WHAT IS ROLFING®
Rolfing Structural Integration is an amazingly therapeutic form of bodywork developed by Dr. Ida Rolf more than 50 years ago. In Rolfing, we work with the body’s connective tissue to achieve balance and align the segments of the body in gravity. The connective tissue is called fascia and can be thought of as a web-work that interweaves throughout the body. Rolfers™ work to promote span, balance and ease of movement between the layers of fascia by applying techniques of manual pressure combined with client movement.
Gravity
“Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over forty may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are at war with gravity.” – Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.
Holism
“As people come to Rolfers with their aches and their pains, we can see where their bodies are literally offering blocks to the gravitational forces. The gravitational force is immense, and their resistance isn’t much good except to close the body down, compress it. Sometimes the block has been put into the physical picture by a physical traumatic episode — a fall down the cellar steps, out of a tree, out of a high chair, off a tricycle or bicycle, out of a speeding automobile, etc., etc. This block is in the actual structure, in the flesh of the body. Then there is the kind of block that is basically emotional. Little Jimmy loves Papa. Papa goes along bent over, so Jimmy goes along like that because this allows him to be Papa in his mind. And by and by Jimmy gets a set into his muscular body which he cannot let go of. To get it out, he has to have help.” – Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.
