Hand Positions for Reiki: Everything You Always Wanted To Know But Didn't Dare Ask

 

Hand positions are the foundation of the Reiki One class.

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Traditional teachers

• give Reiki classes over two days
• follow their own routine

Classes generally comprise:

• attunement
• teach a section of the hand positions
• practice
• swap treatments
• feedback
• rinse and repeat

The Hand Positions Protocol Gives Every Student a Common Starting Place For Their Reiki Practice

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When a student comes to Reiki they often have so little knowledge of it they don't even know what questions to ask. Approaching the teaching and learning of Reiki from the point of view of "hands on: Reiki on; hands off: Reiki off" with practice allows the student to experience for themselves that Reiki flows, giving them confidence and motivation.

Protocol is Recognisable

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Reiki people get together to share Reiki. They share Reiki with the basic hand positions which everyone is taught at Reiki 1. Got Reiki foundation treatment, will travel... and be welcome at every Reiki share.

Kinda. There is some "debate" about hand positions, so what sensible organisers do is a quick run through of "hand positions we will be using during this share" at the beginning. No negotiation.

On the other hand, one of the easiest ways to spot someone who has had only a "distance attunement" - if they haven't already volunteered the information - is when they don't have a hand position routine. Just sayin'.

Basis of Reiki Scanning

• The hand positions are the basis of Reiki scanning.
• Experience is gained through practicing treatments with the basic hand positions.
• We learn to recognise the feedback from Reiki through Byosen - Reiki's communication mechanism
• Interpreting Byosen takes practice.

Reassuring to Clients

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The Reiki hand positions routine is reassuring to clients

• They recognise it
• Clients come with expectations
• When expectations are not met, clients go elsewhere
• Generally without saying anything

Whole Body Treatment

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The positions are designed to cover all the major organs of the body and, in the longer versions, the main joints too.

People store emotions in their bodies - it's even in the language: "a pain in the neck"; "giving the cold shoulder"; "carrying a heavy burden"; feeling "liverish"; "venting the spleen"; "vomiting bile"; "gut feelings"... this is not an exhaustive list.

The emerging science of Epigenetics suggests

• Every emotion is represented in the body by a type of chemical called a peptide
• Cell walls have receptors for these peptides
• Experience an emotion often enough and the cell walls start producing more and more of the relevant receptors to give the peptides an anchor point
• Great if you're happy all the time.
• Most of us feel angry, sad, afraid or grief stricken from time to time
• "Letting go old baggage" may mean physically letting go of the peptides and cell receptors representing negative emotions in the body.

You can find more information about Epigenetics in Dr Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief.

A Reiki treatment - or a course of them - helps us "change the channel" in our bodies. Giving a full body treatment using all the hand positions supports the healthy parts of the entire system, while harmonising the unbalanced parts - the parts with all those peptides with their cell receptors causing the problem.

Reiki and Meridians

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It is my belief that Reiki uses the Meridian system to go where it's needed. So much more useful to give an entire whole body treatment that accesses all the meridian points, rather than just guessing where to put the hands to have the most beneficial effect. The full hand position routine gives enough feedback, so that were a little more Reiki is needed in a particular place, the practitioner can stay there longer.

Reiki and Chakras

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Some people prefer to talk about Chakras, although that is not part of Japanese culture. But still, the full Reiki hand positions routine covers all the Chakras, too, using that energy system to convey the Reiki where it needs to be. Best to cover all the bases, rather than just a few.

Takata

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Think about this too: Takata encouraged her students to spend at least half of their time during a treatment Reiki-ing the abdomen area - the area of the body responsible for absorbing nutrients. When this area is working properly, the body is much better able to heal itself. If the presenting issue isn't in that area, simply Reiki-ing the area with the presenting issue means we aren't helping our clients as much as we could.

We Are More Than Just Our Bodies

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However, we experience the world and other people through our bodies. Therefore the Reiki hand positions, designed to treat the whole body, really are the Foundation Reiki treatment.