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FINDING EASE:
Systematic approach can restructure the whole body
Imagine how it feels to live in a fluid, light, balanced body, free of pain, stiffness and chronic stress, and you understand the goal of Rolfing®.
Dr. Ida Rolf originally called her unique approach to the body Structural Integration, but Rolfing is the name that stuck.
Athletes, business people, people riddled with chronic pain and stress, musicians, students of yoga and meditation, people from all walks of life and of all ages, come to Rolfing not only for relief from their pain and stress, but also for improved performance in their professions and daily activities.
Research conducted at UCLA showed that Rolfing created a more efficient use of the muscles, allowing the body to use less energy. More recent research at the University of Maryland demonstrated that Rolfing significantly reduces chronic stress and changes body structure. The research also indicated that Rolfing enhances neurological functioning.
Rolfing achieves its results by manipulating the body’s myofascia. Fascia is the connective tissue which surrounds and penetrates all structures of the body--if you could remove everything else from the body and leave the fascia intact, you would have a perfect three-dimensional blueprint of the person.
Our bodies must deal with gravity like other physical structures. When we are out of balance, gravity drags us down, just as it eventually pulls down a building that has lost its architectural integrity.
Whether due to injury, illness, emotional distress or unhealthy habits of use, an unbalanced body is at war with gravity. To shore up the body against the imbalances, fascia shortens and thickens. We experience this tightening as pain, reduced range of motion and fatigue.
Through the informed pressure applied by a Rolf practitioner, fascia is softened and lengthened, allowing the structure of the body to come into alignment and remain changed for the better: effortlessly upright, balanced and at ease with itself in the field of gravity.
Traditionally Rolfing is carried out in a series of ten sessions, each building upon the previous one for cumulative, synergistic results. Sessions are usually 90 minutes and the average time between sessions is one to two weeks.
Rolfing® designates the Rolf Institute’s brand of structural integration, the discipline developed by the late Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D. While the Rolf Institute is Dr. Rolf’s original school of structural
integration, it is now one of many schools of structural integration; and Rolfing® structural integration designates the practice of structural integration by graduate members of the Rolf Institute, who are licensed to use its service marks. |
