FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is Energy Kinesiology?

What does an Energy Kinesiology session entail?

What is the Maryland Kinesiology & Wellness Institute?

Who provides services and teaches at the Maryland Kinesiology & Wellness Institute?

What is Kinesiology?

What is Balancing?

Energy Kinesiology and What We Do

What is Touch For Health®?

Is Energy Kinesiology Safe?

Is Energy Kinesiology a Form of Medical Treatment?

What is “Balancing” or “a Balance”?

What are Meridians?

Can I Self-Test?

What is the Difference Between Touch For Health®, Therapeutic Touch, and Healing Touch?

What About Other “K’s”—other Kinesiology Systems?

What Happens in A Touch For Health® Balance?

What Kinds of Health Challenges Can Energy Kinesiology Be Effective With?




What is Energy Kinesiology?
The philosophy, science, and art of muscle checking to "read" the body's energetic imprint in order to tell what the body needs to achieve and maintain a state of balance.

What does an Energy Kinesiology session entail?
Each session depends on the modality being used. All Energy sessions are performed fully clothed (excluding Raindrop Technique. The partnership of Client and Practicioner working together, use muscle monitoring as a bio-feedback tool to assess stress or imbalance in the body. A wide range of muscles may be used. (These are all taught in the Touch For Health® Five Seminar Series here at the Maryland Kinesiology and Wellness Institute) Once the imbalance has been identified, a large variety of modalities may be used to bring about balance.

What is the Maryland Kinesiology & Wellness Institute?
The Maryland Kinesiology & Wellness Institute is a unique healing and educational environment in Baltimore, Maryland. Classes are held at the institute to teach students about Touch For Health®, Brain Gym®, and other modalities that are provided as services to clients of the institute.

Who provides services and teaches at the Maryland Kinesiology & Wellness Institute?
In addition to Karen Beleck, visiting practitioners and other guest teachers hold classes at the MDKWI.

What is Kinesiology?
Kinesiology comes from the Greek word kinesis which means motion. In the medical sciences, kinesiology is the study of muscles and the movement of the body. Touch For Health®, Brain Gym, Energy Kinesiology, and other programs we offer use energy kinesiology to refer to muscle testing, which is a form of biofeedback. Using muscle testing and energy kinesiology can help reduce stress and pain, improve performance at school, work and sports, enhance relationships and promote health and well-being.

The ICPKP—International College of Professional Kinesiology Practitioners—defines Kinesiology on their ICPKP website as follows: “Kinesiology is a communication tool that enables a person to assess and upgrade their performance in all areas. Kinesiology is the science of energy balancing and is grounded in the study of anatomy and physiology. Kinesiology uses muscles as monitors of stress and imbalance within the body. Kinesiology enables people to detect and correct various imbalances that may relate to stress, nutrition, learning problems, minor injuries and other issues they meet in their daily life.”

What is Balancing?
Balancing is the term that we refer to when a person has a Touch For Health® (TFH) or a Brain Gym session. There is no such thing as a TFH treatment. What we are doing is balancing the body’s energies to release blockages in the energy pathways known as meridians. Meridians are the specific pathways that carry the electromagnetic energy that surround and innervate the body. They are named after common organs as there is a relationship between meridians and specific organs functions.

Meridians were first discovered in the acupuncture system approximately 5,000 years ago by the Chinese and have been mapped thermographically, electronically, and radioactively by modern technological methods. In a balance we use touch and energy reflexes, not needles, while working with the acupuncture meridian system.

The Theory of Balancing:

When a person is under stress (physically, mentally, emotionally, biochemically, electromagnetically, etc.) then the body’s meridian system can go out of balance. What this means is that the normally fluid flow of energy between the various meridians develop areas of congestion (excess) and depletion (deficiency). This will show up immediately upon manual muscle testing due to the relationship of specific muscles to meridians. Over time the person will notice symptoms that may manifest in their energy level, posture, performance, physical and emotional states, with long term imbalances affecting the organ functions themselves. Essentially stress and subsequent imbalances in the meridian system have the effect to impede the body’s innate healing abiligy. The balancing work is done in the context of setting goals. We identify how the person wants to feel ‘different’ and put that into a positive goal. When a person is in a ‘balanced session’ the areas of imbalance are identified through specific muscle testing and corrected by any number of simple reflex techniques. These techniques may include light touch , gentle massage, tracing a meridian, specific movement, breathing techniques, the use of color or sound, an affirmation, just to name of few corrective modalities. Once energy imbalances and the body’s reactive responses have been relieved, the person can function to their true potential—more fully on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.

Energy Kinesiology and What We Do:
The basis for energy kinesiology is the science of muscle testing. Muscle testing is a form of biofeedback. To perform muscle testing a particular muscle is held in its contracted state. Then slow, gentle, steady pressure is used to move the muscle towards its normal range of motion. If the muscle easily holds or “locks” it is considered to be giving a positive feedback response. In Energy Kinesiology we use muscle testing to determine the body’s response to many different types of stress that a person is dealing with, and which ones they are successfully handling. Muscle testing also allows us to identify ways to enhance or upgrade our response to stress. These can include stress responses to physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our lives.

Muscle testing is both an art and a science. The techniques of how to achieve consistent, accurate muscle tests are learned best in a hands-on class. And like many other learned skills, the ‘art’ of muscle testing takes practice to master.

Touch For Health® (TFH) is probably the simplest and easiest system of Energy Kinesiology. Developed by Dr. John Thie, TFH was intended for lay people to have a simple, powerful tool to help themselves, their families and friends. The basis of Touch For Health® Kinesiology is balancing the acupuncture energy system. This is done without using needles or the traditional Chinese acupuncturist’s assessment called “reading the pulses”. TFH uses muscle testing to determine which meridians (or subtle energy pathways) are under energize.

When a meridian is found to be ‘under energy’ a number of different energy reflexes can be activated to restore the proper balance. These include:

• Neurolymphatic points—(Chapman reflexes) small specific reflexes on the
  body that are briefly rubbed (this can be done either by the person on their own
  reflex points, or by someone else rubbing them).
• Neurovascular points—(Bennett reflexes) specific places, mostly on the head,
  that are held very lightly without movement (this can also be done on oneself,
  or by having another person hold them).
• Acupuncture holding points are specific acupuncture points which are gently held in combinations, without pressure or movement, to transfer energy.
• Meridian stroking—the energy is 1-2 inches above the body and is “stroked”
  following the meridian pathways.
• Bilateral reflexes (Thie reflexes) specific spots on top of the spine that are
  rubbed slightly to stretch the skin.
• Nutrition and other interventions can also restore balance to the meridians.

Touch For Health® also recognizes that each thought we hold impacts our energy system. In TFH we do ‘balances’ rather than treatments. When a balance is done with a goal in mind, it can reshape the energetic pattern we hold in relation to that goal. Balancing releases the “reactive” pattern associated with the stress and allows our inner resources to deal more successfully with issues in our lives.

What is Touch For Health®?
Touch For Health® (TFH) is a natural approach to health care that integrates eastern principles of acupuncture theory with western techniques. Touch For Health® was developed with the lay person in mind. TFH teaches a simple way to balance the acupuncture meridians without the needles. By balancing the acupuncture meridians your system has more resources available to deal with physical, emotional and mental stress.

Is Energy Kinesiology Safe?
The techniques are safe, and easy to learn.

Is Energy Kinesiology a Form of Medical Treatment?
No. These techniques are taught with the intention of balancing a person’s energies in relation to their goal. We do not diagnose, treat, or work with named diseases. Energy Kinesiology works with enhancing the body’s innate healing capabilities. For any potential medical problem we recommend seeing a licensed doctor.

What is “Balancing” or “a Balance”?
Balancing is the term that we refer to when a person has a Touch For Health® (TFH) or a BrainGym session. We ‘balance’ to release the blockages in the body’s energetic pattern. Often this is to release congestions of energy in the acupuncture pathways known as meridians.

What are Meridians?
Meridians are the specific pathways that carry the electromagnetic energy that surround and innervate the body. Most of the meridians were named after body organs. Often there is a relationship between the meridians and specific organ functions. Meridians were first discovered in the acupuncture system approximately 5,000 years ago by the Chinese and have been mapped thermatically, electronically and radioactively by modern technological methods. In a Balance we work with the acupuncture meridian sysem without needles, just using touch and energy reflexes.

Can I Self-Test?
Muscle testing is a science and an art. Doing it well on others takes training and practice. Doing it on yourself is even more demanding. Clear muscle testing requires a neutral and unbiased intention by the practitioner. This is not as easy when testing yourself. There are some people who do self-testing and claim to get useful results. TFH does not teach or encourage self-testing.

What is the Difference Between Touch For Health®, Therapeutic Touch, and Healing Touch?
Touch For Health® is an Energy Kinesiology and uses muscle testing for accessing information, a form of bio-feedback. Healing Touch and Therapeutic Touch train people to sense differences in another persons energy body or aura. Then the energy body is worked on to normalize the field. In Touch For Health® people can balance for goals in their life and physical, emotional, mental and spiritual issues.

What About Other “K’s”—other Kinesiology Systems?
The first “K” was Applied Kinesiology (AK). It was developed by Dr. George Goodheart, DC, a chiropractor from Detroit. In the early 70’s Dr. Goodheart began teaching his new technique to other doctors. One of his first students was Dr. John Thie, DC a chiropractor from Pasedena, CA. Dr. Thie took what he considered were simple, non-medical techniques from AK and created Touch For Health®. Today AK is still taught almost exclusively to doctors. TFH is a program for lay people and professionals taught in over 50 countries around the world.

Many people who studied TFH explored various ways to extend the use of this biofeedback skill. Systems were developed focusing on education, emotional clearing, brain/mind functioning, spiritual work, and other creative approaches to life. A number of new kinesiology systems, or “K’s” have been created. Brain Gym is the educational focus of one of these “new” systems of energy kinesiology, which was developed by Paul Dennison, PhD.

What Happens in A Touch For Health® Balance?
The balancing work in TFH is done in the context of setting goals. We identify how the person wants to feel different, and put that into a positive goal. When a person is “getting a balance” the areas of energetic imbalance in the acupuncture meridian system are identified through specific muscle testing. Then the meridian system is re-balanced using a number of simple reflex techniques. These techniques may include light touch, gentle massage, tracing a meridian or specific movements. Once energy imbalances and reactive responses that the body has adapted to be able to cope with stress have been relieved, the person can function to their true potential—more fully on the physically, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.