HOW I FIRST MET FRITZ SMITH

`        “I need a medical doctor, who also knows Chinese medicine, understands the inextricable connection between body, mind and spirit and who will listen to someone who isn’t a medical doctor. Now where on this earth could I find that person,” I said to my psychologist colleague who also served on my Ph.D. committee. We needed one more member of that committee and I felt stymied.

         “Oh,” he said, “I know him. He has a medical practice in the next town. Do you want me to ask him?”

         “Absolutely,” I said and felt that I had been given a divine gift (little did I know at the time how true that was!)

         That doctor was Fritz Smith, M.D. licensed acupuncturist, certified Rolfed, and trained hypnotist. How could I have found anyone more suitable for my purposes? The answer is, I couldn’t, but God could, who had always been my primary guide in the formulation of my work.

         So my colleague asked Fritz and he said yes and we drove to his home one afternoon, where we found him watering his yard. He met us at the car. “Let’s have this meeting in the hot tub,” he said, whereupon I started freaking out so strongly inside that I didn’t see how I could manage any kind of meeting. I had never been in a hot tub. I was married to a psychotic who might have killed if he found out I had been in a hot tub with two naked men.

         When I tell this story to interested students I ham it up about how I got into the hot tub, etc., but here let me say that it was a terrifying process. It completely obliterated anything about the conversation. I found out from my colleague later that Fritz had agreed to serve on my committee.

Studying Zero Balancing

         So began a long long winding journey between Fritz and me that meandered through the territory of Chinese medicine, contemporary medicine and psychology, academia, spirituality, two personal histories psychologies, Zero Balancing, classes or events in California, Mexico, Europe and India, and of course three books. As I reflect on that journey now I am still awestruck by the many progressions and multi-dimensions of it. What a fascinating and rich life we created over the last thirty-five years.

         Yes, in 1977 I took my first Zero Balancing class from Fritz in his Watsonville medical.

         Although I was already settled on acupressure for the body modality for my work, I felt that I needed to study Zero Balancing with Fritz out of respect and appreciation for his service to my committee.

         Two impressions from that class over-shadow everything else. When Fritz came into the room and stood before the podium I felt a shiver/shock run through my whole body. The thought was, WHO is this man? I know him.  The other impression was when the door opened at the back of the room and I saw Fritz face light up as if the President himself had entered. “Hi Daddy,” he said, “Please come in.” And in walked this beautiful old man, with the respectful attitude and manner of a student toward his elder.

         The final effect of that class, mostly attended by doctors and acupuncturists, with whom I felt intimidated, was that I was hooked on Zero Balancing. So started a study for the next 25 years, during which I attended the first Zero Balancing teacher training, assisted Fritz probably hundreds of times, created and co-taught with him, in Switzerland, Mexico and India and sat on the Zero Balancing Board for ten years.

Strange Energetic Happenings

         After a number of classes as his student, Fritz asked me to assist him at Esalen Institute. I was shocked, honored and afraid I wouldn’t do a good job. I took my then-boyfriend with me. After the first day the boyfriend said, “Dear, if Fritz weren’t married you two would be a perfect couple, wouldn’t you?”  In that, and many subsequent classes, strange energetic signs kept happening, which went unnoticed by most everyone except Fritz, my process partner and me. For example, in that very class Fritz went around the room demonstrating interface touch by taking a hand of each student. When he took my hand it was as if I floated off into a far-away dimension where time and space had no meaning. This experience happened in seconds but it seemed like hours. I was changed from it. Several years later I mentioned that happening to Fritz. It turns out that he had felt a similar experience. One night during teacher training in Mexico he gave each of us a half-moon vector to the legs at the end of class. When I got up from the table I was in a very altered state, like an enlightened space where I knew many things all at once. I walked out into the campo, reveling in that space, asking questions, allowing joy into my body. At another Esalen class a similar experience happened to a classmate of mine. Fritz gave her a half-moon to the legs. Afterward she was obviously in a very altered state. He told me to stay with her until that state finished. She and I walked around the grounds of Esalen until about 3 am when she finally said she felt she could sleep. During all that time she told a running commentary of insights and revelations that were decidedly extra-sensory. It was a fascinating experience for both of us. I have observed many such experiences in Zero Balancing students. And collectively, as we have studied together through the years, I have watched the group mature and expand in consciousness.

AMINAH RAHEEM