What IS Rolfing, Anyway?

Rolfing is kind of an interesting word, isn't it? Kind of out of the ordinary. In my world, in relates to a type of bodywork, named after Dr. Ida P Rolf. Dr. Rolf was a biochemist from New York with a passion for connective tissue and structural change in the human body. While Ida didn't want her work to be called Rolfing--she preferred "Structural Integration"--her students had other ideas. Now we call it the former and the latter mushed together ("Rolfing Structural Integration") and Rolfing for short. Sorry, Dr. Rolf.

So What Is It?

Rolfing is bodywork. It involves a practitioner (in this case, me), a client, a massage table and a couple hours of hands-on work designed to help you move freely, breathe deeply, exist without pain and enjoy the activities you love. You can take it beyond that, but those are the basics, and really, they're a good start.

And How Was That, Exactly...?

Rolfers evaluate the human body to determine if it qualifies as "disorganized." Any number of things can lead to disorganization: poor posture, a car or other accident, lack of exercise, scoliosis, different kinds of traumas, and so on. A disorganized body is structurally out of balance, prone to dysfunction and often in pain.

Evaluate your posture to see for yourself: Does your head jut or drop forward? Do your hands curl inward, even while at rest? Is it easier to slouch than it is to stand up straight? And then take it to the next level: Are your movements a little stiff? Do the activities you love feel interrupted by restriction? These can be signs of structural imbalance.

Rolfers help to correct these issues through a series of sessions that open and unwind the muscles and connective tissues. We use a steady, sensitive touch (of variable intensity depending on tissue density, level of strain, and your comfort), in order to bring your structure to its optimal state of integration and function. This means that I use my hands, fingers, forearms, and elbows to sink into your body's myofascia (muscles and connective tissue), and slowly, slowly help it to release.

What Is Fascia?

Dr. Rolf studied fascia extensively, and believed it to be more important than conventionally credited. "Fascia is the organ of posture," she said. "Nobody ever says this; all the talk is about muscles. Yet this is a very important concept, and because this is so important, we as Rolfers must understand both the anatomy and physiology, but especially the anatomy of fascia. The body is a web of fascia. A spiderweb is in a plane. This web is in a sphere. We can trace the lines of that web to get an understanding of how what we see in a body works."


The Ten Series

Rolfing is traditionally conducted over a series of 10 sessions, scheduled ideally one or two weeks apart. The Ten Series, the foundation of Structural Integration, was designed and pieced together by Dr. Rolf after years of study and practice. Dr. Rolf created the Ten Series after getting her PhD as a biochemist, and later studying with Osteopaths, Yogis, Chiropractors, and other like-minded practitioners, and compiling her learnings. So when we have a session, I have a set of goals that I get from you (e.g. "Please make my head stop hurting!") and I have a set of goals that I learned from her teachings: Create space in the body to allow the client to stand supported, move unencumbered, and the person will experience not only a reduction in pain but what it means to truly be comfortable in his or her structure.

**An important thing to note here is that Rolfing's job is to loosen the parts of the body that have gotten too tight, so that balance can be achieved. In order to maintain that equilibrium, it is necessary to strengthen the muscles that have been out of commission, i.e. to maintain a health level of activity.**

Isn't Rolfing Just Really Deep Massage?

No, no, and no again. Rolfing is about applying the appropriate pressure to the appropriate places, not just indiscriminately digging my elbow around and making someone feel pain. (Sorry to all you pain-lovers out there.) When I evaluate someone as a Rolfer, I'm looking for structural imbalances, not knots. I'm looking for twists and pulls in your tissue and for how you walk. When I work on you, I want to affect both of those things.

A Rolfer's work is very strategic. Kind of like the way you'd approach a Rubik's cube, I have to evaluate the problem and work backwards to unravel it. It takes time and patience, and there are setbacks. There are days when your original problems will come back, but those days are just stages on the way. In Rolfing I know I can't do all the work in one day, so I make advances during each session and count on doing more next time. "The whole trick of Rolfing," says Dr. Rolf, "is going around and around and around and not barging through. Get the system sufficiently resilient so that it is able to change, and it will change."