For myself I have practiced front only , front/back and just resting hands on myself.
I have found in the end that using front and back as per proper technique gives the best results. Others may have experienced something different.
That being said , most of the time i only get to lay my hands on myself and just let the reiki flow. But that's a time thing and a lack of effort on my part to make the time. I vote some Reiki is better than none but were I to offer Reiki professionally or offer someone the experience of a Reiki treatment I would do a full proper treatment as best as I know how.
When i teach I will teach the most traditional ways i know of. I feel as a teacher it is my duty to pass on this art in the truest form to the best of my abilities. Not share my cheat sheet so to speak. Or to teach MY personal universal and Reiki views. I am passing on a pre-existing method. If folks want to experiemnt then they are free to do so.
Now the reason i came to the conclusion that front and back is best is because I had a huge blockage in my third eye. I could never seem to get the area clear. This went on for like a year or so if i remember correctly. I could rest my hands in the third eye position or something more comfortable over the same area for an hour and not feel it completed. I couldn't understand this because i was used to having the same effect no matter how i did it as long as long as i put enough time into it. I decided to go back to doing a full treatment with all the positions to see if there was a difference since i had more experience and had been working with the energy almost daily. And to my surprise once I had hit the position on the back of the heaad i noticed it was still gooky to me even though i used reiki for various lengths of time almost every day. As soon as i got that spot cleared which was actually rather quickly i intuitively felt guided back to my third eye and found that the area cleared up no sweat.
Now if i feel the third eye is being bothersome again i can do the same little trick and find that it always helps.
The energy system can have blockages all through it that prevent the energy from flowing properly. We all know this as Reiki practitioners it's part of what we seek to eliminate to the best of our ability during treatments. To unclog the pipes and remove or transmute the less pure energies in the body. So what i gathered from my experience was that this theory on Reiki flowing where it wasx needed was for my person..bullshit. I had very clearly experienced otherwise. Though many will swear that just laying on hands is enough and that the positions are an unneccessary complication or something that can be outgrown. For me at least i know this simply isn't the case ( and for the record noone has to agreee).
My view is that when we use the hand positions we are going to all those areas of the energy system that may be blocked/congested. We are sure to get the Reiki everywhere. those blocks now have energy moving from both sides of them which i assume ( though i can't speak factually other than my anecdotal evidence) will then move in on these blockages from both sides helping to elimnate them faster.
Many have also experienced when we send Reiki directly to a block this helps eliminate the block quicker for obvious reasons.
That isn't to say the same thing can't be accomplished by only doing one side or the other. But in my experience this can take drastically longer to improve the condition of my body's energy systems.
