is born. In the Tarot the card of death does not necessarily signify physical death, but rather the death of a situation from whose ashes another arises... The Chinese call these fundamental laws the Sheng Cycle and the Ke Cycle. Thus, the Five Movements, and not five elements, are called:

WOOD, FIRE, EARTH, METAL, WATER

In the Sheng Cycle, of generation,

Wood                         generates                Fire

Fire                             generates                Earth

Earth                          generates                Metal

Metal                          generates                Water

Water                         generates                Wood

That wood generates fire is easily understood. Thus Wood Movement becomes the mother of Fire. In turn, Fire, the offspring of Wood, generates Earth in the form of carbon, charcoal, lapilli, and so becomes its mother. Earth, the offspring of Fire, becoming mother itself, generates Metal (the extraction of metals is made from the earth, from rocks, from quarries). In its turn Metal, the offspring of Earth, generates Water, understood as liquid (during the fusion of a metal the transformation from solid to liquid occurs). Water, the offspring of Metal, generating Wood becomes its mother (without rain there can be no vegetation). Thus the cycle of generation is concluded.

The Ke Cycle, grandfather-grandson or laws of control, is that five-pointed star which is formed within the pentagon. Control, therefore, and not destruction (as is written in many texts). For the Chinese the concept of death is not the same as it is for westerners. When we talk of Yin, for example, we do not speak of death as opposed to Yang life, but Yin as "non-life". Physical death is a point of transition, a state of transformation. What differentiates a living person from a dead person is the presence of Qi: vital energy.

The body of a person who has just died is identical to when he was still living, in all its parameters: length, weight, number of cells. But the ancient Chinese did not study the bodies of the dead in order to cure the living, and even less so the bodies of animals, since they were different from humans. Instead they used occasions in which criminals were tortured in public as an example, studying their insides to discover the secrets of the human body. Above all they searched for Qi.

Merchants, missionaries and travellers returning from the East, unable to understand such subtleties, told only of terrible "Chinese tortures". The condemned thanked their torturers in advance, certain that these professional men would do everything to keep them alive as long as possible, which meant making them suffer as little as possible. It was in such circumstances that doctors and researchers went to observe and study the reactions of the organs.

In the Ke Cycle, of control,

Wood                         controls                  Earth

Fire                             controls                  Metal

Earth                          controls                  Water

Metal                          controls                  Wood

Water                          controls                  Fire

Wood is the mother of Fire and Fire is in turn the mother of Earth. Therefore Wood becomes the grandfather of Earth and controls it. An example is reforestation. Trees are planted to control the earth and prevent avalanches, landslides and landfalls. Originally ploughs were made of wood and controlled the earth in that they dominated it by penetrating it and turning it over. Fire controls metal in the forge; we need fire to forge metal and make it useful (e.g. creating tools for work).

Earth controls Water. The Chinese, rice-eaters par excellence, need earth to control water in the rice-fields, and to build canals for irrigation. Earth controls water by containing it in terracotta vases.

Metal controls Wood. We need metal utensils to cut, saw and carve. We needs chisels, gouges, axes and saws to build houses, furniture and bridges.

Water controls Fire, an obvious relationship. If there is a fire we can extinguish it with water. From the water-fire relationship we can use the energy of water in the form of steam.

All little examples. In reality we can associate any situation, an emotion, the seasons, the layers of the body, the winds, with each Movement, as I have summed up in a brief table

Man Betwenn heaven and earth

Sheng Cycle

WOOD MOVEMENT

The Wood Movement immediately reminds us of trees, of vegetation. Vegetation has its principal manifestation in spring. The dominant colour is green. Grass begins to grow in the meadows, small leaves and buds on the trees, birds begin to sing, migratory birds return, animals awake after hibernation, the whole of nature reawakens. The cosmic energy that dominates is the wind, the wind which blows away winter. Spring is a season linked to birth in all senses.

At one time the years were numbered by counting the springs. In the life of a man there are his springs, periods of birth and rebirth, his summers, representing the culmination of his activities up to the fullness of his forties, then comes the dojo, the period of transformation, from which he passes to autumn, when he begins to grow old, and arrives finally at the stagnation of old age, winter.

Birth is separation from the mother, the cutting of the umbilical cord. The baby is nourished by its mother through the umbilical cord which reaches its liver. The liver is an organ that is zang (full), associated with the Wood Movement. The liver produces bile, which is green. This is stored by the gall bladder, an organ that is fu (empty). When a person has problems connected with his liver, in addition to palpation we can check the sclera of the eyes to verify the change of colour that would indicate the presence in the blood of an excessive quantity of bile produced by the liver. Here then is another close correlation between the eyes and the Liver-Wood. When a baby is born we say it has "come into the light", or when a person has finally realized something we say he has "opened his eyes!". Birth into a new life, into a new interpretative possibility. The word Buddha, for example, means the "Enlightened One".

When a person's liver is overburdened he is more prone to shed tears. Bile is alkaline and neutralizes or controls the acidity that we have in circulation. When we have cramp it is because our muscles are attacked by lactic acid, and so the link with the Wood Movement is further extended. Muscles, in fact, are part of Wood Movement as layers of the body.

Muscles contract and become rigid when emotionally we are unable to verbalize our most unpleasant emotions. By not verbalizing these emotions we somatize them and manifest them through excessive control and muscular rigidity. People who are described as bilious may sometimes have salutary (for them!) secretions of bile, symptomatic of a loss of control. Here are other concepts linked to Wood Movement/control: principal emotion, anger; manifestation determined by loss of control, shouting, tears.

Another relation with the Wood Movement, with the colour green, the liver and the gall bladder, can be biliary vomiting, which is green in colour, and distinct from gastric vomiting, whose yellow colour is caused by gastric juices, from haematemesis, whose red colour is caused by blood, from sialorrhoea or excessive salivation, or from food vomiting, which in really serious cases, as in pathologies caused by intestinal blockage, can cause a person to vomit his own faeces.

FIRE MOVEMENT

Spring generates summer. Whereas in spring nature was coloured green, in summer the pervading emotion is coloured red: fire, the sun at midday, fruit which in spring was at the bud stage has now ripened and is prevalently juicy and red (strawberries, cherries, water-melon). The greatest heat, the greatest fire, the most intense summer is felt at the equator. Here the colour of people's skin is certainly not Yang, white or pale; on the contrary, people are either black or dark-skinned. This introduces us to another very important principle, namely that Yang taken to the extreme becomes Yin and Yin taken to the extreme becomes Yang.

The colour red, fire, heat, are fundamental for our survival, but fire, too much fire, produces that which is burnt, and that which is burnt is bitter in taste. In Italy the main cause of death is coronary thrombosis and most cases occur in summer. Thus the heart, zang (full), is the organ of fire; its related organ is the small intestine, fu (empty). Dyssentery, in fact, is characteristic of the hottest season and the hottest countries.

In our society, the most popular taste nowadays is in apparent contradiction to the Fire Movement, therefore heart: not sweet, as one would instinctively imagine, but bitter. When I was young my parents took me with them to visit friends and relatives and along the way they bought sugar and coffee to take as presents. The recipients returned the gesture by offering small glasses of home-made liqueurs from bottles whose tops were encrusted with sugar. The alcohol content was high and the taste was very sweet: anise, anisette, aromatic herbs, walnut. They were humble folk, labourers, farmhands, craftsmen, engaged in mainly physical activities. This explains the sugar, which acted like fuel for their muscles, and the alcohol, to warm them. Nowadays heavy muscular work has almost disappeared, being replaced almost everywhere by machines and robots.

The recurrent cause of the vast majority of modern illnesses is what is commonly called stress. In most cases this derives not from physical, manual work, but from intellectual, cerebral fatigue. The heart, therefore, is diseased not as a result of physical exertion, but as a result of an excessive use of the brain. Until some years ago sweet liqueurs were much more readily available; today, it is more usual to invite friends to drink a bitter digestive. Bitter is the control taste of the heart. Instinctively we have turned to bitter, changing taste because our organism desires tastes that are most suited to our real needs, needs we often deny by intellectualizing the reasons behind them.

The prevailing emotion of the Fire Movement is joy and the way of manifesting its extreme is something that comes close to a hysterical temperament. When people who are red in the face, ruddy, cardiacal or joyous experience a stressful situation they manifest the emotion with laughter. This can vary depending on the situation, but the main characteristic of a person with heart problems is his laughing with an "ee" sound (iiiiihhh...) rather than with an "oh", an "ah", an "eh" or an "uh" sound. The laughter is further distinguished by being deep and/or baritonal, or high-pitched and/or nasal.

EARTH MOVEMENT

Zang organs (full) associated with the Earth, or Earth Movement, are the milza and pancreas. Although anatomically these are two distinct organs, the Chinese consider them energetically as a single organ. The complementary fu organ (empty) is the stomach. The colour is yellow. The Chinese are "yellow people". They have always considered themselves to be at the centre of the universe and indeed had reason to justify this belief: the inventions of printed paper, paper money, gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and possibly even spaghetti, are of Chinese origin.

Acupuncture, the most ancient and complex therapeutic technique we know of today, which has remained almost unchanged for thousands of years, is of Chinese origin. The Chinese wall is the only structure built by man which astronauts have identified with the naked eye from the moon. Hoang Di Nei Jing Su Wen is the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine.

The emperor wore yellow (imperial yellow) when he resided in the capital, in the centre of the life of the nation. He dressed in green when he travelled to the eastern provinces (green in relation to the east gives us Wood Movement: the sun rises, or is born, in the east and this analogical relationship extends to all that which is born), and he went there in spring. The emperor visited the provinces of the south in summer, dressed in red. The provinces of the north he visited in winter, dressed in black. He went to the west in autumn, dressed in white.

People who are yellowish in colour (not to be confused with icteritious people, who are green) have this colour because of the haemolytic activity (destruction of red corpuscles) of the spleen. The colour of insulin produced by the pancreas is yellow; so too are gastric juices.

METAL MOVEMENT

White is the colour of transparency. We associate it with the Metal Movement, the offspring of Earth. In autumn it is manifested with a double polarity: as white, related to Yang, the high part, the sky, the transparency of the dry air in this season of clear skies, cleaned by the mistral wind that blows from the west; and as brown, linked to the ploughed earth. The zang organ (full) is the lung, referred to in the singular by the Chinese since in the observation of tortured criminals it was seen as a single tree, the trachea (bronchial tree) with two large fruits, the lungs, one divided into three (three lobes) and the other in two. The corresponding fu organ (empty) is the colon or large intestine.

The lungs are the headquarters of the respiratory system. They represent everything that can be referred to air, vital spirit, the energy of Po for the Chinese, «...and God breathed life into you...». Everything referring to the respiratory system is considered strictly related to life. We can live for fifty to sixty days without eating, for six or seven days without drinking, but for only three or four minutes without breathing.

When a baby is born the affirmation of its independent existence is crying as a respiratory action. We are born, therefore, with an in-breath and we die with an out-breath; we die exhaling. The space between pharynx-larynx and trachea-bronchi is called the dead space because the trachea is a rigid tube and the air contained in it is still, being moved only through the ventilation of the lungs. The ability to take in and expel air, quantified by means of a spirometric examination, is called vital capacity. Thus, everything that is related to the lungs, to the respiratory apparatus, is interpreted in the context of life and death, associated in any case with spirituality.

The colour of the Metal Movement, white, leads us analogously to a sense of purity. We dress in white when we want to emphasize our cleanliness. We talk symbolically of the "fearless and unsullied knight". The concept of being tainted, sullied or unclean is in antithesis to the concept of purity. White is placed above, brown below. Brown we associate with the faecal matter that is expelled through the orifice at the bottom of our body. Air is expelled through the nose, the orifice situated high up. Faecal matter, the waste product of the metabolization of what we have ingested, is associated with a physical, material, terrestrial quality. Air, or life, is the food of the spirit.

WATER MOVEMENT

The colour black is the symbol of Yin, and therefore everything relating to a concept of contraction, closure, low, material, heavy, slow. The corresponding season is winter, the season when the hours of darkness are longer than the hours of light. In the Tao symbol Yin is situated below, on the right. The corresponding movement is the Water Movement. It is worth remembering that black, Yin, winter, does not mean death; it is more useful to think of the Water Movement in terms of stagnation. Winter is not a dead season. The concept of death, at least in the Western mind, implies something that finishes in an irreversible way. The energy of the Water Movement is called the energy of Jing, in other words ancestral, chromosomic. The energy of Jing is seen as the force of DNA.

A person with kidney problems, although not considered by allopathic medicine to be ill at an organic level, will suffer from sexual deficiency due to the control of the kidney over the suprarenal gland. The Chinese made no distinction between kidney and suprarenal gland; for them it was one thing and had a single important significance in life.

In the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs grains of wheat have been found in their original state. When sown they have sprouted and produced plants of wheat. This demonstrates that the DNA in these seeds was preserved over thousands of years before the seeds were put into the earth, a catalyzing element (in chemistry, catalysts are elements which accelerate or retard a reaction without taking part in it). The suprarenal gland and the kidney are depositories of this energy.

The kidney represents one hundred per cent of male sexuality and about fifty per cent of female sexuality. In winter, although with a very slow metabolism, life continues. The seed lies under the snow-covered earth but is not dead; in spring, the mystery of life will bring the plant into the light. Nine months are needed to grow wheat; nine months are needed for a child to grow in its mother's womb. Being invisible does not mean being dead.

The energy of Yin is the cold. So-called renal people have dark skin. They are distinguishable by their strong will, by a characteristic "iron will". When their hair starts to turn grey this is one of the symptoms of the weakening of the power of that will. When a renal person weakens, he is unable to take quick decisions and tends to put things off. In stressful situations he shows his emotions by moaning. The bodily layer corresponding to the Water Movement is the bones, the hair and the teeth, elements which give us a sense of hardness, of stagnation, of crystalization. One of the primary functions of the kidney, in fact, is the regulation of the hydroelectrolytic balance which involves the storing and elimination of mineral salts. A common pathology of these people is renal calculosis, caused by the kidney's deficiency as a filter organ. If the filtering "mesh" of the kidney is too fine or constricted only water will pass through it, while toxic substances, nitrogenous waste and various crystalline elements will remain behind it. In urine analyses nothing pathological will show up because the kidney has failed to eliminate the toxic substances, which will be present in insufficient quantities to be registered by normal haematochemical tests. The person will therefore be unaware of his permanent state of intoxication, but will have the feeling of not being in perfect health. Because the results of his tests fail to confirm his condition there will be a discrepancy between what he feels and what his analyses register.

The kidney represents innate strength. It is the deepest organ in our body, superprotected in the renal cavity. Its reflex point on the foot is located at the spot called Yongquan, which in Chinese means "bubbling spring". Yongquan is point 1, the jing point of zu shao yin (kidney meridian), the only point of the classical acupuncture nomenclature situated on the sole of the foot. It coincides with the reflex point of the kidney.

Stimulating this point with the hands, with moxa, or with various instruments, either for tonification or dispersion, produces excellent results.

When a person does not urinate sufficiently we usually invite him to drink at least two litres of water a day. This seems to contradict the logic of our body. If the person is not urinating it is because he is already saturated with water; therefore he is not thirsty. A glass that is full cannot be filled. Instead, we must first of all provide for his emptying.

To empty fullnesses and fill emptinesses we must generate a negative pressure such that the emptiness attracts the excess which causes fullness. It is more correct to say that our organism needs about two litres of liquids a day. Depending on whether the subject is obese or thin, whether his work activity is sedentary or mobile, outdoors or in, depending on the season, on the subject's age and sex, he will have a different consumption of liquids and a different need to replace the liquids used. For example, a diet rich in fruits, or rich in sweets, or a very salty diet will vary the subject's demand for liquids.

THE FOOT

THE BONES OF THE FEET

In this book there are many references to the bones, ligaments and muscles of the foot. It is necessary, therefore, to make some mention of its anatomy. Obviously, those intending to study Foot Reflexology seriously will as part of their professional training also require a thorough knowledge of anatomy, osteoarticular physiology, and medical and surgical foot pathology, fields which are not dealt with here given the specific nature of the subject under examination.

The feet are distal segments of the lower limbs. They are to be considered as three-dimensional structures with sensory and motor functions. The foot is a kind of sensory radar. It registers the stimuli of the surrounding environment. Its skeleton closely resembles that of the hand. We can divide it up into three parts which are readily identifiable: tarsus, metatarsus and phalanges.

In a normal person, who has suffered no traumas or particular deformations, the longitudinal axis of the foot forms a rightangle with the axis of the leg. The dorsal surface faces upwards, while the plantar surface faces down. The tarsus and metatarsus are joined together in such a way as to create a concave space in the central plantar region. This rests on a horizontal plane with the posterior part. The horizontal position of the foot, its structure, the considerable volume of the tarsus bones, especially those nearest the ankle which bear the weight of the body discharged through the leg, are related to the function of the foot as an organ of support and locomotion.

The limited development of the skeleton of the toes is due to the fact that in our culture the foot, forced into torturous wrappings called shoes, has ceased to be what it was for our ancestors, an organ of prehension, a function which, especially in hot countries where shoes are not worn, has not been entirely lost.

For an easier identification of the various parts of the bones let us explain the meaning of some of the terms used in the rest of the book. The epiphyses are the ends of the bones. The proximal epiphyses are the ends nearest the body; the distal epiphyses are the ends furthest away from the body. The diaphyses are the central parts of the bones.

The bones of the feet are substantially cartilaginous in origin. The metatarsal bones are classified as belonging to the group of long bones, the tarsals are short bones, while the phalanges are classified as long bones in miniature.

The foot is composed of twenty-six bones, a fairly high number for such a small part of the body and for a relatively limited number of movements. The tarsus of an adult human being, situated behind the metatarsus, is composed of seven bones. The calcaneus (heel bone) and talus (ankle bone) are the most voluminous.

The calcaneus is the first bone to touch the ground when we take a step forward. In addition to our weight, therefore, it must also absorb the added pressure of the push-off. Situated beneath the talus, it is the largest bone and is the most projecting part of the posterior part of the foot. Its anterior extremity articulates with the cuboid bone.

The talus, situated above the calcaneus, is the uppermost of the tarsal bones and articulates with the bones of the leg. It lies behind the cuneiform bones and is joined in front to the central scaphoid bone, also called the navicular. The talus is the key bone of the foot, facilitating most of its movements. When it breaks, the foot becomes one with the leg.

Further down the foot is a row of bones, which from the tibial side to the fibular side are called the first, second and third cuneiform bones, plus the cuboid.

The cuneiform bones are joined posteriorly with the navicular and anteriorly with the first three metatarsal bones and get their name from their characteristic shape. The largest surface faces upwards, the point towards the sole of the foot. The first is the largest in size, the third and second following respectively.

The cuboid bone, shaped like an irregular cube with its surfaces divided by ridges, touches five bones. Its medial surface articulates with the third cuneiform bone, while a facet of its its posterior part articulates with the navicular. The anterior surface is divided in two by a crest that allows its articulation with the fourth and fifth metatarsals. The posterior surface, which is roughly rectangular, is curved like a saddle and articulates with the cuboid surface of the calcaneus.

The metatarsus is composed of five bones, which due to their structure belong to the group of long bones. They are numbered from one to five, the first starting on the tibial side and the fifth ending on the fibular side.

The first metatarsal bone is the shortest but also the thickest. It articulates with the first cuneiform bone with its proximal surface, laterally with the second metatarsal and distally with the first phalange. The second metatarsal is the longest and most slender of the five. Its proximal surface fits between the cuneiform bones, while its lateral faces are between the first and third metatarsals. The third metatarsal articulates with the third cuneiform bone with its posterior surface and with the second and fourth metatarsal laterally. The fourth metatarsal articulates posteriorly with the cuboid and laterally with the third and fifth metatarsal. The fifth metatarsal articulates posteriorly with the cuboid, medially it has an articular facet for articulation with the fourth metatarsal, and extending laterally it forms a very evident protuberance called the tuberosity of the fifth metatarsal bone.

There are fourteen phalanges, as in the hand, three for each toe except for the big toe which has only two. They are called first, second and third phalanges, or otherwise first-row, second-row and third-row phalanges. In the fourth and fifth toes the second and third phalanges are extremely small. Not infrequently we find people with a number of toes superior to the norm, a condition known as polydactylism.

When, on the contrary, there are only four toes, in most cases this has been caused by the fusion or non-diversification of the second and third toe at the foetal stage, a condition known as oligodactylism.

In the foot, as in the hand, cartilaginous masses form which during puberty solidify and become osseous and which are called sesamoid bones. There are almost always two sesamoid bones, as large as peas, situated in a medial and lateral position at the level of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe. They can also be found in the metatarsophalangeal joints of the second and fifth toes and in the interphalangeal joint of the big toe. They never appear in the metatarsophalangeal joints of the third and fourth toes. The function of the sesamoid bones is to keep the tendons of the articular axis apart in order to increase their tension.

In addition to the division of the foot into tarsus, metatarsus and phalanges, which corresponds to a transversal division of the foot, we also have a longitudinal division of the foot which divides it into talus and calcaneal halves.

The calcaneal foot is composed of ten bones and comprises the fourth and fifth metatarsals with their corresponding phalanges. These two metatarsals articulate in turn with the cuboid and the latter with the distal part of the calcaneus, from which the name derives. This portion of the foot is crucial for the lateral support of the metatarsals and particularly of the outer crest and the tuberosity of the fifth metatarsal. It is the calcaneus which, like a wedge situated beneath the ankle joint, allows us to stand upright. The calcaneus is therefore fundamental for the assumption of this posture.

The talus foot is composed of sixteen bones. It comprises the medial portion of the foot, and takes its name from the talus, the fundamental bone for the majority of foot movements. In the anterior part of the talus is the navicular, with which the three cuneiform bones and the first three metatarsals articulate; we then find the eight phalanges of the first three toes. The talus foot gives us the sense of direction. A person with paraesthesia, a condition affecting the first three toes, especially the big toe, will stumble even on a completely smooth surface. These first three toes therefore act as a kind of radar.

ARTICULATIONS

Articulations are composed of at least two bones lying next to each other, contained in a periosteal capsule and by tendinous ligaments. The following is a list of the most important articulations and ligaments, those which are fundamental for deambulation. It is not within the scope of this book to deal with articular physiology, for which I would refer the reader to specific texts on the subject.

The foot moves by means of thirteen articulations. The three main ones are characterized by movements associated with the talus.

A) The talotibiofibular articulation is formed by the movement of the tibia, the fibula and the talus.

B) The inferior-posterior-talus articulation is formed by the movement of the talus and calcaneus.

C) The inferior-anterior-talus articulation is formed by the movement of the talus and navicular.

Other articulations are: Chopart's (mediotarsal) articulation, which is divided into the above-mentioned inferior-anterior-talus articulation and the calcaneocuboid articulation.

The anterior-tarsal articulation governs the limited movements of the cuneonavicular articulation anteriorly, the cuboideonavicular articulation and the intercuneiform articulations laterally.

Lisfranc's (tarsometatarsal) articulation allows movement of the five metatarsals with the cuneiforms and cuboid. More anteriorly we have the interphalangeal articulations.

LIGAMENTS

The articulations of the foot are held together by ligaments, of which the most important superficial groups are:

            dorsally

                        - superior extensor retinaculum

                        - inferior extensor retinaculum

            medially

                        - flexor retinaculum of the ankle

            laterally

                        - superior retinaculum of peroneal muscle tendons

                        - inferior retinaculum of peroneal muscle tendons

The deep ligaments are:

            plantarly

                        - deep transverse metatarsal ligaments with collateral                                        ligaments and tendinous sheath

                        - plantar metatarsal ligaments

                        - plantar tarsometatarsal ligaments

                        - plantar cuneonavicular ligament

                        - plantar cuboideonavicular ligament

                        - plantar calcaneonavicular ligament

                        - plantar calcaneocuboid ligament

                        - long plantar ligament

                        - deep medial ligaments

For example, a traumatic injury with the foot in prono-supination causes the rupture of the medial ligament. A violent supination of the foot involves the rupture of the talofibular ligament.

THE MUSCLES

The main muscles of the leg and foot are listed here in nominal and antagonistic groupings, from the proximal towards the distal area in such a way as to permit their rapid memorization and identification.

            1) Soleus

            2) Gastrocnemius

            3) Anterior tibial (tibialis anterior)

            4) Posterior tibial (tibialis posterior)

            5) Long fibular (peroneus longus)

            6) Short fibular (peroneus brevis)

            7) Long flexor of the toes (flexor digitorum longus)

            8) Short flexor of the toes (flexor digitorum brevis)

            9) Long flexor of the big toe (flexor hallucis longus)

            10) Short flexor of the big toe (flexor hallucis brevis)

            11) Long flexor of the little toe (flexor digiti minimi longus)

            12) Short flexor of the little toe (flexor digiti minimi brevis)

            13) Long extensor of the toes (extensor digitorum longus)

            14) Short extensor of the big toe (extensor hallucis brevis)

            15) Adductor of the big toe (adductor hallucis)

            16) Abductor of the big toe (abductor hallucis)

            17) Abductor of the little toe (abductor digiti minimi)

            18) Plantar aponeurosis

            19) Quadratus plantae

            20) Lumbricals

            21) Interossei

MOVEMENTS OF THE FOOT

FOOT IN ADDUCTION:
the forefoot is drawn towards the medial axis.

FOOT IN ABDUCTION:
the forefoot pulls away from the medial axis.

FOOT IN SUPINATION:
The plantar part faces inwards and the dorsal part faces outwards.

FOOT IN PRONATION:
The plantar part faces outwards and the dorsal part faces inwards.

FOOT IN EXTENSION:
the forefoot pulls away from the tibial axis.

FOOT IN FLEXION:
the forefoot is drawn towards the tibial axis.

COMMON PATHOLOGIES (paradysmorphisms)

TALIPES EQUINUS:
The heel is raised with the forefoot in flexion.

TALIPES CALCANEUS:
The heel presses down with the forefoot in dorsiflexion.

TALIPES VALGUS:
The foot is in abduction pronation eversion.

TALIPES VARUS:
The foot is in adduction supination inversion.

FOOT IN EVERSION:
The outer edge of the foot is raised.

FOOT IN INVERSION:
The inner edge of the foot is raised.

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