After more than 30 years of study, I have grown deeper in my certainty that taking care of one’s feet and learning how to plant them firmly on the ground (even if one is on one’s toes or resting on the top of one’s feet) is is essential to yoga — and life. Practicing Ayurvedic foot massage can help us take good care of our feet.
Ayurvedic Foot Massage
Although some western authorities would like to boast of having “discovered” reflexology, rubbing and anointing one’s feet for health purposes has been around for millennia and the points that are identified as reflexology points in the west are, in fact, marma (vital energy points) in the Ayurvedic tradition. Daily foot massage can improve your health and vitality – and give you a yogi’s feet when you do your asana practice.
As you practice, keep in mind that our feet receive energy from the earth (predominantly through the left foot) and transmit our will and intention to act upon the earth (primarily through our right foot). Thus always start with the right foot with the various procedures in daily foot health practices.
The logic is simple: If you stimulate and facilitate energy moving through and out the right foot, this helps to provide the space for more energy to come into the body from the left foot. If you practice foot reflexology, this is an indispensible guideline which will help your client derive greater benefit.
Here is a simple exercise and massage sequence that you can do to get grounded, and establish your yogi feet for the day.
Breath and Ayurvedic Foot Massage
Start Your Day On A Good Foot
To begin with, Master Harish Johari notes that when we awake, we often find that we are breathing more strongly from the right or left nostril. To honor what side of our nature (lunar or solar) is being activated first to meet the day, he suggests that we study the palm of the side with which we are most strongly breathing, kiss the palm (Talhridayam or heart of the appendage marma) of that hand, touch each of the tips of the fingers of that hand with the same side thumb, then step onto the ground with the foot on that same side.
This sacred practice is to ward off and make us more resilient to negativity that might arise for the day. My experience of this simple practice is that it means you are reverently meeting the day with the strength that you will need for the tasks of that day.
Now that you have started the day on your best footing, along with doing your normal morning ablution ritual, get a loofa, nail brush, or well-textured wash cloth, turn on the cold tap, and scrub your feet in cold water, rubbing them vigorously, top and bottom, then pat dry. This is a great way to start the day fresh. It can be a substitute for or a prelude to (if you have the opportunity) going outside and walking around for a minute or two in dewy grass.
Practice Increase Prana with Ayurvedic Foot Massage
Feel alive from your feet up, just as you stretch out your arms to yawn and increase prana (life-force) and blood flow into your lungs and upper body, stretch out the toes. The following procedure for foot massage using a tennis (or even better, a therapeutic) ball was taught to me by a yoga teacher (thank-you, Sigrid). This simple foot yoga addresses the entire skeletal structure of the body as reflected in the feet.
- Place the ball underneath the heel of your right foot. Observe the following sequence.
- Press down on it and roll it over the entire surface of your heel – the earth element aspect of both feet. Then step on the ball, and standing as straight as you can, breathe down into your belly. Feel the connection between your second or sacral chakra (Svadhisthana) and both of your feet. One hip will naturally be higher than the other. (Don’t worry. We’ll make you even later on.) After about 30 seconds release the ball.
- Roll the ball into the arch of the foot—which can be a bit intense. This is related to the water and fire aspects of the foot and the area reflexively of all the abdominal organs. Press down and hold for 30 seconds, breathing deeply. Then roll the ball around the ball of your foot – the air element (also, reflexively related to the lungs). Follow the procedure listed in steps 1 and 2.
- Now roll the ball as best you can around your toes – the space element which is reflexively related to the head, the sinuses and the brain. Clench the ball as best you can with your toes and hold as before.
- Release the ball from under the right foot and stand for a moment, observing how one side of your body feels compared to the other. Then repeat steps 1 through 4 on the left foot.
Yoga Practices to Support Foot Massage
Finally, to help this energy move up the body from the feet, loosen the ankles. Flexibility in the wrists and ankles is important in maintaining the proper circulation of prana. One method to do this is to sit in a modified virasana (hero’s pose) with your legs tucked beneath you, your buttocks on your calves and the tops of your feet on the floor. (Use props beneath your buttocks or a rolled-up blanket beneath your knees if you need modifications).
Take a deep inhalation and lift your body off of your calves and curl your toes under so that the bottoms of the toes are on the ground and again sit back and exhale, stretching the entire bottom of your foot. Then inhale, come up again and lower your feet back down as they were at the beginning of this exercise (top of feet on the ground). Repeat this 21 times.
By following these simple exercises and massage tips daily, when you begin standing on the earth to practice standing poses or just move about on your feet during the day, the energy from your feet and all that they reflexively represent will course through your body and mind. You will be grounded and ready regardless of whether you need to tread lightly, stand firm or put your foot down.
MELANIE SACHS has worked steadily over the last 25 years pioneering the integrating of Tibetan and Indian Ayurvedic wellness techniques into the spa and beauty industry. She is the author of Ayurvedic Beauty Care and coauthor of Ayurvedic Spa. Together with her husband, Robert, she runs Diamond Way Ayurveda which provides education and spa products to both the general public and spa professionals.