Kinesiology... what the heck IS it?

We began a little foray into kinesiology today. The new doctor recommended a guy who happens to practice pretty locally one day a week, so we went off to see him.

"Do you know much about this?" he asked me. 

I shook my head. "Nup. Just that the doctor said to come," I said.

He had a little chuckle and then explained it. 

"Neuro-nerves-connections-fascia-way the body works-brain-balance-all up here-if this doesn't work that won't- neural electricity-blah blah blah," he said.

"Oh," I nodded, trying to look clever, but completely none the wiser.

So Bright Eyes hopped up on the table and the guy did a series of taps, fidgets and 'muscle tests' on him. He'd tell Bright Eyes to push against his arm, and show how strong he was, which he did perfectly well. Then he'd change nothing except touch his tummy or shoulder or something and tell him to push against his arm again... and he couldn't! It was seriously extraordinary.

In one of them, he tested him, then got him to look at a coloured piece of paper and tested him again. While he was looking at the colours, he had absolutely no strength. 

"His brain is jumbling colours - he obviously is not processing them well enough," he said. He tried it again with a piece of paper with black writing on it. Same result.

"Oh, there you go. He's not processing that properly either," he said. Then tap, tap, tap, and all of a sudden the muscle tests had a completely different result.

After focusing on his eyes for a while, and showing me clearly that when Bright Eyes tracks objects with his eyes, he has to use his whole head, with some tap tap taps, all of a sudden Bright Eyes was able to move his eyes right around so he could look out of the corners of them. He sat up and looked at me. 

"Mum, I can move my eyes like Diesel does! Everyone else can do that but I can't. Now I can."

I have no idea what to think about all of this. What happened? How does it work? I'm going to have to do a little research. In the meantime, I'm like a child with a new toy, getting Bright Eyes to look up and around at things with his newly adjusted eyes, just for fun! 

Oh, and we'll be going back next week...