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Title : The Professional Pilates Teacher’s Handbook – Maintaining your Health, Sanity and Passion

Author: Laurette Ryan

Date of publication: 2013

Pages: 93

Availability: amazon

I bought this book some time ago, but life got in the way of reading it – as life tends to do. Stumbling across it recently, I started thumbing through it and discovered to my surprise that it was a little gem.  Its short size  – 93 pages – is an advantage.  With thousands of Pilates books on the market these days, authors seem to feel compelled to stand out by cramming everything and the kitchen sink into their work  – a strategy that often backfires because busy Pilates teachers rarely have much time to devote to reading.  Sometimes you look at that huge book on your table and you become  Scarlett O’Hara – “Tomorrow – I’ll start reading it tomorrow.” Not so with this book – which is user friendly and useful as a reference after the initial read because it is also a workbook with lists and space for notes.

Laurette is a Pilates teacher and mother of four – like me.  Unlike me, she somehow manages to run a teacher training program in several states and author books, including “Basic Cuing for Pilates Teachers – a Guide for Pilates Teachers and Other Movement Modalities” and “Ready for Pilates for Everybody”, a Pre-Pilates book.  She also writes Pilates articles and has a workout blog.  Clearly, she is more organized than I am!  I briefly think that she must be one of those annoying teachers who make you (meaning me, of course) feel bad for letting your kids eat too much processed food and pasta and spend way too many hours on the computer playing Minecraft.  Happily, she does not seem to be the judgmental type.  Rather, her book is full of the advice you wish your Pilates teacher trainer gave you but did not (at least mine did not– mine was actually pretty mean).  The book is primarily aimed at newbie teachers but even veteran teachers will find some helpful tips. If social media forums are any indication, many, if not most, Pilates teachers struggle to find balance between work and family, dealing with the physical and often emotional needs of their students, and handling the financial aspect of teaching or running a studio.  This book will hopefully help teachers avoid some of the pitfalls that may accompany their choice of career.

The book is divided into two parts.  Part One addresses the four aspects of self – physical, rational/mental, emotional and energetic.  The section devoted to the physical aspect of self includes topics such teaching posture, moving equipment and changing springs, assisting clients, and demonstrating.  The reader is encouraged to note his or her postural habits, such as standing on one leg or tilting his head to the side.  Of course we movement teachers know this stuff – we know that we should not stand on one leg, slouch over the equipment or put our bodies at risk, but the reality is that we all probably are guilty of not applying proper body mechanics a hundred percent of the time while teaching.  I, for example, notice that I like to spot from one side more than the other, particularly when I put my foot on the bar for an exercise like elephant.  This book (complete with “Do!/Don’t” photos) is a friendly call for increased vigilance.

The rational/mental aspect of self is the section I found most useful.  It includes tips for avoiding burnout, and also addresses subjects such as setting boundaries with clients – financial and emotional, selling things, training friends and family and navigating the teacher/client relation when a teacher becomes friends with his client.  Although I have been teaching for many years now, I have only run a home studio for a few years.  I realize that some of the boundaries discussed in this section have indeed become blurred.  I don’t mind beating clients up during class, but when it comes to addressing things like late cancellations or price increases, I tend to shy away from conflict.  And I do have a few clients who have become friends.  This section underscores the importance of firm boundaries as an essential ingredient to a professional environment.

Part Two is entitled Grow Your Business with 6 Steps to SASS (Steps Above Service System).  The title is fairly self-explanatory.  With Pilates studios now cropping up on every corner of the globe,  the most important quality for a studio is superior teaching.  However, the details and personalization of the global experience, not just the lesson itself, will significantly impact business growth. The details bring clients back. Laurette provides some suggestions for ensuring exemplary service.

At the end of the book, Laurette offers three free handouts –  “What are the Principles of Pilates?  And How Will They Help Me?”, “Pre-Pilates Exercises to Improve Your Performance”, and “Pilates Builds Fascial Fitness”. She encourages teachers to distribute the handouts to their clients.  She even offers to send the articles in a pdf version.  This is a generous, refreshing touch in a world where everything seems to carry a price tag.

I recommend this book, in particular to new teachers, or perhaps as a gift to students you may be mentoring.  It is also a useful resource for teachers who have been teaching for some time, especially those who may be opening a studio of their own.  If you decide to use Laurette’s handouts, please remember to give her credit.  You can check out her blog at http://www.pilatesworkout-blog.com.

Title: Movement Matters

Author: Katy Bowman

Anyone who follows the Pilates Book Review and Discussion Club forum (all ten of you 😉) knows that we are big fans of Katy Bowman.  We have reviewed four of her seven books, Alignment Matters, Whole Body Barefoot, Move your DNA,  and Diastasis Recti.  She has also written Don’t Just Sit There and Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief.  Her new book, Dynamic Aging, is on my wish list- it is not yet available in France.  A biomechanist by training, Bowman writes a popular blog, Katy Says, and has a podcast of the same name, directs and teaches at the Nutritious Movement Center Washington, and travels internationally to give movement workshops.  Nutritious Movement is also a facebook forum.

Movement Matters is somewhat different from Bowman’s other books, perhaps closest in nature to Alignment Matters, which is a compilation of blogs.  Movement is a collection of essays on movement written by Bowman over five years, not just movement as in moving an arm and a leg, or even moving one’s body, but of movement in general – small movements, big movements, bigger movements, how the movement of one affects the movement of all, how the movement of man affects movement of the world.  “I believe the expansion to an ecological model in human bod science- considering society’s impact when we investigate human movement – is necessary for scientific clarity,” Bowman states.

The back cover describes the book as a “groundbreaking investigation of the mechanics of our sedentary culture and the profound potential of human movement….”   Seems a daunting task to initiate such an investigation in only 225 pages, but one of Bowman’s strongest points is her ability to take complicated concepts and explain them so clearly, so simply, that it seems almost impossible that we ever believed otherwise or that the concepts never occurred to us before.  That is not to say that the book is superficial, rather that its simplicity is deceiving.  Each read reveals new insights.  It is not a book of facts from which to learn, although learn you will, nor is it a how-to.  It is more aptly described as a series of reflections that “invites us to consider our personal relationship with sedentarism, privilege and nature.”  I found myself going over some of the chapters again and again, not because I did not understand them but because I wanted to mentally revisit the ideas within.

In lieu of a traditional review, I will mention my favorite parts and how they affected my thinking as both a Pilates teacher and (normal?? 😉 )person, and then render my overall impression.  In the introduction, I came upon this sentence: “For many, the publication of a research article in a peer-reviewed journal was the equivalent of truth and not a single data point in a much larger library of information.“ This statement and in fact the entire chapter one, Science Moves, is highly relevant to the Pilates community, specifically in relation to the two major debates dividing the community, the neutral spine and the “is flexion bad for you” debates.  Both arguments begin similarly, something along the lines of-  “science has changed so much from when Joe was alive.  We have now learned from science that Pilates as Joe taught it was unsafe.  Because Joe was an innovator, he would have evolved his teaching to reflect the latest scientific research.”    Funnily, the same people who cite “science” generally only cite one researcher, Stuart McGill, or worse, they have not even read McGill, but cite someone else who cites McGill, without ever seeking direct answers themselves.  Even those that have read a McGill article or two generally have not read his books nor have they explored in greater the studies McGill describes, exactly how the studies were conducted, their limitations (every study has limitations), whether other studies contradict or at least limit their relevance or the reach of their conclusions.  Does anyone else see the contradiction?  On the one hand, the people making these arguments insist that science has evolved and that this evolution substantiates their thinking.  On the other hand, they refuse to submit to the idea that science is STILL evolving, and accept as gospel what they have been taught without probing more deeply.

I truly cannot overstate my enthusiasm for the Science Moves chapter.  As tempting as it is to go into more detail and describe each of the different subchapters, to do so would be way beyond the scope of a review and would not come close to doing Bowman‘s arguments justice.  I will instead list the subchapters and some of what I deemed the more important sentences to give an idea of the content. The subchapters are: Muscle: A simple Model, Expand Your Muscle Model, You’re More Than (Two of Your Parts, Proof, Putting all Your Eggs in One Comment Basket, Don’t be A Stupid, Sometimes Science is Sedentary, and Dear Katy.  The following are some of the statements within the chapter that most resonated with me.  :

“Research titles shouldn’t read like magazine headlines; every study presents just a tiny aspect of something…. a conclusion drawn from a single research paper might change when compared to one drawn from a more robust literature review.”

“My assumption is that if you’re interested in evidence, you’re interested in all of it.  And that if you use a scientific publication to support your behavior, you are extensively reviewing the literature yourself, and that a new idea sparks a surge in research in reading, and not only in online commenting.”

“Being certain about “how certain things work when your certainty is based on a limited perspective can leave you many avenues unexplored.”

I will say something about how this relates to my experience first as a Pilates student, then as an apprentice and now as a teacher.  I believe that Pilates teachers should always ask questions. and should always seek answers, continually, eternally.  No matter how wonderful your teacher or mentor or that workshop presenter or blog writer is, no matter how talented, no matter that his or her list of credentials is as long as my arm, he or she does not know everything.  There is no reason for you to accept everything he or she says as the gospel.  Think for yourselves.  Seek your own truths.   Disagreeing with someone is not a sign of disrespect and someone who discourages questions is likely not entirely confident in the veracity of his assertions, or else is just an arrogant ass – I know a few.    When I was going through my Pilates certification, I asked questions because that it how I am wired. (My second grade teacher told my parents to buy me a book about reproduction because I was, it seems, asking “questions” in class.)  But asking questions during my certification was highly discouraged and some people were frankly unpleasant about it.  But then, a lot of people in that program were jerks – that is a story for another time and possibly petty, but truthful 😉.   It just wasn’t done to ever question what we were taught.  This was in stark contrast to my training as a lawyer, where students were encouraged to ask questions and even to disagree with our professors if their arguments were well presented.

Following the Science Moves chapter are Nature Moves, Food Moves, and Just Move.  Just Move was also a favorite chapter of mine.  Those who read my review of Bowman’s book, Whole Body Barefoot may (but probably don’t) recall that I expressed my astonishment as Bowman’s ability to write so many books, teach, and run an education center, while at the same time maintaining the healthy outdoor lifestyle she espouses and spending quality time with her kids.  She must have read my mind because in Movement Matters, she explains just how she does it.  It seems that what I do, multi-tasking (answering emails while brushing my teeth and listening to my ten year recite her poetry lesson) is not the answer.  The answer is something called stacking.  Instead of doing four things (not very well) at the same time, you do one activity that fulfills four objectives.  For example, Bowman goes foraging for fruit with her kids – in one fell, she spends quality time with her kids, she educates them, she climbs trees, working her muscles and bones, she and her family get the fresh air and vitamin D they need and she sources healthy food for her family.  Sounds like a brilliant idea.  Unfortunately, when I suggest to my kids that they join me in foraging for food, they barely look up from whatever electronic device in which they are engrossed to scowl at me and remind me that their idea of fruit are gelatin candies in a fruit form.  Well, uh, that went well.

I have to say that while I thoroughly enjoyed Movement, it did make me painfully aware of my own shortcomings as a mom, as a “healthy, active, sporty” person and as an environmentalist (which I really don’t claim to be although I do recycle and use those long-lasting, low-energy lightbulbs).  My shortcomings as a mom because I don’t send my kids to nature school and I let them drink sugary drinks (only one a day) and ruin their eyesight and dull their intelligence with computer games.  My shortcomings as a healthy sporty person – just as I am reading about how Bowman loves research and questions and is continually seeking answers and I think that we must be soulmates and how are surely destined to be BFFs, then I read some brilliant statement about how we humans today constantly outsource our movement and use exercise the way we take vitamins, to fulfill what we should be getting and doing in our everyday activities but are not.  This outsourcing has consequences on a personal and a global level.  As I nod enthusiastically in agreement, and think that I need to note this down, I take a photo of the page with my IPhone because I can’t be bothered to get up and find a pen and paper.  Then, slowly, it dawns on me that Katy (I would get to call her Katy as her new BFF) would not want to be BFFs with a lazy bum like me – in fact, she would probably hate me….  ☹

Happily, my sadness is short-lived.  At the end of each chapter, Bowman includes a question and answer section entitled Dear Katy.  In the Dear Katy section of the Just Move chapter is a letter from someone who read an advance copy of the book and like me, is “freaking out” and feeling guilty because although she thought she was a good human being, she has realized that “just by living in a peaceful manner”, she could actually be “contributing to all the world’s problems”.  No worries, says non-judgey Katy (whom I again am convinced will be my new BFF), and she proceeds to assuage our/my guilt by stating that there are numerous ways that we can contribute to making the world a better place.  Ok, I can do this – hmm – turning the car key instead of clicking on the automatic key – no, I don’t like that one (I love my automatic sliding door); sourcing raw ingredients – um, no; spending some time on a local farm, squatting to weed or harvest – no, no and no!; using loose tea instead of teabags – ok, I can get on board;  and buying (I am good at buying) handmade items from those making a living from making them and under conditions I deem acceptable – does buying fair-trade chocolate count?

In conclusion, Movement Matters is a must-buy.  You will read it again and again.  Hopefully, it will motivate you to, like me, “question everything, including what you’re doing right this moment and what has made what you’re doing possible.”  And if you conclude that you should and could be doing more, then hopefully it will help you take at least baby steps to get you started.  And at least you will be off facebook if you read a book.  Although – if you are reading this review on facebook, then kudos – you are stacking!!

Title : Whole Body Barefoot – Transitioning Well to Minimal Footwear

Author: Katy Bowman

Date of Publication: 2015

Pages: 117

Availability: Yes, amazon may be evil, but I do love amazon prime next day delivery.  I wait impatiently for the delivery person, checking my mailbox incessantly, like a teenager waiting to catch a glimpse of Justin Bieber.  My excuse is that my local bookstore does not carry books in English, but I confess to ordering even French books from amazon.

Review:

When I was in college, I was a bit short of money and I had a habit to feed.  No, not drugs.  I was running up huge phone bills from calling my then-boyfriend, (my now-husband of 24 years) in France.  So, in addition to my pizzeria job and work-study, I had to find other ways to make money.  No, not stripping or prostitution.  Geez, people, get your mind out of the gutter.  I participated in some medical and psychological experiments run by the medical school.  So you see, I can fully empathize with the need to participate in potentially harmful experiments for money.  What about you?  What if I asked you to participate in an activity that was proven to be harmful to your feet, ankles, knees, hips, and back, which in turn would cause problems for shoulders and neck as well, from compensation.  What if this activity was risky not only because of the greater potential to trip and sprain or fracture a limb, but also caused unsightly deformities and often led to long-term pain?  How much would you ask before you undertook the risk?  What if I said that you would not even receive monetary compensation, but that during this activity, you would look (temporarily) fabulous with mile-long legs and that would be the ONLY compensation you would receive?  Does that sound crazy?  If not, then throw on a pair of vertiginous Louboutins.  The idea makes me shudder, especially since today’s heels are so darn high – at a size 5 1/2 to 6, those heels are not made for small feet.  Lest I sound judge-y, let me say that some of my favorite people wear heels.  I know of some amazing Pilates teachers who wear towering heels on a regular basis.  I would rather be barefoot.  That is not to say that I do not succumb to siren call of vanity on a regular basis.  I would not be caught dead wearing the gladiator things that Bowman recommends and ballet flats give me cankles.  The horror.  The horror.

So – the book.  This is actually one of three Katy Bowman books addressing the feet.  She seems to have a thing about feet.  I have not yet read Every Woman’s Guide to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet or Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet, but have plans to do so.  The problem is that Katy is such a prolific writer, I just cannot catch up to her.  I just received her latest book, Movement Matters (planning to review), as well as last year’s Diastasis Recti, which was reviewed by Christopher Roberts. (We have also reviewed Alignment Matters and Move your DNA – In case you haven’t figured it out, we are big Katy fans on this forum.).  It turns out that she has yet another book coming out next month.  Damn it, Katy (I am calling her Katy because her blog is called “Katy says”), how is it that you can write books faster than I can read them?  Katy’s bio in Diastasis Recti says that, in addition to her books, her award-winning blog and her dvds, she “directs and teaches at the Nutritious Movement Center Northwest, travels the globe (…), and spends as much time outside as possible with her husband and two young children.”  Um Katy, in addition to helping me with my posture, feet and pelvic floor, can you please send me some time management tips, because I rarely have time to drag a comb through my hair and my beauty routine is limited to the most basic personal hygiene.

Katy first addressed the issue of foot alignment in her first publication, Alignment Matters, offering very compelling arguments against wearing heeled shoes, not just women’s high heels, but also the lesser heels in men’s and children’s shoes and women’s “flats”. Katy repeats this assertion in Whole Body Barefoot, exploring it in greater detail.  One of Bowman’s strong points is to take biomechanical concepts and to break them down so they are easy to understand, using layman’s words and basic illustrations in lieu of complex diagrams or mathematical equations.  In the first part of the book, “Think”, Katy explains the problems that shoes cause, including something she describes as “ankle shmear”.  Now, I found some definitions of shmear in urban dictionary.com – either “a small amount of condiment applied to a food item or “to rub one’s (usually naked) rear against any surface such as the carpet, wall, chair in a smooth -flow flick movement.”  Ew.  I will let you read the book to learn what Katy means by shmear.  She asserts that our feet are designed to be barefoot for the most part, but minimal footwear may be necessary to protect the feet from the elements.  After a lifetime of confining feet in shoes, it would be foolhardy and cause injury to immediately begin wearing minimal footwear without preparation.  The solution is to transition to minimal footwear by wearing progressively lower heels and by performing exercises to strengthen and stretch the feet.

The second part of the book is entitled Move.  This section describes the correct stance and (except for the parallel v. slightly turned out feet position) pretty much aligns with how Pilates teaches us to stand, lengthening the back, untucking the pelvis and softening the ribs.  I am not entirely convinced by Katy’s assertion that the proper alignment of the foot is with the outer edge parallel, resulting in a slightly pigeon-toed look.  This contradicts what we have learned in Pilates as well as Esther Gokhale’s stance that feet should be very slightly turned out as that as the stance of in the indigenous populations in Africa and South America, where there are virtually no back problems (see our review of Gokhale’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back).  However, Katy’s arguments (they are set out in more detail in Alignment Matters) are compelling and Katy is after all, a biomechanist. I will leave you to form your own opinion.

Katy then describes about a dozen exercises to strengthen and stretch the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the feet.  She suggests walking on uneven terrain as often possible because limiting our movement to flat, man-made surfaces such as concrete does not allow us to develop maximal strength, flexibility or adaptability.  A reduction in any of these, as we know, will eventually have negative consequences further up the chain – the knees, hips or back are often the victims of crimes against the feet.  Lastly, Katy provides a lengthy list of websites from which to procure minimal footwear.

Pilates teachers – do you need this book?  Well, we have the Pilates foot corrector and the toe gizmo, but this little book provides some great ideas for additional ways to work the feet, including pillows, towels, books, yoga blocks.  This is a great addition to your wellness library.  I did not enjoy it as much as Alignment Matters, which literally had me lol’ing from beginning to end (there was a little part on the passing of gas, for example and Katy insisted that we not shy away from using the word vagina.  I recall that she even said vagina, vagina, vagina just to make her point).   However, while I did not lol as much as I did upon reading Alignment, I found the book very helpful and very user -friendly, a nice book to own and to recommend to your students.  I know of no one who tootsies could not use a little lovin’.

Title: Mysteries of the Ear

Author: Dr. Nadia Volf

Published: 2016

Format: Paperback

Pages: 183 (French version)

Availability: French and English versions on amazon

Reviewed by : Rebekah Le Magny

I am going to begin this review by describing the path that led me to it.  Why, you may wonder, do my book reviews always contain a lengthy part about me?  Well, I believe that you may be more inclined appreciate the book if you can relate to parts of my story.  Also, I may have just a teeny problem with narcissism, but hey, narcissism has recently become the new cool.  Today, narcissist tendencies, coupled with delusional, racist, misogynist, paranoid ravings may just get you the nomination of a major political party.  I won’t say which political party either here or on social media or in any conversation because I fear that my conversations are being recorded by mini spy drones hovering outside my window and will be released on Wikileaks.  Luckily, I am not prone to racism, misogyny or paranoia (those drones are real, dammit) nor do I have presidential aspirations.

I had been struggling with some on and off again sciatic pain from a moody piriformis for some time, moodiness exacerbated by a hypermobile and shifty pelvis.  I more or less manage to keep the problem at bay, but it is always lurking around the corner (like the spy drones).  I had been feeling that a trip to the osteo was in order because my pelvis was “off” but decided to go for my weekly run regardless.  To make a long story short, I ended up with sciatic pain on both sides, and a disturbing numb feeling on my inner thigh and ankle.  Thus began a delightful month filled with visits to various medical professionals (osteo, gp, rheumatologist and neurologist), rest (major facebook scrolling), with the occasional Pilates lesson (luckily most French leave the city during the summer months) and the heating up of food in the microwave, I mean cooking, for my kids.   I decided finally to see an acupuncturist.  On the same morning, one of my Pilates students mentioned a documentary he had seen about an amazing Russian acupuncturist who had moved to France, graduated at the top of her class in medical school and France and who had just released a book…Nadia something.

Later that afternoon, I discovered that my acupuncturist, who is also an osteopath and a general practitioner, primarily practices auriculotherapy, a form of acupuncture that involves placing needles in the outer ear, or auricle.  Technically, auriculotherapy refers to the stimulation of the ear, and the use of needles is called auricular acupuncture.  Auriculotherapy is used both to diagnose and to heal. Let me interrupt myself by saying that at the time, I sort of believed vaguely in acupuncture, but was not one hundred percent convinced.  Mainly my attitude was – what the hell, it can’t hurt.  After listening to my history, the acupuncturist told me that she is going to poke around my ear a bit.  Poke away, I told her confidently, – I have had four kids; I have a high tolerance for pain.  Poke away she did.  It felt like nothing, until…Holy f—!!!  What was this fresh hell?  She swore to me that she was barely applying any pressure, but that the point on my ear corresponding to a trouble area in the body was highly sensitive.  Once she found the point, she inserted a small needle and the pain I the ear eventually subsided. The needles hurt more going in than when I had undergone traditional acupuncture.  The doctor proceeded to examine my ears and place a multitude of needles in each.  What astounded me was that the points on the ears into which she inserted needles corresponded exactly to the parts of my body that were giving me grief, psoas- lumbar spine, pelvis, buttocks, intestines.   I had so many needles in me (she also placed them in the body) that I looked like a porcupine. The doctor also told me that I had a disk bulge that was pressing on the sciatic nerve.  I realized that she was right.  The sciatic twinge that I had was not from the piriformis (I couldn’t get rid of it with stretching and massage like I usually did.  After thirty minutes, then the doctor replaced the needles with a tiny bandage with a miniscule needle attached, instructing me to leave them in for a few weeks.  I was truly flabbergasted that my ear provided such an accurate map of the rest of my body.

Once home, I immediately went on amazon and ordered The Mysteries of the Ear and Acupuncture for Dummies by Nadia Volf, both of which I noticed on my acupuncturist’s bookshelf.  A few of the amazon reviews of Mysteries of the Ear criticized the book’s style, likening it to a magazine article.  I actually appreciated that quality – no fuzzy woo woo, but no Ph.D required to understand it.  The book is an easy read; despite the 180 pages, I went through it in an hour.   Not a typical how-to manual, it is something of a mashup between an autobiography, a history book and a manual, written in very large font of various sizes, similar to, yes, a magazine article.  Volf learned auriculotherapy from a Russian doctor named Maria, who learned the technique in China.  Maria saved the life of Volf’s father using auriculotherapy after traditional methods failed (both her parents were in the medical profession).  Intrigued, Volf implored Maria to let her work in her office, first as a cleaner/helper, then later as an apprentice.  Volf later went to medical school in Russia, where she graduated at the top of her class.  She also graduated at the top of her class in medical school in France.  The book includes a brief history of auriculotherapy, interspersed with some interesting personal anecdotes.  For example, Volf managed to gain an audience with the Minister of Higher Education after noticing a young women grimacing in pain at the Ministry.  The woman turned out to be the Minister’s mistress. After Volf miraculously eliminated the woman’s excruciating migraine and the Minister’s allergy symptoms with her needles, the Minister agreed to include acupuncture as part of the sixth year medical school curriculum of sixth year medical students.  Volf also saved her father’s eyesight after top doctors in France declared that nothing could be done; she convinced her father to let her pierce his ear on the part of the earlobe that corresponds to the eyes.  Other notable stories include famous athletes, dancers, the Russian space program and a KGB general.

The second part of the book is the how-to part.  It contains a picture of an ear that is numbered from one to thirty-nine, each number corresponding to a part of the body.  Finding the right point is surprisingly simple.  The shape of the ear corresponds to that of an upside down fetus and the auriculotherapy points match accordingly.  The points corresponding to the face and sensory organs are on bottom of the earlobe and the top of the ear contains the points corresponding to the feet and ankles.  The lumbar spine, sacrum and hip are somewhere in the middle.  The last part of the book contains a glossary enumerating some common problems and the points on the auricle to stimulate.  Although the use of acupuncture needles is probably the most effective way to use the technique, pressing on the spot with one’s fingers or something sharper can also be effective.

I felt better and better following my visit (I also had a follow-up two weeks later), and excitedly described my experience to everyone who wanted to listen, as well as a few who didn’t.  My close friend, who is from Vietnam, complained of neck pain during a visit.  I pulled out my book and she enthusiastically “lent me her ear”.  I used the wooden tip of a paintbrush to poke her ear.  Sure enough, she felt pain at the site corresponding to the neck.  She applied pressure to this point for a few minutes and convincingly proclaimed that she felt better.  Of course, she may just be a good actress.  I used this method a few more times and successfully headed off a migraine without needing an advil and also managed to rid myself of a stiff neck.  I also cured my seven-year old daughter’s hiccups, but she refuses to let me touch her ear now, because she found my poking and pressing to be painful.  My family complained about the gleam in my eye and my rush to find a pointy object whenever they had some kind of pain.  After exhausting all other remedies, my husband finally agreed to let me approach his ear to alleviate his bronchitis symptoms.  While his ear was indeed painful at the site corresponding to the lungs, his suffering was not lessened and he rushed to the doctor the following day, whereupon he was promptly hospitalized for six weeks due to heart failure from a defective left ventricle.  So, it is in fact not surprising that my auriculotherapy efforts were a thorough failure.  He is doing much better, thank you.  Happily, modern medicine is available when ancient holistic methods are not enough.

I recommend this book to those of you interested in alternative medicine.  It is an interesting and amusing read.  I am not convinced that a book on the subject needs to be very sophisticated.  I have used the how-to part several times and sometimes consult a chart that I found on the Internet with little pictures instead of numbers on the auriculotherapy chart.  I find that massaging the area has great benefits; however, for bigger or chronic problems, I head to the auriculotherapist and her needles.