As I open the door to a somewhat antiseptic-looking medical office in downtown San Francisco, I’m quite certain I will not be getting a lavender-candles-and-wind-chimes kind of a massage — the kind that will leave me facedown in my own drool. I expect this to be painful. That’s what I’ve been told anyway.
Greg Brynelson, a certified Rolfer and registered nurse with a loyal following, tells me to lie on my back. Rolfing Structural Integration is a type of deep — really deep — massage that was last popular when Nixon was president. Well, Rolfing has become a favorite again — this time among the yoga-Pilates-acupuncture crowd.
“Through here, it feels like I’m coming up against a wall,” he says. “There’s not a lot of give.”
Brynelson has kind eyes and strong hands. Or thumbs. I think that’s what’s pressing into my neck.
Rolfing was named after its founder, an American biochemist named Ida Rolf. Her own health problems led her to believe that deep tension — even mild physical deformities in children, like pigeon toes — could be relieved by pressing into a type of tissue called fascia. Fascia fuses skin to muscle and muscle to bone, and it kind of keeps everything in place, like a snug pair of pantyhose.