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 etherial 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 |
©Archie Underwood, HHP
License #01000391