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From my time as a Rolfer to my many years doing deep tissue massage, one of the most common issues that brings people in to see me is back pain. It seems to be an ongoing issue in so many people, I am nearly surprised when someone new comes in who is not plagued by it. I have had my fare share of back issues over the years myself, especially after a weightlifting injury followed by hitchhiking around Europe with a heavy backpack for 7 months, like most people I learned to live with it. I learned certain stretches that helped some, though the pain moved to different parts of my back and I needed different stretches for pain in different areas. I blamed it on a herniated disk, but what was really going on? I started exploring massage down the road and eventually trained to do it professionally. When people come in for a massage, whether it is Swedish massage or deep tissue, both the massage therapist and the client usually expect to start face down, and have work begin on their back, in fact a typical massage will usually focus on the back for about 70% of the session, and clients will often come in an ask that you spend the whole session on the back. Not only is this usually very relaxing, it is giving priority to an issue that persists in so many people, their back pain and discomfort. That being said, this is not how Rolfing typically works, because massage is not Rolfing, and in respect to back pain I will quote the founder "where you think it is, it ain't". It may seem condescending to tell someone who comes to you for back pain that the problem is not in your back, but you are paying a Rolfer to use their skill to help you achieve optimal posture, movement, and embodiment, not to simply rub you where it hurts. The spine and the back is dependent on having proper support to be healthy and that support needs to occur up the front of the spine, not as much in the back. We think of the spine as primarily being a structure of the back, because we can usually see the spinous processes of most vertebrae sticking out in the back, but this is a very small part of the vertebra, the actually body of vertebra is much bigger and deeper, and the larger part of the mass that puts weight on the spine is in the front of the spine, not the back. Typically, more often than not, when there is a bulging disk, it is actually in in the front of the spine, where the larger part of the vertebral mass is, but we often feel this in the back, not the front. So, what is the solution to back pain? There is probably not simply one solution, but the first order of business should be to get support up the front of the spine. What does this mean? Someone with poor posture is very likely to hunch forward, neck, shoulders, chest, with the spine in flexion. This puts ongoing strain on the back. If we get an individual stacked better in gravity, so that when they sit or stand their shoulders are supported over their hips and their head and neck over their shoulders, this will relieve the unnecessary strain on the back. You might think you can start holding yourself this way, but you are wrong. To do so would require more unnecessary strain and cause other problems. Good posture, sitting and standing, must come easily without strain, and the Rolfer must make this possible by working through restrictions that cause unnecessary strain leading to bad posture, and much of this will be found on the front of the body, not the back. To gain support up the front of the spin is known as prevertebral support, this is where the larger part of our weight is and this is what pulls us down into flexion, along with habits and along with defense mechanisms, animals go into flexion to protect their vital organs so there is an emotional and psychological component to it, but Rolfers work with what they can touch, which is the body, and many times that can help to undo habits and unneeded defense mechanisms too. I very rarely have back pain these days, which I thought I would have persistently for the rest of my life, but I have better posture and use of my body now, even better when I was heavily evolved with power lifting and martial arts. The body has it's own intelligence, it just needs some help to adjust and find it's own balance, and Rolfing can play a key role in that. #rolfer #rolfing #backpain #spine

Many people experience sciatic pain, which can affect hips, lower back, and even radiate down the legs. Doctors are quick to throw out words like sciatica when a person has issues like this, but sciatic pain and sciatica are not synonymous. The sciatic nerve travels a long way from the lumbar region to the hips and down the back of the legs, and that gives it many places where nerve impingement can occur. When there is pain that appears to be associated with the sciatic nerve, doctors will usually blame it on a bulging disk in the lumbar region pressing against the nerve and aggravating it, but I would not be so quick to jump to this conclusion without an MRI, which just as often as not, will show nothing useful. For most physicians the first order of business would be steroid injection, which often do not yield good results, and even if they do, will eventually stop working. A bulging disk can be pretty serious, but why jump to the most serious conclusions first? In my practice if someone comes in with sciatic pain, and or lower back pain, the first thing I want to address is the hips. Hip restriction can cause lower back pain for a variety of reasons, and restriction in the lateral hip rotators can cause sciatica symptoms, especially the piriformis. The piriformis is a muscle that attaches the top of the leg, the greater trochantor, to the sacrum, what we call our tail bone. The sciatic nerve runs through this space, and the piriformis can impinge the nerve against the bone. When this occurs the first thing to do is get in there and manually work it out, with attention to the muscle attachments and some leg movement. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes to relieve this sciatic pain, something that one might struggle with when seeing a doctor for years, possibly even leading to surgery. But even if a Rolfer or a massage therapist works out a tight piriformis, the pain might come back again so we must ask the question, why does it keep coming back? The angle of the pelvis, how it is affected by the legs and how it affects the lower back is of interest to a Rolfer. If the pelvis is not supportive of the lower back, then we will very likely have lower back pain. Ida Rolf went so far as to state that the whole 10 series is about horizontalizing the angle of the pelvis, and though that is quite a statement, many of the sessions in a Rolfing series to address what affects the pelvis and hips. If we can free the hips and get the pelvis in a supportive position the tightness in the hips may not return, and the sciatic pain may disappear. Notice that I use the phrase, sciatic pain rather than sciatica. We are dealing with a symptom that could be caused by a variety of issues, and as a Rolfer, we do not diagnose, we hypothesize and experiment, keeping the question open instead of ending the discussion with a diagnosis. #rolfing #sciatica #piriformis #structuralintegration

This book is amazing! I discovered it on audible and listened to it on my drive from Tucson back to Denver. I usually have a short attention span with audio books, but this was so fascinating that I listened to it all in one go. This is partially because I, like many people these days suffer from psoriasis, and I know that some day this could even develop into other auto immune issues like arthritis. Having struggled with many different diets, and with limited success (vegetable juice fasting is the only thing that seemed to help directly) I still find myself without a lot of options. Conventional western medicine typically only has steroids as an option, and this is because, as Fett mentions in her book, research takes about 10 years to make it into clinical practice, and her job is to analyze an compile this research. A whole new gateway of research into gut health and autoimmune disease has opened up. You may have read my previous article 5 Reasons Why Tongue Scraping Should Be Part of Your Daily Oral Care Routine explaining how the oral biome supports cardiovascular health, well this book combs through research illustrating that an unbalanced gut biome is primarily responsible for autoimmune diseases like psoriasis and arthritis. What leads to this imbalance can be different for different people, as can the road to restoring balance, but she brings up quite a few topics in research to consider, like food allergy, or diet in general, what diets supports a health diversity of gut species, what diets may feed the "bad" bacteria, conditions that lead to gut permeability (leaky gut syndrome), and diets along with supplements that can help to restore balance. Fett goes on to consider which supplements have research backing up their claims, which is important because supplements are not regulated in America. She arrives at the conclusion that fish oil, probiotics, and vitamin D3 are the primary avenues to restoring gut health along with diet. The diet, of course, is the hard part, but not everyone needs to go on the strictest diet imaginable to gain success, she goes through 3 tiers of diets to restore gut health. Most people with psoriasis have heard that they should avoid night shades like potatoes, tomatoes, and bell peppers, but that never seemed to help me. Vegetarian and vegan diets have not proven to be successful either. I began limiting grains in my diet a while back, which may have helped for a while but my psoriasis made a big comeback after a summer of eating dehydrated camping food every weekend at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, where I was working. My gut health became bad, and so did my skin. What Fett points out is that starchy foods, even starchy vegetables, have proven not be supportive of healthy gut bacteria, and also tend to linger in the gut and feed the bad gut bacteria, leading to an imbalance. The answer appears to be going on a low starch diet while taking supplements to restore balance. How extreme the low starch diet should be depends on how bad the problem is. Following a restricted diet can be very difficult, and most Americans would probably rather take a drug than change their diet. This is not entirely true though, as diet fads frequently pop up in this country, eating gluten free diets, paleo, keto, ect. Sticking with these diets is the problem though. Fett not only compiles printable lists of foods to avoid and foods to favor following these three tiers of diet, she compiles some meal plan suggestions and recipes. I am excited to give this a go. Understanding that gut health is a leading factor in autoimmune disease does correlate with my studies in Ayurvedic medicine, which states that all disease originates in the gut. It has not been until recently that we can prove this idea with scientific research. This research is liable to completely transform modern medicine, a transformation that is coming very soon! Click below for the audible link: The Keystone Approach- Healing Arthritis and Psoriasis by Restoring The Microbiome by Rebecca Fett

So many people have tried massage, chiropractic, physical therapy, even yoga and Pilates to address their physical issues with varied results. Many clients ask me if any of the above would be good for them. My answer is often- it depends on the practitioner. I believe all of these disciplines can have great results, and can positively contribute to a better quality of life, but there is something that is a key difference between Rolfing and all these other approaches, Rolfing ultimately focuses on transformation to a higher degree of order in the individual's structure, and does not really focus on maintenance, pain management, or even fitness, it works with the intelligence of the body. With every other discipline mentioned above, it is generally expected that you will pursue it regularly and often indefinitely, and many times when you stop getting adjustments or doing your PT exercises, the problems come back. Rolfing is different, at least when doing series work, we try to help an individual reach a state where their body can maintain balance, and generally they should be good to go after that. As nothing in the world is permanent, how is this possible? The body, including the nervous system, is a self correcting organism. We are constantly being broken down and reconstructed on a micro and macro level, and the organism strives for balance, it has its own intelligence. Disorder can be perpetuated for a variety of reasons, stress, repetitive strain, injury, disease, but order can also be perpetuated if balance is restored. The Rolfer seeks to establish a greater ease of finding balance by improving posture and movement. This is done through myofascial (muscle and connective tissue) manipulation and movement exploration. At first we seek to differentiate soft tissue that is glued together, to get more independence of movement. We work to build support for the changes being made so that these changes are more likely to be retained. Neck and shoulder issues can not really be addressed meaningfully before support from below is established. We consider how the individual functions in gravity, sitting, and in movement. When more independence of movement is gained, and the individual's posture is more aligned with gravity, a greater sense of ease is gained. One no longer has to try so hard to stand up straight, and problems can sort themselves out because there is less continual strain on problem areas. With a higher degree of order and alignment, one expresses better posture and movement because it feels good to do so, not because we have to keep telling ourselves to do it. Good posture and movement feel better because our bodies are functioning the way that nature intended, instead of functioning the way life and unnatural activities have randomly shaped us. To do this the Rolfer needs a number of sessions, commonly a series of 10, with the intention that the client will be good to go after that. Some people may choose to come in periodically down the road, as seeing a Rolfer with some degree of regularity makes them feel more balanced, but the purpose of a Rolfing series is to find a sense of well being and autonomy, and not be bound to the idea that you need help weekly for the rest of your life. Rolfing works with the intelligence of the body, and as the body/mind/nervous systems learn, they take that understand with them into the world. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #wellness #posture #movementeducation

Chronic pain is a problem that many of us deal with, whether from injury, disease, or from factors unknown. Sometimes this pain lasts for months, even years and sometimes it just disappears suddenly or fades away over time. Although pain can feel as immediate and real as our hand in front of our face, science has begun to put the experience of pain as an objective phenomena in a doubtful view. Coincidentally, this is similar to the Eastern perspectives held by Buddhism and many forms of Hinduism, the idea that all phenomena is a subjective illusion, even pain. This might be a hard pill to swallow, because it is a very convincing illusion, to say the least. Pain Occurs in the Brain Anyone whose life is affected by chronic pain, which can be debilitating, does not want to hear the phrase "it's all in your head". Also various trends in pop psychology and pop spirituality will try to say that if you change your mind or the way you think, the pain will stop and your life will change , but the reality is we don't have much control over our minds, this perspective does not really help much. Pain mostly serves the purpose of telling us something is wrong. Our whole body is composed of innervated tissue and nerve endings that tell us where we are in space (proprioception), what is going on inside of us (interoception) and warns us if something is dangerous or something is wrong. We are covered with nerve endings that take in all this information, and some of these nerve endings are especially devoted to sensing pain, but the difference between sensing a feather stroke across your arm or the sharp point of a nail is interpreted in the brain, not in the arm. How Rolfing Can Help The term myofascial, and or myofascial release is coming up a lot on the internet today. Myo= muscle and fascia= connective tissue. Rolfers and osteopaths were the first people to develop myofascial manipulation in the west, at least with greater precision than a Swedish massage. Dr. Ida Rolf, who had a P.H.D. in biochemistry, placed an importance on the nature of fascia as the primary organ of structure back when most scientists and anatomists thought of it as practically useless packing material. In the body fascia basically wraps around everything, so trying to help a person change their structure is difficult to impossible without addressing the fascia along with the Muscle tissue. Rolfers will ideally want to address posture and movement, to align the individual's structure in gravity. This really means addressing the individual from head to toe and from toe to head, from the outside in, and from the inside out. As Rolfers we are dealing with relationships. If you have shoulder pain, the problem is not your shoulder, it's the relation ship of your shoulder to your neck, or your chest, or your arm. Really, it's YOUR relationship with your shoulder that is a problem, as in reality, every problem is a full body problem to a Rolfer. What's the solution? First we begin with differentiating structures that are stuck together, and lengthening structure that are held tight and in flexion. We work with structures that will support other structures later, so for example, serious neck work happens later, everything underneath the neck must be supported first. We then work to get smooth movement through the joints when walking and moving around, and eventually help the deeper core muscles to become more active so we can do ordinary things without excessive force and expenditure of energy. The body is a self regulating/self correcting organism. It may have a hard time finding balance when there is injury or repetitive stress, but the Rolfer can help the self correcting ability, the adaptability, of the body to work better by addressing restrictions, developing support, and aligning the posture in gravity. With better support and alignment comes a greater ease of (standing, sitting, and movement) and this allows for less strain. With less strain muscle and joint injuries may have a chance to heal and the body may develop a better sense of balance, and pain may then subside. Although the subjective nature of pain is still somewhat mysterious, one thing is for sure, sometimes chronic pain begins to subside when a person starts to feel better overall, physically and emotionally, and this can be facilitated by having a sense of better physical freedom and support, which can be achieved by Rolfing. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #pain #painmanagment #idarolf

This a complaint I hear all the time in my Rolfing practice. Whether it's hamstrings, calves or both, "Why can't I stretch out my legs?" Of course you can stretch them but then they just wind up tight again. Why don't they stay loose? Why can't I keep the muscles in my legs more relaxed? You can stretch and stretch all day long, and may not have much success, so have you ever considered that your legs must be working hard to hold you up when standing and walking around? So how could we relieve some of the load that our legs take on everyday? Perhaps it has to do with how well aligned we are in gravity. Our feet, our ankles, our hips, the relationship of our hips to our upper body, even the head not being stacked well on the shoulders can weigh about 40 LBS, and it may be your legs that have to engage to keep you from tipping over. As Ida Rolf often said: "Where you think it is, it ain't!" It's a conundrum, your legs have to let go and lengthen for you to walk around, and good luck bending over to pick something up if your legs won't let go. I have literally had people tell me that their calves are chronically tight and they can't stretch them out, while I am working on their calves on the table, and they were completely soft. So what's the deal? Why are they suddenly tight when you stand up and walk around? The answer is that they, for some reason, need to expend a lot of effort to stand up and walk with their legs. If the ankles and arches are not flexible, then there is a lot of strain when walking, if their arches are bound up, they may stand in front of the mid line and need to engage calves and hamstrings just to keep from falling over. If they have an anterior or posterior pelvic tilt, this not only puts strain on the legs, it also means that the body above the pelvis is not well supported. So good luck stretching out your legs when all of these things are occurring! Everything in the body exists in relationship, and this also includes the nervous system and the mind/emotions that can trigger it. Every problem is a full body problem from a Rolfer's perspective, and that's why a systematic approach is needed. A roofer can try to patch a leak in your roof, but determining exactly where leaks can be coming from is tricky. In many cases a roofer would probably want to just replace your whole roof to do a proper job. The same is true for the Rolfer, we would rather do a systematic approach for the whole body, a basic 10 series. Some problems might not go away until a full series is completed. Just like anyone who takes pride in their work, a Roofer or a Rolfer, we want to do our best, and for anyone who has not done a traditional 10 series yet, or in a long time, the best thing I can suggest is to do a full Rolfing series. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #legs #stretching #rolfingseries

Scraping the tongue is a common practice in India and East Asia, and it is considered a routine part of daily hygiene. In these regions not scraping your tongue is as bad as not brushing your teeth. The health and appearance of the tongue is an important diagnostic signifier in eastern medicine and is a consideration in western medicine as well. The practice of scraping excess coating off the tongue is slowly being recognized in the west as something helpful, and dentists are starting to recommend this ancient practice here in the west now too. It should come as no surprise that there are finally some studies being done that scientifically validate tongue scraping from a variety of angles. As with many things, we usually wait for science to confirm what eastern medicine has known for thousands of years. Here are some things we know from both an eastern and western perspective. 1. It Gives you a Cleaner Tongue This is the most obvious factor. Having a tongue coated in thick moss (as Traditional Chinese Medicine calls it) does not look nice, especially if it is a funky color. No one likes having dirty looking teeth, I am sure most people don't like having a dirty tongue. Surely more people will see your teeth than your tongue, but still you know it is there. Also, various aspects of the tongue and its coating, color, consistency, spots, bumps can indicate various problems in the body, as the tongue is a map of the organ system in eastern medicine. This is why doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine don't want you to scrape your tongue before coming in to see them. Ayurvedic Medicine (the traditional medical practices of India) views the tongue coating as toxins, (Ama) rising to the surface and will be reabsorbed into the system if it is not removed, but one thing that science has confirmed is that it also gives you the ability to taste more. 2. Better Sense of Taste Scraping your tongue may not help you pick out better outfits, or listen to more sophisticated music, but I can help you improve your sense of taste. All that coating on your tongue prevents those 2,000-10,000 taste buds from revving as much information. We loose taste buds a we age, meaning that children have a more acute sense of taste. No wonder they are such picky eaters! But in addition to good looks and better taste is the effect is has on our breath. 3. Combats Bad Breath It should come as little surprise that the funky gunky coating on your tongue might contribute to bad breath. This is because the tongue has a huge variety of micro organisms that dwell on its surface and in its cracks and fissures. Just like in the gut, there must be a balance between these organisms, and when the more harmful organisms win the battle in over populating the tongue, then more sulfur and ammonia are produced, giving us bad breath. Many things can contribute to the mouth being overrun with harmful bacteria, lifestyle, diet, age, etc. but suspect number one is the very products we use to sanitize our mouths, namely fluoride and antiseptic mouthwash. Tongue scraping is a natural way to support the delicate balance of micro organisms in the mouth. 4. Supports Healthy Oral Biome As mentioned above, like the gut, the biome of the mouth has a special balance and when that balance is disrupted imbalance sets in and the field is a ripe environment for disease. The mouth needs a variety of micro organisms to inhabit the tongue in order to maintain a healthy balance. The aim of antiseptic mouth wash and fluoride (in our toothpaste and tap water) is to kill bacteria, unfortunately this kills the good bacteria right along with the bad bacteria, and the more harmful bacteria is likely to gain the upper hand when all the micro organisms left start repopulating. This is the same problem with the gut when using antibiotics, and why doctors are starting to be more cautious about prescribing them too often. Some doctors even prescribe probiotics to help repopulate the gut after a round of antibiotics. So how does tongue scraping help? If we are scraping off harmful bacteria we are also scraping off the good bacteria, right? Tongue scraping has been proven to help encourage a wider variety of micro organisms to bloom on the tongue. The analogy is that tongue scraping is like tilling the soil. Fluoride and antiseptic mouthwash do not do this, they cause the opposite effect to happen. Many of the micro organisms that are killed off from day to day by our tooth paste, tap water, and mouthwash, are responsible for metabolizing the sulfur that gives us bad breath, so antiseptic mouthwash may give you fresh breath in the short term, but does the opposite long term. On the bright side, studies have shown that it only takes the mouth biome about for days to recover from these insults, it is surprisingly resilient, but the biome of the mouth and tongue is not just responsible for the health of the mouth, it is vital for maintaining cardiovascular health as well! 5. Supports Cardiovascular Health The micro organisms that thrive in our mouths are very busy in the act of existing and that means metabolism. Just as some of these organisms produce sulfur and ammonia, which give us bad breath, and others metabolite these substances to fight bad breath, some of these organisms product other substances that are vital for good health. The primary substance I am thinking of is nitric oxide. We take in nitrates through our diet, if we are eating leafy greens, beats and other things high in nitrates, and these nitrates are turned into nitric oxide in the body. Some of the organisms in the mouth play an important role producing it. Nitric oxide is crucial for vasodilation, working to prevent high blood pressure and also plays an important role in the plasticity and flexibility of arteries. Along with this, it helps to fight against inflammation, which in arteries causes cholesterol to stick to the arterial walls and eventually clog arteries. We have long been under the impression that cholesterol causes heart attacks, but the lesser known reason that it clogs up arteries is that inflammation gives it a perfect surface to stick. Nitric oxide not only keeps the arterial walls flexible, but helps to keep them smooth. More so, a lack of nitric oxide in the body plays a role in erectile dysfunction, and the drugs that target ED help keep the nitric oxide from breaking down. The organisms in the mouth produce nitric oxide from nitrates and then the body slowly reabsorbs it like a time released capsule, distributing it throughout the body. The importance of oral health and balance is really just being understood in its role in supporting cardiovascular health. #tonguescraping #tongue #oralhealth #tcm #aryurveda #cardiovascular #breath #health

The Inner Work I am often asked by clients if they should be doing anything while going through a Rolfing series. I may give them an exercise that they can practice outside the office, usually pertaining to the goals of the session we just completed. These are not like gym exercises but exercises designed to explore movement and sensation. We want to improve posture and movement, but not through control, not how we have been taught. Graceful, efficient and optimized movement comes through expression of the body, not control. Every effort to force ourselves to walk like this, and stand like that, limits the expression of the body, and does not allow us to find better ways of being and doing things. When going through a Rolfing series there are 5 things that may help to develop and integrate the work we are doing. 1. Take a walk Doing crunches, running, hitting the gym are all great, but one of the most valuable exercises of all to your Rolfing process is taking a walk. Walking is the most basic form of exercise a human can do, and we evolved to do quite a bit of it. Walking helps us regulate our nervous systems as we tap into our parasympathetic nervous system when walking, especially if we are relaxed. Walking is not only good for our nerves, but also good for our minds. This is even better if we can get some barefoot time in while walking, feeling the grass, or soil beneath our feet. We are designed to take in a lot of information through our feet. It is an old Buddhist monk practice to walk barefoot on a path of river polished stones every day. Studies have proven that this not only tones the nervous system and lowers blood pressure, but also improves balance. Even more important, walking helps us to integrate the changes we have achieved during our Rolfing session, and start using those changes in real life, but this is greatly furthered by work with sensation. 2. Sensation The ways in which we understand what the word sensation means can be problematic. We do some walking assessment in every Rolfing session, and I always ask what the client notices while walking. With this question, I am talking about sensation. People may say that they don't notice anything, but I believe this is just a question of semantics. How could someone who is alive, breathing, and moving around not feel anything? So to clear that up there are some things to point out, most obviously feeling pain or restriction is sensation. Feeling light or heavy is sensation, as is feeling heavy or freer breathing. Feeling upright, or off center, or strain while walking is also a part of the picture that is painted by consciously participating in sensation. Working with sensation has been a large part of my mind body development over the years, working with G.I. Gurdjieff's ideas, most noticeably, that of Self Remembering. That is bringing one's conscious awareness back to one's self in the moment, the sensation of the body, the feeling of the emotions, and the mind together, the whole of one's self while in life, not just in meditation. Through deep states of meditation one may have a very different perception of sensing the body, but what really matters is working with the sensation of the body in daily life, and a walk is a great way to do it. One of our group leaders in the Gurdjieff Foundation, Jacob Needleman, always encouraged us to come back to a light sensation of the body from head to toe, a global sensation of the body, when trying to sense one's self in life. From there can emerge something deeper, but we must stay close to ourselves to allow this to happen, by trying to stay with a light sensation of the whole body. When out and about, in the gym, or even while cleaning house, bringing attention back to the body is a good practice for allowing the changes we are aiming for to happen, and the next step in this inner work is to relax. 3. Relax If I have a mantra that encapsulates my view of the process we undergo in Rolfing, it is to just relax! When I become aware of my body, I will probably notice unnecessary muscle tension. This tension does not allow me to take in a deeper sensation of myself. If my arm is tense and I sense my arm, then all I likely feel is tension. How would I experience my arm if it was more relaxed? There could be a finer sensation, especially if my mind becomes more attune to it. Muscle tension burns a lot of energy, for Gurdjieff it is a big culprit along with negative emotions that drain all the energy that we need for inner development. Even if inner development is not your aim, maybe we can all agree that life might be better without excess muscle tension. When we are tense, we experience constriction, and this takes away from our inner sense of spaciousness. This also limits our movement, and our palate of expression to a smaller range. It is difficult to allow new posture and new ways of movement in when we are tense. It is true that we might not have direct control over tension in some parts of the body, but we can bring a light awareness to it and try to let go. Sometimes it is this awareness that makes the change. The Rolfer has been involved in more overt things like separating muscles that are glued together by bunched up fascia, trying to get more support by aligning the individual to gravity so they don't have to strain so much, but the client needs to learn to relax and let something new in or they are likely to just pick up old habitual ways of standing and moving again. Besides trying to let go of unnecessary muscle tension, another way of breaking old habits is to slow down what you are doing. 4. Slow Down Any music teacher will probably let you know that if you are practicing a melody and hit a wrong note, you should start over at a slower pace. This is so you don't ingrain your mistakes. The analytical part of the mind moves slower than the body, and when we speed up we usually take up our ingrained unconscious habits again. Slower movement can allow new things to come in, and can allow the mind to take in new impressions. A lot of what we do as Rolfers is to help people gain some freedom from their habitual ways of standing, walking, and experiencing themselves. An important concept that Gurdjieff spoke of was that of postures. He pointed out that we have physical and mental postures, both of which are related. Taking the same physical posture can evoke the same mental posture and that can keep us viewing the world in a mechanical framework. It is hard to see anything new when we are stuck in the same mental postures throughout the day. In addition to slowing down, in order to get some temporary freedom from mechanical mental postures, it can be helpful to take unusual physical postures, even simple ones. One can leave one arm hanging down while sitting in a chair, or uncross one's arms when we are accustomed to cross them. It should feel mildly uncomfortable because it is not habitual, it is a moment of being awake. 5. Listen to the body Changes in the body, movement, and the mind-body interaction must happen organically in hopes of finding balance and a higher degree of order. This can not occur when I am over controlling, or when I am unaware of myself. A dialog needs to take place in which there is attention to the body in motion, and an allowance for that body to explore. For this we must allow ourselves to come out of habitual ways of moving and standing, and also give up what we think it the "right way" to walk, stand and sit. Education in walking, standing, and sitting is important, and it is what we do, but it should be done without force and without trying to control. When we take a dog for a walk we hopefully allow the dog to explore, sniffing things, roll in the grass, watch people and animals, we don't micromanage the dog on a walk, we gently guide it and make sure safety is observed. So too should the body be allowed to explore movement, finding subtle new ways to express itself, and being overly controlling of its manifestations can prevent change from happening. I have sometimes seen very disciplined people unconsciously resist change during a series because of their controlling attitudes. They may have gotten something out it, but they probably would have done better to get out of their own way. So a good rule of thumb is to try to get out of our own way, so that something new can come in. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #gurdjieff #posture #movement #rolfingseries

When going through a Rolfing 10 series three cycles are completed. We begin with a sleeve cycle, in which the outer layers of muscle and fascia are addressed, then move into the deeper core sessions, and eventually try to strive for a greater unity across the body during the integrative phase of the series. The order in which we proceed is important, so we can develop lasting changes that can be adopted and integrated into daily movement, posture, and the individual's way of engaging in life. If support or space for change is not achieved before it is asked for, we are very likely to just slip back into our old habits, postures, and our experience of pain and restriction will likely be perpetuated. When seeing a new client, Rolfers typically want to start at the beginning, and for us the beginning is the sleeve cycle. The bigger superficial muscles that form our outer shell is known as the sleeve. These muscles have evolved for power and action. They are strong and burn oxygen quickly, therefore are prone to tire faster than our deeper muscles of posture. The sleeve muscles are composed of more fast twitch fibers than core muscles, meaning that they will help you run from a bear, which maybe you are not supposed to do anyway, but they are not fit for ordinary posture and movement. We generally need very little muscle effort to stand, sit, or move about in an ordinary fashion unless we are compensating for not being aligned well in gravity, either because of injury, pain, or just a poor sense of embodiment. It is the Rolfer's job to help people achieve a better sense of embodiment, better posture, and better freedom of moment so that injuries can have a chance to heal, and chronic pain can subside, but none of this can occur if the sleeve muscles are doing the job of the core muscles, so the first step is to get the sleeve muscles to back off. These muscles have usually become overactive, chronic muscle tension is a reality that many of us face. If we use excessive force to open a door, walk, or even stand we not only lack the graceful movement we are suited for, we burn energy and interfere with our system from working optimally. To make things worse, we have often been told that we need to tense or fire this or that group of muscles to stand with good posture or walk around, an in such cases we will almost always incorporate extra muscles that are not needed and use excessive force, we will almost certainly to it poorly, do it wrong. Many of these muscles and the fascia that governs them will be adhered and bunched together in ways that do not allow for independent movement and they will likely bear down on the muscle groups below them, limiting those deeper muscle in activity and often leading to muscle atrophy. So the Rolfer's job in the beginning is about differentiation and separation, about creating space and then moving on to activating the deeper intrinsic muscles at the core. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #rolfing10series

Lengthen the Side Line In the 3rd hour of a Rolfing 10 series we take a look at the side lines, and differentiate front from back. It is all too often that our sides have become shortened, so just as a fitness instructure usually thinks of strength, the Rolfer usually thinks of length. This shortening can often be seen in the lower back in the form of an excessive lordotic curve, most often caused by a shortening of the quadratus lumborum, which connect the hip to the lowest couple of ribs. When there is excessive curve in the lower back it serves to shorten the lower back and the sides. Just as the quadratus lumborum connects the hip to the rib cage, the latissimus dorsi connects the hip to the shoulder girdle, providing a very powerful line of force that produces quite a bit of strength in the shoulder girdle, and must have come in handy for our ancestors when spending a lot of time hanging from branches. In the 2nd hour session we addressed the feet and the lower leg up to the knee. In this 3rd hour session we may address the IT band starting just above the knee, up to the hip and shoulder girdles, even up to the lateral neck and side of the head. The girdles were addressed in session one, and there was work to affect the hip girdles by focusing on the lower legs in session two, now we come back to the girdles with the intention of lengthening the sides, and helping the client to cultivate a sense of front and back. As with the 1st and 2nd hour sessions, we are primarily concerned with the bigger more superficial muscles, known as the sleeve. Some people will be surprised that the work is not super deep or painful, just keep in mind the objective is not to just crank pressure on the person like its a hard massage, it is to help lift and differentiate the bigger exterior muscle groups in order to give the deeper muscles, the core some room to function better. Sessions 1,2 and 3 form a short series of their own. Some people start with this just to get a feel for what Rolfing is. Just doing these session can be quite helpful, but if the client wants to go through a full 10 series it is then time to address the core muscles after the sleeve sessions. It is strongly recommended that an individual complete the 10 series after going into the core sessions, the middle of the series is not a good place to stop. Strain patterns are addressed, and new strain patterns are created as we go through the process of creating space, length and balance, and that stability may not really be there until the end of the series. #rolfing #rolfer #structuralintegration #rolfingseries #10series #rolfsession3

Organize the Legs and Feet In a second hour Rolfing session we bring our attention to the legs and feet. This is our base of support, and in the first hour we made room up above this area for changes to move into. Neck, shoulder, back, and hip issues are unlikely to heal if we are not walking smoothly, so addressing the feet should occur early on in a Rolfing series. The way we walk with our feet and ankles directly affect our knees and our hips, and the muscles of our lower legs act as stirrups that support and drive the feet. All of this is wrapped in a hose-like sheath of deep connective tissue known as the Crural Fascia, which is continuous with fascial sheets that continue all the way up the back and neck and wrap around the skull to the forehead. This is why rolling a golf ball on the underside of one's foot can help them bend over and touch their toes sometimes. It's a great party trick, try it. It could be said that the feet affect everything above them, but this is most noticeable in the hips. The Legs and Feet are Part of the Hip Girdle Just as the arms and forearms are considered part of the shoulder girdle, as they have a direct effect on them, so too are the legs and feet considered part of the hip girdle. Every step we take will have a direct effect on the hips. If we loose flexibility in the arches or the ankles, we will either walk in shorter steps, or we will avoid them all together by rotating our legs outward (laterally) and this will most likely cause the muscles of the lateral hips to shorten and remain tight. If the calves and muscles of the lower leg remain short and tight, it will likewise have an effect on the flexibility of the ankle and even the foot, limiting motion and causing us to avoid them when walking, this is sure to put strain on the knees and the hips, and what ever puts strain on the hips can be sure to affect the back. The Legs Link up to the Back In the case of pronation and supination of the foot, we will often find it is the muscles of the lower leg that are the primary factor. The tibialus anterior and the fibularus longus (previously known as peroneus longus) wrap around the bottom of the foot like a stirrup and and imbalance in one or the other leads to pronation and supination, which in turn leads to walking on on the outside or inside of the foot. Up above the lower leg, the chain of force continues up the thigh to the pelvis, thus affecting pelvic tilt, and can cause an anterior or posterior pelvic tilt. This will either lead to an excessive curve in the lower back, or take the curve out causing a flat lower back. It then does not take much imagination to visualize what this will do to the upper back, or the back as a whole, so in order to address the back, we must first address how the legs link up to the back, something that no one really thinks about. Strength and Arch Support Come from Proper Use The muscles and the bones of the foot are mobile structures, every little bone in the foot needs to be able to move with some small degree of independence. The arches of the foot are composed of these bones. If one has high arches or low arches, it is the interplay between the bones of the foot and the muscles that governs them that determines high or low arches. No one is born with high or low arches, in fact no one is born with arches at all. Our arches only start developing when we become weight bearing upright beings, in response to gravity, an wearing arch support does not really correct this, it only acts as a crutch. To get the arches functioning properly, we must get awareness in the feet, the lower legs and the thighs to get them functioning properly. Muscles will stretch and or strengthen through proper use, rather than gym exercises. It is the Rolfer's job to help make this awareness and proper functioning happen. At the end of the day Rolfing and the 10 series is about fostering body awareness that will help the individual adapt and adjust to life. #rolfing #rolfingtenseries #rolfing10series #structuralintegration #feet #archsupport

Open the Breath/ Create Space When beginning a series of myofascial work, like a Rolfing series, the question is "where to start"? Just like painting a room, there is a logical order, trim first, then the ceiling, then walls. This is so we are less likely to have to do things over again. This is also true with Rolfing, if the way we walk is putting excess shock and strain on our hips, then it would make sense to address the way we walk before trying to work out the hips, and that might mean addressing the feet first. Being the base of support, starting with the feet and the lower legs would seem logical, and that is how Ida Rolf first began when developing a series, but time and experience began to prove otherwise, starting with the feet was not the best idea. For change to occur, the must be room for those changes to move into, so the unexpected answer appeared to be, make room in the torso by opening the areas restricting the breath, including the hip and the shoulder girdles. This became apparent when people were experiencing issues after the first session, pain, headaches, even heart arrhythmia! So the answer appeared to have be counter-intuitive. Opening the Breath For change to occur we must address unnecessary strain, and one of the most immediate and constant forms of strain is the restriction of the breath. We will certainly be healthier and feel better if we breath better, but this is not just about getting more oxygen, and pumping out more carbon dioxide, it is about the strain that restricted breathing causes through out the body. We typically think of the breath as only affecting the the chest and abdomen, but taking a look at an anatomy diagram shows us just how massive the lungs actually are, even rising up through the thoracic diaphragm and feeding into the connective tissue of the scalenes, the muscles of the front and side of the neck. More so it is the respiratory diaphragm that is the motor of the lungs and that spans most of the lower ribs. Our entire torso, really the whole body, is wrapped in a sheath of fascia (connective tissue) that we wear like a sweater, just under our skin. This is known as the external fascial sheath by Rolfers, and like a sweater, it can get bunched up and restricted in areas, and therefor restrict the movement of breath, the shoulders, and even the neck. So we begin by "ironing" out this sheath, and freeing it from the muscles below, allowing more space for breath, and more space for movement. This will also be achieved by addressing the shoulder girdles. "The Body is Solid Material Wrapped Around the Breath" Ida Rolf The Shoulder Girdles The arms and shoulders can wind up fairly locked up and immobile in many people. We usually realize this because of the feeling of strain and stiffness we feel in our shoulders. The arms and the shoulders can cause a line of force that lock up the neck and compress the chest, because of this Rolfers view the arms as being part of the neck. (See my previous blog Why is my Neck Always Tight. Just as the shoulders restrict the neck, so too can they restrict the chest and the movement of the torso in breathing. To free the movement of the breath we must address the shoulder girdles. Free the Hip Girdles In session one we want to address things that limit the breath, and the hips can actually play a role in that too, so some attention to the lateral hip rotators, the I.T. band and even the hamstrings can help to free up the pelvis enough to allow more of the desired movement that breathing causes in the abdomen. Ida Rolf said that the whole 10 series is about horizontalizing the pelvis. This is because so much of our mass must be balanced over it, so many sessions will address different aspects of the hips and pelvis. In a Rolfing series there are a few things that should be addressed in most or even all sessions. The neck will be touched in on from many different angles. In session one we are concerned with what affects the front of the neck. As, with many sessions there will be some back work, probably performed upright and in gravity. There may be some breath coaching to help the client breath into areas of their front, back, chest, or abdomen, depending on where the restriction is, and there may be some coaching around allowing the shoulders to be relaxed and the arms to swing when walking. A traditional session one is a good stand alone session, and also a good place to start for most people. It's a good introduction to Rolfing, and a great way to see if one wants to commit to a series. If you haven't, why not give it a try? #rolfing #rolfer #idarolf #structuralintegration #breath #breathing #rolfsession1