The Basic Balance.
Self Help Concept, How to Relieve stress, Pain and Learning Blocks Naturally.
By Elizabeth Barhydt, Ph D. M.T and Hamilton "Hap" Barhydt, PhD

Most balancing procedures used in Touch for Health, Applied Kinesiology, and
related disciplines are what we call a "Specific Balance". By this we mean
that the procedure, balances a specific imbalance condition. For example,
when we use neurolymphatic or neuro vascular reflexes to balance a muscle
or meridian, we muscle test first to determine which muscle or meridian we
wish to balance and then use the specific reflex for that muscle or meridian
to induce balance. Similarly when we correct reactive muscles by the
standard technique , we muscle test to find the specific muscle pairs that
require balancing, and balance those specific reactive muscle combinations.
When we balance electromagnetics, we have separate specific gaits, cloacals,
etc.; again this requires muscle testing to determine the appropriate procedures.

As the knowledge and technology of Touch for health and related disciplines
expands, the number of observable imbalance conditions and balancing
procedures for them expands rapidly. Without some way to organise this vast
pool of knowledge, thorough balancing sessions become quite lengthy.

Perhaps the first breakthrough to simplify this morass of knowledge is the
concept of muscle testing for priority, described in Dr Sheldon Deal AK
Workshop Manual. The basic idea in priority testing is that an imbalance
must be a priority before the balancing procedure will "hold". If an
imbalance is not a priority, then some other imbalance must be corrected
first. The bonus in priority testing is that we often find that after
correcting a priority imbalance several other imbalances that were not
priority also self corrected. The by using the priority concept we have
already reduced the number of balancing procedures required to achieve a balancing goal. The second major breakthrough in muscle testing came with the introduction
of finger mode testing by Dr Alan Beardall. Finger mode testing allows you
to determine the priority balancing procedures very rapidly, further
reducing the time provided for an effective in-depth balancing session.

These two techniques, priority testing and finger modes, give the skilled
professional and lay health provider two very powerful tools for in-depth
balancing sessions. But there is also a need for simple tools for people who
do not have the time and interest to acquire the necessary knowledge and to
develop the necessary skills to do in-depth balancing and for people who do
not have another person available to help with the muscle testing or want to
take classes.

As we have travelled continuously around the wonderful USA in our motor home
for 7 years , we were constantly finding people with chronic stress and pain
that can be helped immeasurably with energy balancing,but we do not have
access to people who can help them in this and are not able or motivated to
take a Touch for Health or other courses in energy balancing. Most of these
people want to be fixed and fixed now. "Don't bother me with a lot of
details", We found many people interested in a one hour "fix me" balancing
session. We often did not stay in a single location long enough for follow
up sessions over a period of time. Since we viewed ourselves more as
educators than a therapists, we were concerned with teaching people that we
worked with simple techniques for maintaining the balances that were
established in the balancing sessions.

We developed the practice of handing out exercise sheets that described many
of the balancing procedures used in the session. This worked well up to a
point, particularly for electromagnetic balancing, balancing included left-
right brain integration, that responds well to repeated exercises.

However, when we first started this practice there were some imbalances,
most notably reactive muscles, that could not be balanced without a lot of
muscle testing to determine the specific balancing procedures. Since
balancing reactive muscles was one of our most effective tools for clearing
up long standing aches and pains, we were strongly motivated to find a
better solution. This ultimately led to the concept of a "Basic Balance". A
basic balance is a balancing exercise that will correct all imbalances all
currently active imbalances in a particular category of imbalance
(electromagnetic, reactive muscles, over and under energy muscles,
structure) without the need to muscle test to determine specific balancing
procedures.

The first basic balance that we discovered we called the "Five Finger Quick
Fix" since this single, simple balancing procedure corrected so many
imbalances, the entire electromagnetics group including the brain
integration and switching in all 3 directions, so quickly and easily.

We found that this name was somewhat misleading, since it implied that this
balancing technique procedure was a "short cut" and this not as effective as
doing the balance the long way, i.e. correcting each individual imbalance in
priority order. However our experience with the Five Finger Quick Fix (now
called Brain Control Circuit balance) is that by simultaneously correcting
all the electro magnetic imbalances activated at the time the balance
procedure is performed properly, the balance is generally quite stable and
long lasting.

We are very much indebted to Rick Utt for the ideas that led to the
discovery of the Five finger Quick fix, both his idea of using Pause Lock to
put a particular "file" on-line (using the computer analogy) and his idea of
using a Pitch-role and Yaw balance for the brain control functions (that is,
a three directional balance analogous to balancing an aircraft auto pilot In
doing the five finger quick fix we open the "electromagnetics file" by using
Dr Sheldon Deal's screening test for electromagnetics, that is , placing
five fingers on the body. Then we balance the overall electromagnetics file
by activating the kidney meridian,(for right left ) the central meridian
(for up down and the governing (for front back). This is accomplished by
placing the five fingers of one hand around the navel to open the
'electromagnetic file' and to provide a neutral reference point for
balancing the three meridians and using the other hand to stimulate the
upper ends of the three directional meridians. In this way we are balancing
the entire 'electromagnetic file'. That is. All currently activated
imbalances in the electromagnetics category, with a single simple but
sophisticated procedure. Thus we can see that how by its very nature the
Five finger Quick Fix is a basic balance. (In some demonstrations, the
teachers stated that we could not rub points below the belt. This is how we
came up with putting five fingers around the navel.)Note; that if you so this balance with the palm of the hand rather than five
fingers tips over the navel,you are correcting right left, up down, and
front back switching only. Since you have not opened the entire
electromagnetic file, the balancing exercises will not balance the other
imbalances in the electromagnetic category.

After our initial success with the Five finger Quick Fix, we wondered if the
basic balance concept could be extended to other areas. We were particularly
concerned about reactive muscles since we found that reactive muscles were
the root cause of so many problems, ear and balance problems, as ell as a
large proportion of arm, shoulder, back and leg problems. Yet few people
were doing reactive muscle balancing, because it was considered 'too
difficult' and time consuming. In our experience, we were doing more
reactive muscle balancing than anything else and having great success in
clearing up stubborn problems. We wanted to find a technique that would
simplify and shorten the reactive muscle balance and would enable people to
balance themselves without muscle testing. Example: for 20 years Elizabeth
had bursitis in her shoulders and has had her share of cortisone and other
prescription drugs. She lived on codeine for 25 years. At night she could
not find a comfortable sleeping position. She could not even roll over in
bed without pain in her back, neck and shoulders, Her hands and arms were
very painful, When she got up in the morning she could hardly stand or walk.
She was in constant pain 24 hours a day. In 1979 she was diagnosed with
Arthritis and Fibromyalgai because she had very limited range of motion in
her neck, arms and legs, In 1985 she was diagnosed with a herniated lumbar
disc she went from doctor to doctor and paid her dues. Nothing seemed to be
working until she got involved with alternative health (her first encounter
with Touch for Health in 1979) and started to learn about how muscles work
and the cause of her bursitis, and her muscle pain. She had her last
cortisone shot in October 1981. In July 1982 while attending the Touch for
Health annual meeting, she had another attack of bursitis, but she was in
the right place at the right time. Before rushing off to the hospital
emergency to get another cortisone shot, she asked a Touch for health
instructor to work on her shoulder, which was very painful. Within 10
minutes she could raise her arm, and the pain went away. Being a sceptic
herself, she had to experience it before she believed it. Amazing but true.
Her whole right arm and wrist felt better. There are many causes to our
aches and pains, but the bottom line cause of these problems is what we call
"Repetitive Muscle stress" (RMS). Muscles we find are the missing link to
our ashes and pains. Muscles have to work together in groups or in pairs.
(Reactive Muscles) What the TFH instructor did was to work on relaxing the
anterior deltoid muscle which was very tight and strengthen the teres minor
muscle which was weak. This is called balancing a reactive Muscle
combination. Her interpretation of what Bursitis is that muscles in the
upper arm get so tight that they place pressure on the Bursa, and the Bursa
gets inflamed. "Muscles pull bones, bones do not pull muscles". Relaxing the
tight muscles will in turn release the pressure on the Bursa, and the pain
goes away . simple, but effective, once you understand which muscles to work
with. Now we have Self help basic Balance which takes the guess work out of
having to know which muscles to work with. Elizabeth kept saying there has
to be an easier way to do reactive muscles, although we helped many people.
Living in the motor home we stayed at the fountain of Youth RV Park in
Nyland CA., where they have lots of mineral hot pools which are supposed to
be good for arthritis. As long as she was in the pool Elizabeth was free of
pain. When she went to get out of the pool, every muscle froze up. She was
in total pain and literally had to crawl back up to where the motor home was
parked. She yelled at Hap to get the massage table to help her. By this time
she was unable to raise her arm. hap started his regular regime asking the
body what to do but Elizabeth was in too much pain to be muscle tested. At
this point Elizabeth put five fingers around her navel and started massaging
whilst she placed her other hand on her forehead. She started to feel
better. This led to the Reactive Muscle Basic Balance. Now we were finally
had something that Elizabeth could do for herself. They also wondered if the
basic muscle balances would work on people who did not know anything about
energy. Testing all their balances out on lay people and getting excellent
results led them to write their book "Self help for Stress and Pain plus Learning Blocks."

Another important feature of basic balances is that they always drive from
the body-mind toward equilibrium (or balance) so a person cannot harm
themselves by doing these balancing exercises. Thus it is not necessary to
muscle test to see if a a basic balance exercise is indicated. Just do the
exercise, if you feel it may be helpful: it generally takes just a few
seconds in any case. This makes basic balancing exercise programme
appropriate for self help and for people who are not confident about muscle
testing or don't want to take classes.