Rolfing Structural
Integration
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Rolfing? Why does Rolfing work? What are the benefits? How does Rolfing feel?
Do the changes last? How is Rolfing different from massage and what is fascia?
Who was Ida Rolf? What kind of training do certified Rolfers receive?
Rolfing is a scientific and intuitive system of balancing the physical structure in gravity. Its fundamental and unique idea is that this omnipresent force will be received optimally by a body which is organized around a truly vertical principle of support. Dr. Ida Rolf is the founder of the system, which she named Structural Integration, but which her students dubbed “Rolfing.”
The Rolfing Series, or Ten Series, is a holistic approach to well-being, taking the entirety of the body as relevant to any given part, and visa-versa. Each session is like a lens, seeking a harmonious dynamic in the body’s tissues from its specific perspective. Dr. Rolf created the series to catalyze the process of Structural Integration.
Sessions last about 90 minutes. At the start of each, the practitioner views the client’s structure. Observation and table work are done with clients in underwear or bathing suits. Generally, photographs are taken before the first and after the tenth sessions, for comparison’s sake. Breathing, sitting and walking are considered in the course of the series, as well as daily activities specific to each client. Individualized “homework” is encouraged. Sessions are generally spaced between once/week and once/3 weeks.
“Our business as Rolfers is to understand that we are working in a gravitational field. Nobody else has done this; nobody else has sat down and said: ‘I have to learn to use gravity as a tool.’ “ -Dr. Ida Rolf
Swathing the entire human frame like a second skin, enveloping every muscle, bone, nerve and organ is the ubiquitous and unbroken system of tissue known as fascia (connective tissue). Fascia arranges in sheets, supporting, compartmentalizing and organizing the content of your body. Ideally, the fascia creates and maintains right structural relationships. For an analogy, imagine you have just pitched a tent. To ensure the pole remained horizontal to the plane of the Earth, you used four stakes, endowing each with a tension matching the other three. And having done this, you could curl up content that your tent would cover you through the night. But disincline the center pole from plumb, or unbalance the tensions on the different sides, and what was supportive turns disruptive. Or, take a long umbrella, baseball bat or curtain rod, and balance it vertically on the palm of your hand. So long as it is relatively vertical, small adaptations from your hand suffice to keep the object upright. But if you allow it to slip past a certain point, all the underlying hand can do is compensate for the toppling object with frantic theatrics. You will need to get help from your other hand to set the object back into harmony with gravity. Your central nervous and muscular-fascial systems must accomplish this same feat throughout your multi-jointed body. And if your fascia is pulling unequally across your joints, it shifts your body past that “certain point.” Rolfing is the helping hand your body needs, so that it can stop compensating, and get gravity working in its favor.
“The body process is not linear, it is circular; always, it is circular. One thing goes awry, and its effects go on and on and on and on. A body is a web, connecting everything with everything else.” —Dr. Ida Rolf
Physical or emotional trauma, illness, habit or chronic strain can cause fascial sheets to become twisted, dry and restrictive where they ought to be spacious, moist and breathable. When the fascia winds tight, the legs, pelvis, back, arms and neck compress and rotate. Rolfers are trained to see and to palpate patterns of strain in the facial network, and to release these using hands-on work, movement cues, breath and education in anatomy, body-awareness and use. Increasingly, balance is created from front to back, side to side and surface to deep, until your entire body glides and hums where once it tugged and ached. Your body organizes itself in a more upright, more functional alignment. With vertical order, the true support of feet, knees, pelvis, and spine becomes realized. Every structure above is endowed with support from below, and on an instinctive level, the body understands it can relax.
“So many therapists are striking at disease, instead of supporting the pattern of health. One of the things that you as Rolfers must always emphasize is that you are not practitioners curing disease; you are practitioners invoking health. Invocation is possible by an understanding of what the pattern is, the structural pattern of health.” - Dr. Ida Rolf
Greater ease of movement
Relief from chronic pain
More room for breath
Increased sensory awareness
Heightened anatomical understanding
New choices of movement & self-expression
"As in all matter organized into biological units, there is a pattern, an order, in human bodies ...Rolfers make a life study of relating bodies and their fields to the earth and its gravity field, and we so organize the body that the gravity field can reinforce the body's energy field." - Dr. Ida P. Rolf
The prevailing strategy in Rolfing is to work across planes of fascia lengthening them with a broad contact, such as a palm or forearm. Pressure directly downward would be perpendicular to the goal, would pin the tissue and leave it without a direction of release. So Rolfing often feels broad rather than pointy, specific rather than haphazard. It delivers the satisfaction of scratching an itch buried deep in the body that other forms of bodywork have only danced around.
There is a prevalent reputation for the process being painful. In its inception it probably deserved it. Happily, the system has been refined for over 50 years to achieve superior results through minimal client discomfort. What remains at points is a burning sensation that is the hallmark of fascia releasing and reorganizing, a sensation akin to a deep stretch. And, like a stretch, it can be intense. It is the interpretation of this intensity that is the pivotal element. In my own experience, as I breathed into an area where my Rolfer’s input was difficult and worked through the habitual impulse to brace, most uncomfortable sensations lost their edge, some even transformed into pleasurable and deeply calming experiences. The bottom line is that the client has the final say about pressure and duration, and more isn’t necessarily better. If the work is too intense for the nervous system, the body recoils and nothing will be gained. To soften and unstitch patterns of strain that make inroads down to the level of the nervous system, the Rolfer’s hands must earn a client’s trust.
The Rolfing process is a wordless dialogue between the practitioner’s contact and the client’s tissues, each teaching the other what is needed for the next degree of functional order to happen. Rolfing is the sensation of being present to this dialogue.
For a taste of the sensation of your fascia stretching, try the following experiment: let your head roll to the left (if you are left-handed reverse these directions). Rest several fingertips from your right hand on the skin overtop and just below your collarbone, close to the inside end of the bone. Sink in, and catch the tissue under your fingers, directing it towards your left shoulder. Use enough lateral impetus to draw the skin taut, creating a stretch. Do not allow your fingers to glide over your skin. Now gently roll your head and neck to your right. You will experience a distinct stretch in the tissue. Try it several times on both sides, and you may well experience an increase in freedom of movement in your neck.
Chronic aches and stiff, unbalanced limbs are but one end of the range of fascial expression. At the other end of the spectrum is grace and pleasure in movement.
Form determines function. A great deal of muscular tension exists due to overuse of muscles during routine tasks. As the fascial network unravels, possibilities for softer, easier movements arise. The intelligence of the body is such that very rapidly, better ways of using your joints can be laid down through your nervous system.
Function determines form. As softer, more rarified movements replace brusquer, clumsier efforts, bodily awareness expands, and detrimental habits- perpetuating factors of pain- are left behind.
Fascia is protean. Cells called fibroblasts are at work in your body right now, manufacturing strands of collagen that create the fibrous matrix of fascia. Strain stimulates the activity of these cells. For instance, if you begin a weight-lifting program, as your muscles work, the tension in their tendons would rouse the local fibroblasts. Over time, as your muscles grow, so will their tendons. Conversely, in the absence of strain, cells called fibroclasts dissolve fascia, assuming that these areas do not require as much reinforcement. The way we live in our bodies shapes our bodies, inside and out. Identifying the habits and lifestyles that cause backslide is an important component of the educational nature of Rolfing.
“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.” -Dr. Ida Rolf
How is Rolfing different from massage and what is fascia?
Unlike massage therapy, which strives to enhance the circulation of blood and lymphatic fluid and to ease tension in constricted muscle, Rolfing addresses the connective tissue, or fascia of the body. Fascia is an opaque, membranous protein arranged in the body like fabric and cables. It is fabric in the sense that it clothes every part of the body. It is sometimes like canvas, tough and fibrous, such as the swath across the lower back called the thoracolumbar aponeurosis. It is sometimes more like spandex, resilient and pliable, such as the fascia beneath the skin, where it imparts extra elasticity. (Stretch marks are places where the elasticity of the fascia was overcome, and the tissue broke down and lost its ability to rebound). All the muscles, bones, organs and nerves are clothed in and supported by fascia. Fascia also organizes into cables, able to resist strain in a specific direction. This is what tendons (connecting muscles to bones) and ligaments (connecting bones to bones) are fashioned from. Fascia is found everywhere in the body, at every depth. In fact, it is so ubiquitous that if an exact replica of the complete fascial network of your body could be made, your friends would recognize it as yours. If you’ve ever prepared a chicken or turkey, or a cut of red meat, you’ve handled fascia.
Source: Job's Body by Deane Juhan
Do I have to have ten sessions for it to be beneficial?
The classic series of ten Rolfing sessions is one treatment option. Some clients prefer to have a "mini-series" of three or four visits to focus on a problem. The best choice for each individual will vary. There is no disadvantage to starting the series and not completing it.
The Ten Series is like a progression of lenses, catalyzing the work of establishing order, span and balance throughout your body. And, like a lens, each session hones in on a specific aspect of your structure.
Sessions 1-3 “Unwrapping the Package”
#1 The chief goal is to create more space for breath. When ribs, spine, shoulders and the pelvis move with breath they retain a far more fluid relationship to the rest of the body and are more adaptable, more resistant to strain and injury. Also, fuller breathing makes more energy available to your body to use for change through further sessions.
#2 The focus of this session is the ankle hinge. When your upper body has more support from below, it is better able to relax. Also, for many people, lack of spring in the arches of the feet and limited flexibility at the ankle sends excessive shock through the system. Beginning the process of righting these issues eases strain in the hips, back and neck and strikes at one of the major perpetuating factors of discomfort.
#3 This session is done primarily in the side-lying position with an eye to establish balance from left to right. Where the first two sessions focus on the superficial fascial layers of the body, this session begins to touch in on deeper layers. People often consider their bodies as having a front and a back. This session can be helpful in becoming more present in your body, to fully experience it as three dimensional.
Sessions 4-7 "Stirring the Soup"
#4 One of Dr. Rolf’s tenets is that the human body is organized around a vertical line, and Rolfers talk about bodies as “on their line” or “off their line.” Reduced to the simplest terms, this means that the body projects a sense of lift, or buoyancy, whether in motion or stillness. This process is initiated by creating length along the “inseam” of the legs, working up to the top of the pelvis.
#5 The aim here is to complete the work begun in the previous session, bringing length up the front of the body, or, as Rolfers like to think of it, lengthening the front of the spine. This can be a vital element in freeing the neck from tensions seated inside the chest cavity dragging it down and forward.
#6 Here, the Rolfer works on the back from ankles to base of the skull. The fundamental goal is to create evenness with the length established along the front of the spine in the session before, thus allowing the spine to lengthen with movement rather than crimping or tightening.
#7 This session addresses the head and neck, and seeks to establish a sense of support through the entire kinetic chain, so the client experiences a direct line of support for the head from the feet.
Sessions 8-10 “Integrating the Changes”
These sessions work as a unit to integrate the changes to date smoothly through the whole body. They present an opportunity for you and your Rolfer to revisit any unfinished business, and establish the highest functional order possible.
A student once asked Ida Rolf what she was really after. She replied, “An evenness of radiance.”
Dr. Ida Rolf earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1920. This unusual achievement for a woman of that era points to the tenacity with which she went about her purposeful life.
With a scientific aptitude she delved into a range of practices and ideas including yoga and osteopathy, which, at the time, were in the shadows, quite discounted by the vast majority of her colleagues. Confronted with health problems within her immediate family and social contacts which mainstream medicine could not resolve, Dr. Rolf pioneered a successful treatment approach which eventually coalesced into the Rolfing ten series.
Dr. Rolf began teaching her ideas, and eventually opened her own school. She never thought of her work as completed or static. Since her death in 1979, her students have continued to explore, research and refine the work of Structural Integration.
“I invent these explanatory rationalizations as I go along. All I know is that you get results doing it the way I do it.”
—Dr. Ida Rolf
How much training do Certified Rolfers have?
Many Certified Rolfers practice some kind of massage or bodywork prior to becoming Rolfers. In addition, they have completed training with either the Guild of Structural Integration (www.rolfguild.org) or the Rolf Institute (www.rolf.org). To learn more about the training, you can visit their websites by following the hyperlinks above. Usually Rolfing - Structural Integration is studied in three sections, each of which is 4-5 full, consecutive days for eight weeks. Each student must complete an extensive research paper on the principles of Structural Integration. At the conclusion of the program, the students have completed the Rolfing ten series on three clients under instructor supervision.