Rolfing®: Getting Started
What is Rolfing®?
Developed by Dr. Ida Rolf, shown in the photograph above demonstrating her Structural Integration work on a client.
Why Do I Need Rolfing®?
Throughout life, your body is exposed to repeated stresses, traumas, and injuries.
Fascia responds by tightening and thickening to support areas of increased strain.
Overtime, this leads to misalignment and imbalance causing tension and pain.
Q: What is Fascia?
Fascia is known as “the organ of shape.” It is a strong and elastic type of connective tissue designed to be pliable and move freely with muscles and bones. It is everywhere in the body, separating and encasing every organ, bone, muscle, and blood vessel. It maintains the body’s structure and allows us to move.
How Does Rolfing® Help?
One of the incredible things about fascia is that it is malleable and responsive. Rolfing helps to release and reorganize fascia so the body can rediscover its desired structure, and a natural ease of movement is restored.
“It is to be noted that these changes made possible by manipulation are made permanent only by the pattern of formulated, not random, body movement, which often occur spontaneously, as the restrictions to movement are released.”
Dr. Ida P. Rolf
Who is Rolfing® for?
Truthfully, Rolfing is for everybody – all ages, all levels of physical fitness, all types of bodies. Rolfing helps realign your body’s specific structure and thus improves your body’s unique function.
It is for anyone seeking greater comfort in their body, increased range and flexibility, improvement in sport and performance, alleviation of pain, and a deeper overall awareness and relationship with their body.
I am working with a client, demonstrating an exercise that integrates the legs and arms with the deep core muscles.
Rolfing®: The Ten Series
The Ten-Series is the standard “recipe” of Rolfing Structural Integration. In this sequence of ten sessions, one session leads the body into the next, and prepares the tissue and nervous system for further change.
Each session is focused on a specific area of the body, and works to create balance, reduce strain, and improve the relationship of that area to the rest of the body.
It is the specific and sequential order of the Rolfing® Ten-Series that provides the maximum benefit and transformation. The tissue and nervous system are able to adapt to the changes, prepare for the next level of change, and integrate these changes into the body’s overall structure and function
“To me, the most important thing is not a specific Rolfing hour; it’s the progression from hour to hour. It’s the way you prepare in the second hour for the third hour so that you can get the results of the third hour.”
Dr. Ida P. Rolf
The Rolfing® Ten Series Explained
Sessions 1-3: The “Sleeve” Sessions
Session One prepares the body for the Rolfing series. The goal of this first session is to enhance the quality of the breath. We work with the shoulders, chest, ribcage and diaphragm, and begin working in the hips and upper legs.
Session Two helps the body find support and a stable foundation in both of the feet. We work the feet, ankles, muscles of the lower leg, and knees.
Session Three establishes a sense of the front and back of the body, working the sideline to increase space and dimension down the side of the body. We work from the neck and shoulders down to the hips and thighs.
Sessions 4-7: The “Core” Sessions
Session Four works on the inside of the leg, from the arch of the foot to the pelvis, to increase awareness of this midline as it relates up into the core.
Session Five addresses the surface and deep abdominal muscles, with a focus on the psoas and its relationship to the core and lower back.
Session Six works on the back of the legs, the pelvis, and the lower back, with a particular focus on the sacrum. The goal is to increase movement and freedom of the spine and pelvis.
Session Seven addresses the head to body relationship and enhances sensory awareness with focussed work on the neck, jaw, face, and head.
Sessions 8-10: The “Integrative” Sessions
Sessions Eight and Nine integrate all of the work that has been done. One session will be on the upper body while the other will be done on the lower body. The aim of these sessions is to integrate the work that has been done into functional, natural movement.
Session Ten serves to finalize the process and bring the body to its highest possible level of order and function. The session brings the series to a close by balancing the horizontals and the structural relationships as a whole.
While each session has a particular focus, all sessions incorporate what is currently happening in your body, with the overall goal of increasing your adaptability and maximizing the potential of your whole system.
“Ten or twenty hours of processing is sufficient to establish the new muscle pattern and the changed metabolic patterns which maintain it indefinitely.”
Dr. Ida P. Rolf