What is it?

Zero Balancing helps direct a person towards wholeness. It’s a powerful body-mind therapy that uses skilled touch to address the relationship between energy and structures of the body. Following a simple protocol, the practitioner uses finger pressure and gentle traction on areas of tension in the bones, joints and soft tissue to create fulcrums, or points of balance, around which the body can relax and reorganize.

Zero Balancing focuses primarily on key joints of our skeleton that conduct and balance forces of gravity, posture and movement. By addressing the deepest and densest tissues of the body along with soft tissue and energy fields, Zero Balancing helps to clear blocks in the body’s energy flow, amplify vitality and contribute to better postural alignment. A Zero Balancing session leaves you with a wonderful feeling of inner harmony and organization.

How can Zero Balancing help you?

Zero Balancing can help relieve body aches and pain, release restrictions in movement, and provide lasting relief from emotional distress to improve overall quality of life. Zero Balancing can also be helpful with specific goals such as relief from back pain, improving concentration or sleep, releasing unwanted stress, eliminating old behavior patterns, or boosting well-being. Zero Balancing works in conjunction with medical therapy and is not a substitute for it.

Distance Zero Balancing

What will it feel like? You may feel some sensations or not, it will depend on the session. The goal is that you relax and go into a healing state.

What is a “healing state”? A healing state is that state where you are bobbing in and out of sleep and wakefulness, that floaty space where time becomes relative. Your breath slows, your stomach gurgles, you twitch. ‘You’ disappear for a little while and your body goes into repair mode. It is also known as ‘shuniya’ or ‘the zone’ = a deep meditative state.

What does a session look like? We’ll connect by phone, using the speaker. You can decide what you’d like to work on before the session so that you have a clear ‘frame’ for what we will be doing. We can work on any level = physical, mental, emotional. We will discuss your ‘frame’ for about the first 5-15 minutes, or as long as needed to set the therapeutic space. During the session, it is good for you to be in a comfortable position in a quiet environment. I will keep track of the time and let you know when we’re done.

What will I be doing? My focus will be on you. I will be meditating, mentally performing a protocol Zero Balancing session. I will also be listening and assessing what you can do at home to maintain yourself after treatment, including either physical exercise, breath exercises, meditation, or dietary & herbal suggestions.

How will I feel after a session? Under normal circumstances, you will feel calmer, clearer and more resilient. It is a little different for everyone and will depend somewhat on your frame for the session.

Interested in Becoming a Zero Balancer?

Jennifer’s current teaching schedule * all classes offered in Champaign-Urbana unless otherwise specified. If you live in the vicinity and would like a Zero Balancing class to come to you – please contact jenniferisgraceful at gmail.

Origins of Zero Balancing

Zero Balancing was developed in the early 1970s by Fritz Frederick Smith, MD, a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. A doctor of both osteopathy and medicine, Dr. Smith has always been fascinated by the healing power of touch. During the late 1960s, Dr. Smith studied at Esalen Institute in Northern California with many of the forerunners of the body-mind therapy movement, and became a certified Rolfer®. There he met J.R. Worsley, founder of the College of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture in England, whose demonstrations “cracked” Dr. Smith’s beliefs in the purely Western medical model. During this period he also began to explore yoga, meditation, spiritual teachings in India, Eastern energy medicine, and quantum physics. Soon after, Dr. Smith traveled to the UK to study with J.R. Worsley and became a licensed acupuncturist in 1972, earning both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in acupuncture, and becoming a fellow in the Chinese College of Acupuncture.

Dr. Smith’s keen observations of, and experiences with, both anatomy and energy as a force in the body led him to develop the manual therapy system of Zero Balancing. In Zero Balancing both energy and structure are engaged simultaneously through skilled touch to bring about profound healing and amplified wellness. The name came about when someone receiving his work described the experience as being brought back into balance, “like I was Zero Balanced.”

Dr. Smith has been practicing and teaching Zero Balancing throughout the world for more than 35 years. He’s the author of many articles and two books, Inner Bridges: A Guide to Energy Movement and Body Structure and Alchemy of Touch: Moving Towards Mastery Through the Lens of Zero Balancing.

Jennifer became a certified Zero Balancer in 2008 and Faculty in 2012. She currently teaches ZB 1, ZB 2, Freely Moveable Joints, Alchemy of Touch & Geometry of Healing in Champaign-Urbana, IL and beyond. If you are interested in a Zero Balancing class coming to your town, please contact jenniferisgraceful at gmail.