Bodywork at Its Best: Rolfing for the Rest of Us, Part II
An experienced Rolfer shares a clear, comprehensive explanation of Rolfing® Structural Integration in non-intimidating language that everyone can understand.
Up until Dr. Ida Rolf came along, the prevailing belief was that bodies do not change. If someone slumped, they were always going to slump. If someone was pigeon-toed or knock-kneed, they’d be that way for life. Dr. Rolf proved that this is not true. She was a visionary who knew that, with the proper input, bodies are eminently changeable. She saw that many health conditions, such as breathing trouble or lower back pain, are often related to posture and a poor relationship with gravity. If someone is chronically slumped, for instance, that will compress the lungs and ribs, making breathing more difficult. If the feet are splayed out like a duck’s, the knees usually have to lock and the lower back has to arch for balance, eventually causing chronic lower back pain. Our bodies can be seen as a conglomeration of compensations for injuries, postural habits, genetics, and emotional patterns that have physically solidified in the body. Rolfing helps the body find relief from those patterns and that history, as well as gain resiliency to better cope with future life events.
Rolfing helps with the big picture of what causes painful symptoms, restricted movement or an inability to stand up straight. Working the symptom directly is not usually as effective as addressing the overall pattern or old injury compensation that creates the symptom to begin with. A painful area is often the end point of a strain pattern, as in the case mentioned above of splayed-out feet causing lower back pain. Therefore, the entire pattern needs to be addressed, not just the painful end point.
When someone is in pain and gets a massage, a well-trained massage therapist will do a very thorough job of massaging the painful area and the related areas. For example, if someone has lower back pain, the therapist will also massage the legs. A poorly trained massage therapist will work only where the pain is, not the larger area. As a Rolfer, however, I may not do much initially where the symptoms are, but will prepare the area first. For example, if someone comes in with chronic lower back pain, I will look at the feet, at the knees, at the relationship of the legs with the pelvis, and at whether the rib cage is slumped down onto the pelvis, contributing to the lower back pain. Those areas will usually get addressed first, so that when I work the lower back, it will be much more effective because the bigger strain pattern has been eased, rather than only the symptoms being addressed. This means that, with Rolfing, there is a much better chance that the changes will be permanent.
The body is always doing the best it can, and sometimes the best we can do still causes us pain. When we have a choice to move in a way that does not create strain, we do so. Rolfing is a process of building support for these kinds of changes, so that with each step we take, with each decision of how to sit, we have new options for ease. The old ways of moving, sitting and standing become the harder ways, and we stop choosing them. It’s mostly an unconscious process, just like our old habitual movement and postural patterns were unconscious: we didn’t even realize we started favoring one foot a decade ago when we sprained that ankle and then never stopped; we still tilt our head to one side a little bit since that car accident when we were a teenager. These are the big patterns we live with, the big picture that Rolfing talks to.
by Jill Gerber, LMT, Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolfing® Movement Integration Practitioner
© copyright 2009 Jill Gerber all rights reserved.
Up until Dr. Ida Rolf came along, the prevailing belief was that bodies do not change. If someone slumped, they were always going to slump. If someone was pigeon-toed or knock-kneed, they’d be that way for life. Dr. Rolf proved that this is not true. She was a visionary who knew that, with the proper input, bodies are eminently changeable. She saw that many health conditions, such as breathing trouble or lower back pain, are often related to posture and a poor relationship with gravity. If someone is chronically slumped, for instance, that will compress the lungs and ribs, making breathing more difficult. If the feet are splayed out like a duck’s, the knees usually have to lock and the lower back has to arch for balance, eventually causing chronic lower back pain. Our bodies can be seen as a conglomeration of compensations for injuries, postural habits, genetics, and emotional patterns that have physically solidified in the body. Rolfing helps the body find relief from those patterns and that history, as well as gain resiliency to better cope with future life events.
Rolfing helps with the big picture of what causes painful symptoms, restricted movement or an inability to stand up straight. Working the symptom directly is not usually as effective as addressing the overall pattern or old injury compensation that creates the symptom to begin with. A painful area is often the end point of a strain pattern, as in the case mentioned above of splayed-out feet causing lower back pain. Therefore, the entire pattern needs to be addressed, not just the painful end point.
When someone is in pain and gets a massage, a well-trained massage therapist will do a very thorough job of massaging the painful area and the related areas. For example, if someone has lower back pain, the therapist will also massage the legs. A poorly trained massage therapist will work only where the pain is, not the larger area. As a Rolfer, however, I may not do much initially where the symptoms are, but will prepare the area first. For example, if someone comes in with chronic lower back pain, I will look at the feet, at the knees, at the relationship of the legs with the pelvis, and at whether the rib cage is slumped down onto the pelvis, contributing to the lower back pain. Those areas will usually get addressed first, so that when I work the lower back, it will be much more effective because the bigger strain pattern has been eased, rather than only the symptoms being addressed. This means that, with Rolfing, there is a much better chance that the changes will be permanent.
The body is always doing the best it can, and sometimes the best we can do still causes us pain. When we have a choice to move in a way that does not create strain, we do so. Rolfing is a process of building support for these kinds of changes, so that with each step we take, with each decision of how to sit, we have new options for ease. The old ways of moving, sitting and standing become the harder ways, and we stop choosing them. It’s mostly an unconscious process, just like our old habitual movement and postural patterns were unconscious: we didn’t even realize we started favoring one foot a decade ago when we sprained that ankle and then never stopped; we still tilt our head to one side a little bit since that car accident when we were a teenager. These are the big patterns we live with, the big picture that Rolfing talks to.
by Jill Gerber, LMT, Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolfing® Movement Integration Practitioner
© copyright 2009 Jill Gerber all rights reserved.
posted by High Desert Healthcare and Massage at
10:55 AM
Photo courtesy of ABMP
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