Treatment principles

Muscle testing - Asking the body

1. ASKING THE BODY - The body can be asked what is wrong through muscle testing (biofeedback). By establishing a yes/no communication system, the body can instruct us as to its needs once we learn the protocol for systematically covering the entire bodymind complex. 

The strength of our muscles is dependent on many factors. We are all aware that we can be stronger on some days and weaker on others. We know that our moods and emotional state can greatly affect the strength of our muscles. The muscles can go a long way towards reflecting our state of health. 

Applied Kinesiology has shown us that if we test any muscle in our body, then "challenge" the body in some way that affects the body, the muscle, if retested, will be weaker for a short period of time. This change will last for a short time.

In the BodyTalk System we take advantage of that observed phenomena. When we touch trigger points on the body and ask if there is a problem, the body will answer "yes" by letting the muscle appear weak. Any muscle in the body can be used. We tend to use the shoulder muscles for convenience and because they don"t tire easily.

After linking the trigger points with a BodyTalk treatment, we ask once more if there is a problem. This time the body will answer "no" by staying strong. This testing procedure is good but not infallible. There is a subjectivity that needs to be reduced in impact with experience and training. 

The main ingredient is the "state if awareness" mentioned earlier. This involves both the patient and practitioner. The patient who is already "aware" will learn to respond quickly and reliably. The less aware patient will take a treatment or two to develop that reliability. Fortunately, this is not critical because the first few techniques are such that when the practitioner tests for them and there is a problem, the impact on the body is so great that the muscle will simple go weak for a few seconds anyway. Hence, the weakness will still indicate a "yes" answer. The more subtle yes/no concept and response is only necessary when we start asking more sophisticated questions in more depth. 

The other part of the "awareness" equation lies with the BodyTalk practitioner. I always stress to my students the absolute importance of them developing their "awareness" so that they can "listen" to the patient objectively. This involves having treatment themselves to train their own system as well as focus on clearing their minds of the agenda. This agenda includes the preconceived ideas and beliefs we may have about treatment and diagnosis; our need to diagnose or label things so that we can play God and treat the person our way rather than the way the patient"s own inner wisdom wants; prejudging the answer before asking the question, which can lead to shaky responses. 

Although it is not a perfect system, muscle testing is the prefered communication technique for BodyTalk because it provides us with immediate feedback and verification, and is simple to use. Its shortcomings are far outweighed by its benefits. 
 
 

The art of muscle testing

When you are trying out the treatments on the following pages, remember the following guidelines. 

The muscle test is relative to the patient. Everyone feels different to test. Some people are quite weak to start with because of illness. Remember to test them first and then judge the relative degree of weakness for them. Their "no" answer may feel like a weak muscle, while their "yes" answer can feel even weaker.

Very strong people could have a 20% reduction in strength when you test a trigger point and yet you may not feel that reduction in strength because even at 80% strength, they still feel strong. For this reason, it is better not to focus on total muscle strength in the test. Try to develop the subtlety to test their "muscle take up time." 

A strong, healthy muscle will feel "solid" when it is gently tested. Remember to ask the patient to try to hold their current position–not push back. If a muscle is testing "weak," it will have a slower "take up" time, which means that there will be a slight "sponginess" or 'give' for a small distance before the natural strength of the muscle takes over. This is what we are really looking for. Even the strongest person will have that "sponginess" or "shake" to give you a "yes" answer if you test a muscle while you are contacting trigger points that are malfunctioning.

My prefered proceedure is to test the muscle with the arm at the side. The pateint is then asked to keep their arm at their side with the practitioner attempts to pull it away from the body. Remember to keep the patient"s arm straight so that the shoulder muscles are being used and the patient is not tempted to bend the arm and bring in a second group of muscles.

Now you want to train the inner awareness through the brain into a yes/no response. I like to use a little bit of showmanship that helps the patient to focus. I touch their head with one light tap and say:

"resist, give me a no" and pull fairly gently so that the arm is able to stay at the side. 

I then tap their head lightly twice and say:

"resist, give me a yes" and pull harder so that the arm comes out from the side.

Obviously, this is rigging the results to give the brain feedback so that it knows what we want.

After a couple of training runs you will find that when you say "resist, give me a no" the arm will remain solid with a firm (relative to the patient"s strength) pull. Then when you say "resist, give me a yes" the patient"s arm will go weak even though you are pulling with the same strength as when you asked for a no. This will amaze the patient (and probably you until you get used to the fact that the body is really very willing to communicate with you).

Now you have trained the patient and are ready to start communicating with the inner wisdom with questions that will always require a "yes" or "no" answer.
 
 

Linking - Restoring Communication

The concept of linking is simply the process of: 

1. Locating a part of the body that the body has indicated it wants treated (for example, the liver). This will have been found by systematically working through the treatment protocol described in the next chapter. For example we could arrive at the organ system and ask if organs are a priority. If the answer is yes, then each organ is asked in turn if there is a problem. The practitioner is thinking "Is there a problem" while they are asking the name of the organ out loud. Heart? No; Lung? No; Liver? Yes 
2. Now we want to know what to link the liver to. One usually starts within the same system. So we would ask "link to organ?" Yes. With the patient"s hand on the liver, we would then touch each organ again asking for a link. Heart? No; Lung? No; Stomach? No; Pancreas? Yes - We have found a link! 
3. The patient could touch over the liver; the practitioner would touch the reflex point for the pancreas with one hand while tapping out the head and sternum. (This is covered in the next section.) 
4. The patient is retested. Heart to pancreas link a problem? No - the link is corrected. 

To Chapter 7 Part 2