The bones of contention

The gentle touch ... Anita Robertson (left) and Lyn Francis at work
in their clinic. 
Photo: Sahlan Hayes

The gentle touch ... Anita Robertson (left) and Lyn Francis at work in their clinic.
Photo: Sahlan Hayes

Deb Richards
August 24, 2006

Kinesiology looks beyond skeletal structure to the muscles that support the bones.

Anita Robertson and Lyn Francis say there's a touch of "magic" involved in the kinesiology they practise.

"We genuinely change the blocks people have that stop them achieving what they want to do," Francis says. Through a process known as "muscle testing", these applied kinesiologists say they unlock the body's secret store of information.

"The magic is when we address the original problem that the body has presented," Robertson explains.

Twenty years ago, Robertson was a disillusioned schoolteacher, frustrated with an education system that seemed more about controlling behaviour than genuinely engaging students in their education.

She followed a suggestion by her chiropractor that she learn more about kinesiology and enrolled in a 60-hour course. She liked what she learnt and eventually became an instructor. It was the beginning of new direction in her life.

Francis followed a similar course. She was a trained minister of religion who worked as a crisis counsellor. "For nine years I'd visited homes where people were hurt and bleeding. I was supporting people in various forms of trouble: the sick and disabled, some who were in and out of mental institutions and jail. I began to ask how I could help change what was happening in their lives."

Francis was seeing the same chiropractor as Robertson and received the same advice: kinesiology may hold the key to tackling the root problems that were troubling people. Francis was convinced.

Together the two have spent the past two decades developing and expanding their training and knowledge of the discipline. "We are trained in basically all the kinesiology areas and have been taught by some of the world's leading exponents," Robertson says from their home-based clinic in the Southern Highlands.

Applied kinesiology is distinct from the more scientifically based study of movement, known as kinesiology. It's a form of therapy developed by US chiropractor George Goodheart in the 1960s, when he began to focus not just on skeletal structure but also on the hundreds of muscles that support the bones. He taught that muscles and organs are linked by the same energy paths pinpointed by acupuncturists.

Clients in Francis and Robertson's clinic lie on a padded table, muscles are pressed and resistance to the pressure is checked. "We're not testing the strength of the muscle, we're checking its energy flow," Francis explains.

"When a muscle is monitored it reveals the levels of stress in the body. It can be from emotional, physical or psychological causes, but if the energy's not balanced it will show it is stressed."

Robertson adds: "The body knows what you're doing - it almost says, 'Ah, they are working on the thing I've been fighting'. The body goes back to where it was when the original trauma occurred."

She cites an example. "Say someone was repeatedly slapped in the face as a child by parents saying, 'Don't do that'- Slap! Then the body takes them into a place of escape. The adrenals start pumping and send the message; 'You've got to get out of here'. When we take them back, they feel it, and they know it."

Robertson says a trauma of that sort can be eased by healing corrections.

Francis and Robertson admit there are many health professionals who view their work with scepticism. "There's a lot of poo-pooing," Francis says. "But there's a perfectly sound physiological explanation on which it's all based. These people need to open their minds to a different approach to the things they already know."

