Rolfing® is about Core Experience
Rolfing® is about Core Experience
Stated most simply, the goal of Rolfing® is to enable one to move and balance from the core of the body, from the center line of gravity. This has both physical and experiential (psychological, spiritual) aspects which we can discuss separately.
It deserves attention that Ida Rolf, the originator of Rolfing®, was a scientist, a biochemist, who, though she moved far away from her field, never lost her clear attention to physical reality. Both the force of gravity acting upon every body and the fascial tissues she worked to reorganize are real in the scientific sense. At the same time, she understood that the body is the form of our awareness, the lens through which consciousness experiences life, and this “experiential” aspect was never far from her mind.
The Body as a Physical Object in Gravity
The first principle of Rolfing® is that the body must relate continually to the physical force of gravity. The various segments of the body must be more or less aligned one on top of the other, or else the external muscles begin to labor to maintain the upright posture. Pelvis, abdomen, chest and head balance easily when their centers of gravity are in a line, so that the upright balance can come from deep muscles which operate by reflex to relate the body to gravity.
Fascia Shapes the Body
People are ordinarily not aligned in this way, however. The easy relationship to gravity can be disorganized by many factors, including accidents, misguided habits, and deep attitudes of various kinds. Fascia is the all-pervasive webwork of connective tissue which holds the body in its shape. As we struggle to move in a gravity field, the fascial webwork adapts to support our movement, and the shape slowly changes..
Fascia can be Reorganized with Movement
Ida Rolf’s discovery was that fascia can be re-organized with correct movement–movement which is in accord with the geometry of the skeleton–and that this reorganization can be hastened by deep manipulation which holds the fascial tissues in place while the client moves. Her maxim:
“Hold tissues where they are supposed to be and induce movement.”
Through years of experience she developed a series of ten sessions which systematically reorganize the whole body, proceeding from the outside layers to the deeper ones and bringing all the major segments into an integrated system of balance. Rolfers® generally work within this ten-session framework, though they may use quite different procedures to accomplish the same goals. The overall goal is to find a sense of balance which comes from the core, unobstructed by unbalancing distortions in the myo-fascial system.
The Experiential Core
But it is an interesting fact that this core balance which we call “The Line” is closely related to the core feeling of one’s own being. When the outer layers of the body release to permit the inner layers to function, a deeper awareness opens up. “The Line” is not a physical entity, but a sense of inner space. It is no accident that those centers of feeling which Indian yoga calls “chakras” lie along the same central line of gravity.
The usual sense we have of ourselves and the world is based on characteristic patterns of tension. When we release these tensions and rely on the expansional balance of the core, The Line, we move the center of our experiencing into the core as well.
Now, in the most radical terms, the effect of the ten sessions could be a major re-experiencing of one’s Being: a dramatic change of consciousness. Thought patterns based upon one’s contracted ego, would release and be replaced by a different viewpoint. Ida Rolf spoke of “turning people out” by which she meant they are brought into the core so that they exist and relate out into the world from there.
The poet, William Blake seems to be talking about the same thing in this famous quotation:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” [Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793]
Blake was criticizing the viewpoint of scientific materialism which takes the external world seriously as independent and “out there”. It causes us to forget that our experience of the external world is created by the mind, or as Blake would have it, the imagination. Your experience of anything is organized by your habits of perception. It is not in itself. It is not objective in the sense we have been trained to believe it is.
To experience from the core is to take responsibility for the extent to which we create this experience. It is to move away from an externalized “over there” kind of perception into a real continued link with our feelings, perceptions, and responses.
If you think what you’re perceiving is “out there”, you are looking out through your senses as if through chinks in the cavern wall of your dualistic perception.. If you move into a continued contact with your core experience, you are cleansing the doors of perception. Blake is talking about returning to core experience. And most mystics and really good poets have talked about the same shift.
Ida Rolf’s approach to this was to organize the fascia in a physical body in a three-dimensional gravity field. But this is not only working on a material body. This is the body as it is experienced: the phenomenological body. This body is real in an entirely different sense. It exists in the mind. If all of reality is created, in the sense of organized, by your Imagination, the image-ing faculty of your core being, then the body exists in the imagination. In fact, Blake would say the body exists in the imagination rather than the imagination existing in the body.
Releasing Traumatic Emotions and Memories
In the process of moving attention through the outer layers of the body into the core people sometimes re-experience emotions and memories which are stored there. This is a valuable part of the process of becoming more aware, and sometimes people use deep tissue bodywork like Rolfing® as part of a process of psychotherapy. The fact that the person is experiencing these emotions in the context of the body means that they are grounded, less confusing and more safe than might otherwise be the case.
Other people do not experience these dramatic moments of recall. Anyway, what is important is the the increased awareness and presence in the body. Good sessions are almost like meditations which bring deeper levels of one’s physical being into awareness. The awareness remains, and it is this that helps people be more grounded and centered as a result of Rolfing®.
Combining the Physical and Psychological
Arranging the body so that it balances around the actual physical line of gravity is the key to the opening of the core. The work is neither too ethereal and ungrounded in physical reality, nor so purely physiological that it ignores the experience of the person. It is a meditation of a high degree. When one experiences an open balance of some part of the body in Rolfing®, it is often with an interior sense of rightness, of recognition of the body as it was always meant to be. At the same time it has the elegance of a geometry lesson, purified of subjective distortion and confusion. In a sense, Ida Rolf managed what William Blake never did: to combine a scientific understanding with an adequate grasp of soul.
Edward W. Maupin, Ph. D., 1996 www.edmaupin.com
What is Holistic Medicine?
What is Holistic Medicine?
[Originally published in Vision Magazine October 2007]
In the city of San Diego we have an HHP designation, which stands for Holistic Health Practitioner. This title is given to Massage Therapists or Bodyworkers with over 1000 hours of training and who have passed a certification exam. Many of these practitioners do indeed provide holistic services because their approach to the body is designed to enable a natural healing response and harness the power of intention. This recognition of the whole person is both refreshing and unique in our very specialized and compartmentalized culture.
Holistic is a word that’s thrown around often in alternative and complimentary healthcare professions. The word in of itself can relate to many different fields of study and practice. Many have used holistic methods in the past spanning from to Hippocrates in Greece to the Yellow Emperor in ancient China. Although the meaning and theories that fall into this realm of healthcare have evolved, the basic tenets have remained the same. Holistic refers to a method of treating the whole person. Some choose the spelling “wholistic” to emphasize this whole person ideology embodying the power of nature and harnessing the patients belief in the therapy. We even see a faint understanding of this concept in modern western science. Although the allopathic approach has a long legacy of specialization and reduction of the whole person down to their component parts.
Hippocrates practiced medicine around 400 BC in ancient Greece and is known as the “father of medicine”. He believed in the healing power of nature and the body’s innate ability to heal itself. In this way he treated the whole person and recognized the need to nurture the body’s homeostasis through his humble and passive treatment methodology known as Humorism. Quite a legacy has been left to western medicine and the world in the form of his ethical tenets, enhanced professionalism and cleanliness. These practices live on today as reminders of Hippocrates’ influence in modern western medicine.
Eastern medicine has for ages seen emotion and the mind play an important role in health. In the writings of the Yellow Emperor, dating back to 2686 BC, he laid out the major points in Traditional Chinese Medicine. He postulates that all our organs correspond to a specific emotional state and each have an energetic pathway through the body called a meridian. These meridians carry energy and can be affected by emotional states or physical ailments. This energy is called “chi” and when it’s flowing freely we are healthy and happy. Acupuncture seeks to open up these energetic channels when they are blocked with the use of carefully placed hair thin needles, herbs, heat, tinctures and sometimes even lifestyle changes. Positive visualizations and energetic manipulations are used to enhance and direct this energy flow through movement practices such as Qi-Gong and T’ai Chi.
Western medicine has begun to take the placebo effect very seriously. Studies have shown that if you give someone an inert substance (a placebo) that has no legitimate physiological effect on their system, tell them it will make them feel better or heal a disease, then there’s some percentage of success. This isn’t because the substance did anything to these patient’s bodies, rather they believed in the healing effect and therefore their system responded positively. Acceptance of this fact in the scientific community is widespread and opens the door to developing a more holistic approach in western medicine by recognizing the power of intention.
I liken the placebo effect to the ability our mind or consciousness has in regulating our body. The human being is constantly trying to find homeostasis, or balance, even down to a cellular level. Holistic medicine takes this into account and aims to relieve blockages in the body and/or mind to achieve this aim. If there are physical, emotional or mental blockages all of these things have a negative effect on the body’s ability to heal itself. The power of intention and the role of nature are both forces that can shift somebody closer to or further from healing and wholeness.
A holistic approach is needed today more than ever. As a culture we have lost touch with a certain level of humanity and nurturing that these alternative approaches truly embody. But which path to take? We can look to the past for abundant answers and also to current methodologies that are starting to see with a more holistic vision. But ultimately the answers lie in your hands. After all, the heart of holism is simply asking the body what it needs to be a whole being.
Archie Underwood, BA, HHP is a Bodyworker and Rolf Structural Integration practitioner. He maintains a holistic practice in San Diego focused on relieving chronic pain and increasing awareness of posture and movement. Contact Archie at: www.rolfsi.com (619) 861-3232
Physical, Emotional & Mental Healing…
Physical, Emotional & Mental Healing… Experiencing Structural Integration
Structural Integration (SI) is a form of deep tissue bodywork that incorporates movement and posture education. Joy K. came to me for SI sessions about a year ago. Having already received a series of ten sessions, she was ready for advanced work on a physical and emotional level. She takes a very active role in her healing process and is open to the journey of self-discovery that SI provides. This makes her an ideal client; she is self-motivated, aware, and communicative of her process.
Vision Magazine: What prompted you to seek out Structural Integration?
Joy K: I sought out SI because I was in a lot of pain and nothing else, including physical therapy, personal training, or massage, seemed to be working.
VM: What benefits have you received from Structural Integration?
JK: The benefits I’ve received from SI are really physical, emotional and mental. Primarily, it helped me process emotions that had been trapped in my body. It eased my pain tremendously and I was able to resume the active life that I enjoy.
VM: What kind of pain where you having and what kind of relief have you experienced?
JK: I had a lot of injuries from doing Kenpo karate. I also fell very hard on my sacrum. My quadratus lumborum was screwed up and I had tendonitis/bursitis in my shoulder. My pain on a scale from one to ten was probably an eight on a daily basis and it was really hard to function. The work helped my muscles be where they’re supposed to be, the sheath on top of those muscles relaxed, and my body was able to heal itself.
VM: Has SI affected your range of motion or flexibility in any way?
JK: My range of motion is a lot better and my movements seem more fluid. The stiffness in my joints has lessened, as well. I can now move around a lot easier, probably better than I did in my 20s.
VM: How would you describe your response to your first SI session?
JK: After my first visit, I felt like I had taken a muscle relaxer and I couldn’t move. I had to park somewhere for about 30 minutes, and it freaked me out a little bit. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel my muscles moving back into place or something. It was really weird. The first thing I noticed was that my diaphragm was freeing up and I was able to take a deep breath again. I don’t think I’d been able to take a deep breath since I was a child.
VM: Here is the question people wonder about SI: is it painful?
JK: It’s relative. I can handle a lot of pain, but SI is what I would classify as “good pain,” especially if you breathe through it—the breath is very important. The way I know the difference between good pain and bad pain is this: good pain is releasing something and it feels like the kind of pain that the body craves. If I just breathe through it, it subsides very quickly. Bad pain is sharper and radiates a little more. During the fourth session, I had to ask the practitioner to pull back because the pain was too close to the edge. The mark of a good practitioner is that he or she will work with you to determine where your boundaries are. It’s up to the client to let the practitioner know where the pain threshold is.
VM: In SI, the focus is on building more awareness in the body. How has this expanded consciousness changed your relationship with your physical self?
JK: It’s forced me to really be in my body. I have a lot of body image and eating disorder issues, along with a history of body dysmorphia and dissociation from my body. This is why I’ve experienced physical problems: because I’ve ignored my body’s cries for help. I listen to my body a lot more now and I let it tell me what it needs and what it wants—not just through activity but through all of the other sensations I have. It’s been extremely beneficial for me to feel safe in my body and take good care of myself, because this is the only body I will ever have.
VM: Do you feel your posture and movement has improved as a result of SI?
JK: It’s 100 percent better. People give me compliments all the time on my posture. Six years ago, I had horrible posture and I was in a ton of pain. I couldn’t force myself to have good posture when I tried. It made me feel really good to have people compliment me again and again on how good my posture is. But more importantly, it’s just easier to move in the world. It’s easier to sit up and I don’t have back problems like I used to. There’s no other way I could have gotten there without investing in myself and getting this work done.
VM: What advice would you give to people seeking wellness in their lives?
JK: I always encourage people to give to themselves. Health is not just about physical wellness. Some people may not be open to exploring mental and emotional parts of their being, but it’s beneficial on many levels. It’s a huge investment you make in yourself and your health. You maintain your car and you maintain your house, but you’ve got to maintain your body—you can’t neglect it or ignore it.
Archie Underwood, BA, HHP, practices Structural Integration in San Diego, CA. You can reach him at 619.861.3232 or visit www.rolfsi.com.
Structural Integration of the Human Body
Structural Integration of the Human Body
A Historical Perspective on the Legacy of Ida Rolf, Ph.D.
[Originally published in Vision Magazine December 2007]
Ida P. Rolf was born in New York in 1896. Ida graduated from Barnard College in 1916 and received her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1920. Her acceptance into the university was a rare accomplishment for a woman at that time. She worked for her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry and wrote her thesis on the human body’s connective tissue. She went on to research organic chemistry at the prestigious Rockefeller Institute for the next 12 years.
Dr. Rolf developed her method of working with the body after many years of practicing Tantric Yoga and studying multiple holistic disciplines including Osteopathy, Homeopathy, Chiropractic and the Alexander Technique. She had experience with, and training in, the scientific side of connective tissue and how it responds to chemical and physiological changes. This, in combination with her knowledge of holistic approaches to the body, provided a very unique view of the human structure and it’s healing process. This melding of disciplines was the synthesis for her work although initially she presented it in a very scientific, westernized way. Dr. Rolf felt like a more scientific perspective on Structural Integration would be met with a warmer reception and lent more credibility by the healthcare community as a whole.
Using Yoga’s theory of evolving the human structure for higher states of consciousness through physical change, combined with deep hands on work, she began to develop Structural Integration. Her experience studying the biochemistry of connective tissue told her that putting energy, pressure and/or heat into fascia it will begin to shift and change shape as well as chemical structure. Hands on bodywork provides all three of these stimuli. When shortened fascia creates chronic tension in the body by immobilizing what it envelops; this includes all muscles, bones and organs forming an interconnected matrix throughout the body. Finding length where needed by releasing immobilized fascia and seeking balanced tone in the body is the primary goal of Structural Integration. Dr. Rolf practiced on people who came to her looking for relief from dysfunction and her theory of increased vitality through the proper alignment of the body’s fascia took shape.
What began with a trial and error approach based on established techniques developed into a cohesive theory of how the body’s structure functions in gravity. The concept of “the line”, which is present in all well organized bodies, began to take shape. “The line” in the body can be related to a plumb line hanging from the crown of the head. When a body is organized this line extends from the crown down, in front of the spine and through the center of the pelvic floor. This relationship of “the line” to the rest of one’s structure is paramount in Structural Integration work. When we are in proper relationship with gravity this embodiment of the line is apparent; for without it we find ourselves unbalanced, unstable, and working against the pull of gravity instead of in harmony with it.
In appropriate relationship to gravity this force that we are always pushing against actually encourages us to stand upright, a counterbalance if you will. This concept is known as expansional balance and was brought into the Structural Integration paradigm by one of Dr. Rolfs early students, Ed Maupin, Ph.D. Expansional balance refers to the body’s unique ability to respond dynamically to all forces put upon it. This is the ability to expand the body rather than collapse it in response to external forces (1). When something pushes, I push back. Gravity becomes a tool providing lift to the body, as I sink my weight into the floor I secure a stable foundation to stand upright.
Clients have found that along with physical benefits the awareness that this work provides is a unique vehicle to explore the relationship to their body. At times we can store emotions in the body. When these emotions become stuck in the body’s connective tissue chronic tension develops in that area, this phenomenon is known as body armoring. This armoring is a way to disconnect from a part of the body that may be scary or hold an emotion we are not yet ready to deal with. Sometimes emotions can arise in session and it is for this reason that creating a safe and nurturing rapport with a client is vital. The process of identifying the areas of emotional holding can be a powerful way to move past trauma as well as develop more confidence and integrity within your body.
With these revolutionary ideas of structure and powerful techniques to compliment them Dr. Rolf knew it was time to teach. She began in the 1950’s and wanted to reach out to a group that would embrace her work and, more importantly, the theory that drives it. Osteopaths and Chiropractors were logical professionals to start training, but Dr. Rolf feared her work would be looked upon as just another technique to shoehorn into their well established theories of the body. Hoping her vision of fascia as “the organ of posture” would be wholly embraced, she kept searching.
The Human Potential Movement was alive and well in the 60’s and Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA was a powerful player in the advancement of alternative therapies. It proved to be an ideal location to spread Structural Integration to a receptive audience that was actively searching for new and innovative approaches to the body. Fritz Perls, who is well known for Gestalt Therapy, received a series of sessions from Ida Rolf, Ph.D while they were both working at Esalen. She relieved him of pain he was having related to a heart condition and awakened memories of an anesthetist injuring him during surgery. He was every so grateful for the relief, sharing and sending clients her way as well as spreading her praises throughout the Esalen community (2). The more she worked on people and became better known, she was met with an increasing demand to teach. Structural Integration is powerful work and people returned as more and more wanted the learn this revolutionary new style of bodywork. It was around this period that her worked gained the nickname “Rolfing®”, as it is known by some to this day.
Eventually schools began to crop up teaching Structural Integration and the work started to proliferate. The Rolf Institute started in 1971 and The Guild for Structural Integration soon followed; they were the first two schools teaching this work and continue to this day. Later, other schools and styles began to emerge such as Hellerwork, KMI, Soma, and IPSB here in San Diego. All have a perspective on the unique vision of Ida Rolf, Ph.D. and although there are differences in style the goal is always the same, to organize the body for a better relationship with gravity.
Archie Underwood, BA, HHP practices Rolf Structural Integration and teaches at IPSB in San Diego, CA. He has been doing bodywork for 9 years and has 2500 hours of training. To book a session or for more information please call 619.861.3232 or visit www.rolfsi.com
1. A Dynamic Relation to Gravity, by: Ed Maupin, Ph.D.
2. Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, by: Jeffery Kripal ; University of Chicago Press, 2007
“The gospel of Structural Integration: When the body gets working appropriately, the force of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself.” - Ida Rolf, Ph.D.
