Fascia Balance

Time to Celebrate the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration

2011-04-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

Wow! The 40^th anniversary of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration is swiftly approaching. To celebrate, the Institute has set aside the week of May 14^th - 22^nd as Rolfing Structural Integration National Awareness Week. Not only is this week Awareness Week, it is also the time Dr. Ida Rolf would have had her 115^th birthday (May 19^th, 1896)! This Awareness Week provides Rolfers worldwide, as well as those who have benefited from Rolfing, with an opportunity to celebrate an inspiring scientist who created an amazing whole-body therapy, and whose institute has been sharing her mission since 1971.

Dr. Rolf’s vision was to make her powerful healing art available worldwide. Her goal was to retrain people's fascia with hands-on therapy as well as with movement re-education. The element of education was crucial to Dr. Rolf, because she believed that without self-awareness, the body could not move with true freedom in gravity. Thus, Rolf Movement Integration has evolved as a course of study promoted by the Institute. Rolf Movement helps one recognize habitual, dysfunctional patterns and then evolve past them into more functional movement patterns. Any activity, therefore, from surfing to standing up, can be completed with greater ease, flexibility and freedom of expression. People from all walks of life, all ages of a life span, and even animals have benefited from Structural Integration and Movement Integration.

The Rolf Institute offers three different training programs, and to date there are over 1,700 Certified Rolfers in 35 countries. Since its inception, the Institute has brought relief to thousands of people worldwide. With growing awareness and interest in health and physical well-being, this number can only grow--and Dr. Rolf’s vision is free flourish.

Do You Enjoy What You Do For A Living?

2011-02-22T15:07:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite questions to ask my clients is, "Do you enjoy what you do for a living?" It seems casual, perhaps, but it regularly gives me necessary understanding of a person’s deeper structural issues.

I'm very lucky to LOVE what I do professionally. It's a challenge and a delight both mentally and physically, and no matter what concerns a client brings to the table, there's the thrill of creativity and strategy as we address the situation. However, it's all too easy to perform a task without actually enjoying it, and I know how often we find ourselves, for love or money, doing just that.

What happens to your body when you have a job you don’t enjoy, or when you frequently perform tasks that you resent? The intrinsic desire to do something you enjoy versus something you must do causes a “war” within the body, which results in stress, which leads to tension. This tension, day-in and day-out, takes a toll on your body and creates unnecessary holding patterns. Tightened and shortened muscles and connective tissue can cause one to be in pain constantly.

This is where the love of my job comes into play: Although you may not be able to make yourself love your job, you can do something to deal with the resulting stress and tension, and prevent accumulations of the day-in and day-out full-body constriction. In both my Rolfing sessions and my massage therapy, my client and I collaborate and brainstorm ways to improve their structure, increase embodiment, and reduce fatigue. In short: Just because your job is a pain doesn’t mean you have to be in pain!

The Gospel of Rolfing

2011-01-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

"This is the gospel of Rolfing:When the body gets working appropriately, the force of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself."
~ Ida P. Rolf

Ida Rolf was a pioneer not only in soft tissue manipulation but also for women in the field of science. Having earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1920, she went on to explore organic chemistry at the prestigious Rockefeller Institute. With this foundation in place, Dr Rolf peered more deeply into the realm of the body, including but not limited to the fields of osteopathy, chiropractic and yoga.

Over the course of these studies, Dr. Rolf came to understand that proper alignment, physiologic function and anatomical structure were the basis of these and many other healing methods. Interested in addressing her own body's issues, Dr Rolf combined her knowledge of the body's chemical make-up with the principles of these healing modalities, and began to create her own form of structural therapy. Dr Rolf was then lead to this fundamental question: “What conditions must be fulfilled in order for the human body-structure to be organized and integrated in gravity so that the whole person can function in the most optimal and economical way?”

Structural Integration, as Dr Rolf called the therapy that she developed, answers this question. Through a series of sessions, Rolfers and their clients create the conditions for good posture and pain relief to occur naturally. By removing soft tissue “roadblocks” like scar tissue and fascial adhesions from clients’ structures, Rolfers work to give the gift of not only proper posture but a profoundly improved sense of well-being. Dr Rolf's methods and teachings, today known as Rolfing^®, are now taught at Institutes worldwide. Dr. Rolf would be proud to see that Structural Integration has become an international healing art bringing alternatives for pain-free living to all who would benefit.

Path to a Fuzz Free Life

2010-12-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

Did you know your muscles grow “fuzz” between them when you do not stretch enough? This fuzz is a build-up of the fibrous tissue that holds our muscles in place. Your body is constantly building these fuzzy layers to help support the muscles you use the most. Fortunately, you can melt away that “fuzz” in the morning with a good stretch – think about when your cat or dog stretches after a good nap. Not only does it feel good, it assures their continued full range of motion. Gil Hedley has an excellent (not to mention humorous) explanation of this phenomena in his video The Fuzz Speech.

Unfortunately, “fuzz” can grow layer upon layer when muscles are not in use. When one’s range of motion is limited by injury or inactivity, the “fuzz” can grow to be quite thick adhesions, causing tightness and impeding movement. Without proper stretching or body work, we can build more and more adhesions as we age.

The good news is that the tightness felt by these adhesions can be “melted” away by use of massage therapy and Rolfing. Rolfing provides the hands-on work necessary to deal with these restrictions. Whether the adhesions are newly formed, or have been present for quite some time, Rofling is essential to rid the body of the tightness they cause and restore a full range of motion thus allowing you to get back to the activities you enjoy most.

Could your tightness and loss of range of motion be due to these fuzz-like adhesions? If it's been a while or you've not yet experienced Rolfing Structural Integration, please come in for a session and melt the fuzz away!

So Close!

2010-10-22T19:11:00.001-07:00

Rolfing's role in the community has evolved since its inception in the 1950s. It enjoyed a spike in popularity in the 1970s, survived a pause in the 80s and 90s, and is enjoying a bit of a renaissance in the 2000's with help from a health-minded country and spokespersons like Dr. Oz, Oprah, and the New York Times. Always a mind/body therapy dealing with posture, self-awareness and structural evolution, it is mostly the understanding of Rolfing that has shifted and changed, rather than the bodywork itself.

As I've said in previous posts, much of what I combat when discussing Rolfing with someone for the first time is their anxiety over predicted pain during their session. I try my best to communicate that yes, Rolfing CAN be intense, but no, that's the the GOAL of the session. I'm not successful if I cause you pain, I'm successful if we reach our goals--if you have more flexibility, increased range of motion, less scar tissue. It is my hope that when people represent Rolfing they will choose to convey the opportunities it offers rather than playing on people's fears.

I'm both pleased and disappointed to see this article, Rolfing: Excruciatingly Helpful in October 7th's New York Times. How wonderful to share this bodywork with such a wide audience--it's just too bad that they perpetuated concepts that aren't relevant to what Rolfers are doing! Excruciating?? Did they have to use that word?? Clients of mine--have I ever treated your session like the only way to achieve results was to bring you to the brink of intolerance? I hope not! And the subtitle: "A Painful Form Of Massage." Massage? No thank you! I'm a very proud massage therapist, but when I don my Rolfing hat, I leave the former style of bodywork at the door. Rolfing is about realigning your structure--there's nothing "massage" about it.

Fortunately, within the article itself there's much more focus on accuracy: "Dr. Rolf developed a theory that the body’s aches and pains arose from basic imbalances in posture and alignment, which were created and reinforced over time by gravity and learned responses among muscles and fascia — the sheath-like connective tissue that surrounds and binds muscles together. Rolfing developed as a way to “restructure” muscles and fascia."

That's writing I can get behind, and worth a read if you promise to take it with a grain of salt.

Don't Give Up!

2010-07-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

No matter if it's from an injury, repetitive motion, or strain, scar tissue can be much more painful to massage than muscle tissue. It's kind of not fair--you've already had the car accident or had that surf board slam you in the leg!--that even after an injury takes place, after the chiropractic and physical therapy, scar tissue continues to build and can cause problems years later.

Much of what I do is help clients improve their range of motion after an injury--recent or from something in the past--that has resulted in a build-up of restrictive scar tissue. It's not always comfortable and it can make you sore the next day but don't be discouraged! More often than not, the area becomes inflamed for a day or more after working an area that hasn't had proper movement or blood flow in a while. While not pleasant it's a good sign! Your body is continuing the process that the massage began of breaking down those restrictive tissues, which is a step toward improved movement, endurance, and over-all well being.

Is Rolfing Still Around?

2010-05-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Many times when I introduce myself as a Rolfer, people respond with something like "Rolfing's still around?"

I'm very happy to say that yes, Rolfing is still around! Its combination of postural education, movement education, and myofascial therapy is especially relevant to our stressful lives, overworked tissues, and strained structures.

This man had mild anxiety about visiting a Rolfer, did it anyway, and felt great results.

The goal of your Rolfer isn't just to alleviate pain, but to little-by-little improve function, awareness, and balance. Watch for more and more Rolfing videos, posts on Twitter, and blog posts in your circle, and if you think of it, share them with me!

Healthy Ladies' Night Out, SLO Style

2010-02-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

On the Central Coast of California, we're lucky that there's always a fun activity going on. We have daily and weekly opportunities to indulge ourselves with sweets, soaks, and little somethings. We also have the perfect environment to be active, indoors or out, and have professional resources for health and healthy living at our fingertips.
Molly Stevens, DC, and the SLO Wellness Center are sponsoring an event for women which is the best of both worlds, both indulgent and healthful. Pleas join me on Thursday, February 18th, from 5:00 to 8:00 at the SLO Wellness Center for an evening of accessories, massage, skin care, healthy snacks and the occasional indulgence.

Massage:
~Haley Green, CMT, and Maggie Ragatz (that's me!) will be providing free neck and shoulder massages.

Skin Care:
~Licensed Esthetian Holly Lyle of Tones Skin Studio is donating free skin analysis (a comprehensive study your skin with specialized equipment)
~Kristen Jones will be demonstrating aloe-based Aloette Skin Care products

Nibbles:
~Local catering company "Kate's Kitchen" is bringing healthy snacks
~Amy Bakes Cupcakes is bringing an assortment of delicious cupcakes

Boutique:
~And browse through pretties from Lindsey Cheney's Pleated Poppy; Mignon Jones' accessories, and Michelle Naficy's Stella & Dot jewelry

Notables:
~Sign up early for your mini-massages!
~25% of the proceeds of this event will be donated to help health care efforts in Haiti.
See you there!

Rolfing and Massage as Supplementation

2010-01-23T18:38:00.000-08:00

In terms of what we eat, the mantra of most contemporary care practitioners is that the ideal diet involves vegetables, fruit, healthy proteins, balanced carbs, little sugar. Yet despite knowing what we should do, we may find ourselves omitting essentials, or indulging our sweet tooths more than we should. To compensate for the lack of healthy, nutrient-rich foods in our diet, we take supplements: pill supplements, liquid supplements, powder supplements, and so on. It's not as good as the real thing, but as long as the quality is there, your body will feel the benefits.

On the other hand, we don't always compensate for our lack of movement. Ideally we would exercise, stretch, and calm our minds (meditate or engage in some spiritual practice) daily, in order to support wellness, yet many of us make little or no time for those activities. The way I see it, bodywork is not so much a luxury as it is a supplement, and it's time we treated it as such! My last post about the 2010 Spring Health and Fitness Expo listed a number of benefits attributed to regular massage therapy.

Each one of those bullet-point benefits has one if not dozens of pills that you could take to alleviate symptoms--OR you could just get a massage! Poor flexibility? Muscle tension? Supplement your stretching routine with Rolfing! Stress? High blood pressure? Supplement meditation with massage! Poor circulation and lymphatic flow? Supplement exercise with massage! Poor posture? Supplement your yogic practice with Rolfing!

The key is that the word is "supplement" and not "sole source." The abbreviated form of anything will never get you the results that you desire, and with our bodies we should be especially vigilant. So get out there and take your vitamins and get your massages, and know that you're helping your body work toward wellness!

Free Rolfing Demos!

2010-01-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Come join me January 16th and 17th at the Alex Madonna Expo Center for the 2010 Spring Health and Fitness Expo! It's free, it's fun, and you can learn all kinds of things about your body. This page has a list of all the interesting tests you can have done while you're there, and this page has a list--which includes myself--of all of the exhibitors.

I'll be introducing Fascia Balance to a wider audience and answering any questions that they, or you, might have about Rolfing and Massage Therapy. My table, portable heater, and I will be there from 10-4 on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th, answering questions about the ways Massage Therapy and Rolfing can improve your game, help you move more easily, or reduce some chronic pain. Bodywork is valuable for folks of all ages, lifestyles, and professions, so if there's someone in your world who's wanted to try massage, in a safe, open forum, this would be a great opportunity to share it with them.

The American Massage Therapy Associates organization lists the following as benefits of bodywork:

Helps relieve stress and aids relaxation
Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness
Fosters faster healing of strained muscles and sprained ligaments; reduces pain and swelling; reduces formation of excessive scar tissue
Provides greater joint flexibility and range of motion

Enhances athletic performance; treats injuries caused during sport or work
Promotes deeper and easier breathing
Improves circulation of blood and movement of lymph fluids
Reduces blood pressure
Helps relieve tension-related headaches and effects of eye-strain
Enhances the health and nourishment of skin
Improves posture
Strengthens the immune system
Rehabilitation, post operative
Rehabilitation after injury

They're a mouthful, but they all sound fantastic, don't they? The thing is that they can really work, every single one of 'em, IF a person's body isn't in too great a state of disease, and IF the person comes in consistently. We take care of our cars with regular bodywork, why not ourselves??

The Health and Fitness Expo will provide some food for thought on different ways that you can treat your personal vehicle--your body--as well or better than you treat your car. I'll be giving periodic demonstrations of both Rolfing and Massage Therapy, so if you've been curious about how they are different, been wondering if you'd like to transition from one to the other, or have never had bodywork, I'd love to chat with you. Hope to see you there with your nearest and dearest!

What IS Rolfing, Anyway?

2009-07-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

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."

The Great Shoe Dilemma

2009-07-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I don't believe in shoes. That's a funny thing to say for someone who owns high heels, but I believe that they're not compatible with the human body. They restrict our stride, they limit our bones' ability to support weight effectively, and ultimately, they don't facilitate the body reaching its fullest potential.

The purpose of shoes may have been to protect our feet from sharp stuff, but in not requiring that the foot adapt to things underfoot, shoes have made the muscles weaker, the tissues tight and short, and the bones so misaligned that our entire structures (esp. the back!) feel strain and pain. Even if it's those super comfy, uber-expensive, performance-promising running shoes with arch support.

The thing is, our bodies were made to move and our joints to reach their full range of motion on a daily basis, and that includes the feet. When we don't exercise our feet enough, by driving and not walking, by sitting and not standing, and especially by wearing shoes that restrict our joints' natural movement, we stop allowing flexibility in the joints in our feet. And as the saying goes, if you don't use it, you lose it.

I work clients' feet on a regular basis and more often than not, I'm working strained muscles, rock hard plantar fascia, and toes that curl either forward or upward instead of resting neutrally with strong, relaxed tissue surrounding them.

These feet are not being allowed to move the way they're designed to move!

Imagine wearing one of these all day:

and trying to be productive.

A little scary right? That's kind of what it's like to do this:

to the 26 bones in your feet.

That's an extreme (and not pretty!) situation. Day by day, we're more apt to do this:

Can you see how with the thick sole, our bones are walking within a shell, rather than making movements on their own? Can you see how the toes aren't able to really bend within the pointed toe of the shoe? Toes that bend and joints and move correctly, etc, set off a chain reaction of
movement which help you move easily and without pain. The inverse? Your toes don't bend fully and your joints have no give, meaning that muscles AREN'T triggered in your legs and hips, and you have issues with your hips, legs, knees, low back, and you're in pain. Any of that sound familiar? That's because most of us have problems with our feet!

Our feet are supposed to be strong, flexible, and supportive. We've made them trapped, stiff, and weak, and they have few ways to tell us. Even New York Times Magazine printed an article last year about how our structures and gaits are negatively affected by footwear. So try going barefoot once a day, even if it's just in your house or backyard. Watch out for sharp stuff, be prepared for some aches as your body gets used to not being confined. (And no flip-flops! All the things that shoes do to the foot, flipflops do that and wreak havoc on the ankle.) You don't have to go completely hung ho like this guy, but I sure admire him for his message.

If you want to get therapeutic, try walking on the beach barefoot (again, watch for sharps!), or roll the sole of each foot, firmly but not to the point of pain, on a tennis ball for a few minutes a day. I invested in a pair of these shoes, which allow for movement in the joints while protecting the tootsies, and adore them. I wear them hiking, to work (watch for them in the office one day!), and yes, in public. I'm still going to wear my heels when I go out, but I'm careful to limit their confined time to a few hours a month. And for the record, I have 6 pair, and they're all fabulous.

It's Official!

2009-07-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

Judging by the lack of leftovers I'm going to call the open house a success; I can now officially practice massage therapy and Rolfing. Apart from the delicious food, the weather was perfect, the company engaging, and the conversation stimulating. To recapitulate...

Upon arrival, each guest was give three tasks:

Enter to win 2 prizes from the 7 available to them
Sign the black board (in place of a guest book)
Take home a Goody Bag

Each Goody Bag contained a sweet back massager created for me by Promotional Concepts of San Luis Obispo...

and business cards from some of my favorite locales in Morro Bay. For instance, The Galley Restaurant, delicious dining with a view of the rock; and Fiona Bleu Gallery, offering an eclectic mix of avant garde artwork and creative twists on traditional furnishings.

Then their job was to grab some food, pour themselves a drink,
and start talking.

Which, I'm proud to say, they did with aplomb.

I'm grateful for some late-in-the-game contributors:

Morro Bay resident and Edna Valley vintner Matt Brain provided a selection of tasty reds and summer-friendly whites. (Watch for his own label, Baker & Brain, coming soon!)
Chef-for-Hire Jenny Kim brought tasty Korean bar-b-que and vegetarian sushi rolls.
The sweet moms in my life all sent plants! In order of arrival: my mother-in-law sent (by means of Grow Nursery) a basketball-sized tillandsia xerographica; my mother, a brilliant red anthurium; my step-mother, a bundle of gorgeous flowers by means of friend and courier Sara Egerer. Did you three form a committee or what??
And last but never least, the divine Kellie Schwindt provided lovely fruit platters as well as some liquid fermentation.

Trina Dart and others experimented with the egg game, a game with few pieces but one which requires hand/eye coordination and steady concentration.

Later in the evening I convinced a couple folks to try cup stacking. (N.B. We were not as fast as the cup stacking champion in that link...) Another inexpensive game, good for hand/eye coordination and mild competition.

WINNERS of the 7 prizes will be contacted within the next few days, and prizes delivered or mailed within the next week. Thanks to everyone in Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo who contributed, I couldn't have done it without you! And now, enough partying, it's probably time to get back to work!

Fascia Balance's Open House!

2009-07-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

Please join me Friday, July 10th, from 5:30 to 7:30 for a fun meet-n-greet open house at my office in beautiful Morro Bay!

I'm rounding up some of my favorite vendors, including Amy Bakes Cupcakes, The Shine Café of Sunshine Foods, and Top Dog Coffee Bar to provide refreshments.

Also, I'm excited to offer some fun prize items:

For my part, I'm throwing in a free 1-hour massage AND a half-price Rolfing session.

Grow Nursery is donating a free plant (don't know what kind yet!), hopefully paired with instructions on how to keep it alive.

If you're into your record player, you'll love the gift certificate from Vinyl Isle that they have graciously donated for this event.

Friend and fellow bodyworker John Murray is kindly offering a free 80-minute Thai massage. Give it a try, it's like very relaxing assisted stretching.

Native SLO business Frame Works is offering $50 off the custom frame job of your choice.

And Amy Bakes Cupcakes is donating a dozen free cupcakes!

You'll be given TWO entry forms on which you can write your name an contact info, then drop into the box corresponding with the prize(s) you want. (Folks who mention this blog will receive THREE entry forms, so don't forget to let me know you've read this!) I'll do a drawing at the end of the evening and contact you if you've won.

Bring friends and family, stay for dinner in Morro Bay (I'm happy to pass along recommendations); I can't wait to see you there!

Track Town, USA

2009-06-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

Decathlete Chris Randolph finished fourth in this year's World Championship Trials in Eugene, Oregon, locally known as Track Town, USA. His score is fantastic (!) and yet a hair's breadth from where he wanted to be, which is in third place, on his way to Berlin for this August's 2009 World Championships. However, given that last year an injury kept him from participating in much more than the 2008 Olympic Trials, I'd say he's doing pretty darn well.

Here are a few video highlights from the track:
This video is the men's decathlon 100-meter sprint. This one is the decathlon 400-meter run. In this they compete in the 110-meter hurdles. And this video, last but not least, shows the entire 1500-meter run.

There's a complex psychology to the decathlon, Chris says, because you know you're going to perform well at certain events, badly at others, and you know you're going to have to really push it when you might not be able to, depending on your competition's various strengths. At some point, Chris said, without the decathlon being over "You've already won or lost because of the point system."

The 19 athletes' scores show how close they were at the end of the first day in terms of points, and they show the gradual distancing by the end of the second. Chris' 4-point difference the first day, in between him and the athlete in 3rd place, became a 200-point difference by the end of the second day, and he says he could feel it happening. "I felt my toe go over the line in the discus ring," Chris said, and after that foul, "the ring just got small." His next throw was even less what he wanted. "My thumb came up... It's a simple mistake; everyone learns not to do it." He watched that throw cost him points, and knew at that point he didn't have enough ground to keep him from staying in 4th place.

Now, I'm of the mind that Chris went out there and did his best, and did an incredible job at that, and there are more track meets in the sea. For example, he will go to Germany this August, to compete as part of the US team in the Thorpe Cup, a yearly competition between German and US multi-eventers, as they're called. The Thorpe Cup, among other national and international meets, will keep Chris plenty busy for the next year until the 2010 World Championship Trials, and give him more chances to prove himself in the track and field world. Personally, I'd be happy if I could just remember what all ten decathlon events are.

Congrats Chris,

Maggie

Meet Chris Randolph

2009-06-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of my job is getting the opportunity to work with a diverse range of clients. Some individuals seek out massage therapy or Rolfing in order to address chronic conditions due to too much sitting or repetitive motion. Others come to fine tune their bodies for performance. Chris Randolph is one such client.

For the past year I've worked with Chris, an athlete who grew his skills at Seattle Pacific University, in order to maintain his structure as he trains for ten different athletic events. Chris' humble pastime is the decathlon, a collection of ten sports in which the athlete's points for each event are averaged to attain a final score. A patient (and chiropractic assistant) at SLO Wellness Center, Chris trains several times a week in track and field events in order to compete in local, regional, national, and international competitions.

He's ranked well over the past few years, running a hundred meters in 11.3 seconds, which is less that 2 seconds shy of the fastest time ever, 9.69 seconds. He can long jump 24'6, high jump 6'10, pole vault 16'4, and throw a javelin 207 feet.

Thursday, June 25th, and Friday, June 26th, Chris will compete at the 2009 World Championship Trials in Eugene, Oregon. If you want to follow him at the Trials, check out the US Track and Field's site. Soon there will be up-to-the-minute updates posted rather than projected schedules.

Despite being proficient in no fewer that ten track and field events, Chris and other decathletes struggle for sponsorship and media recognition. Even Bryan Clay, 2004 silver medalist and 2008 gold medalist in the decathlon, in this New York Times article alluded that the payoff for other professional athletes seems much grander than that for decathletes.

Myself, I keep promising him a Fascia Balance t-shirt, and hoping that could that count as sponsorship. So if you're a lover of sports and athleticism, I encourage you to check in with this year's World Championship trials. It won't stop Chris from working his day job when he could be training, but the next time someone talks about so-and-so being "the world's greatest athlete," you can impress them with your knowledge of what that actually entails.

Fascia Balance Is Now Open!

2009-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

Two blocks from the Embarcadero and just off of Main Street and Morro Bay Boulevard, Fascia Balance is a sweet sanctuary for Massage Therapy and Rolfing in San Luis Obispo County. I couldn't be more happy with it. There's a private restroom, abundant natural light, free parking, and spacious rooms. And Rolfing clients, there is now plenty of room for you to walk around!

The office has gone from this:

Through this:

To this:

Which I think we can all agree is much better! Of course I didn't do this all myself, and without the following people, this office would not have achieved fruition. I'm grateful to them and for their many contributions:

Sara Egerer of ThistleBloom

Jeremy O'Kane of O'Kane Construction (805-431-7397)

Ryan Allen of Allen Builders
(510-701-8539)

Los Osos Graphic Designer Kara Suzuki, and Nick Wilkinson, Plant Genius at Grow Nursery.

I'm there five days a week with tea and a table, so schedule a session or stop by to visit the beautiful space. I look forward to seeing you there one of these days.

Feel good,

Maggie