“Simple, everyday, run of the mill, bipedal walking is among the most crucial and defining elements of human nature. Humans, in fact, are the only mammals on the Earth designed to walk in a habitually upright position.” (M. Games)
People often ask me why walking is the assessment tool we use in Rolfing. Here is why.
Watching a client walk tells me what is happening with their body’s structure — what’s moving, what isn’t, what’s holding tight. As I work with a client, their tissue lengthens, restrictions are released, and fluidity returns to their walk. The client feels it and I see it. And the more they walk in between sessions, the more their body remembers how to walk. The body wakes up in a newfound and knowing way. Rediscovering their body’s natural walk can be a profound and enlivening discovery for clients.
Walking is by far the most indicative measure for assessing movement patterns in the human body. Similarly, it is also the way to restore and maintain natural movement patterns once they have been lost. The body is designed for walking. In fact, our entire structural assemblage is organized for bipedalism. We are meant to be moving about the earth on two feet, transferring weight from one foot to the other, in the presence of gravity. All of our bones, muscles, joints, ligaments, blood vessels, and organs are organized for this purpose.
The problem is that many of us rarely walk — let alone do any form of physical work on our feet. Most of us have spent years sitting on chairs and couches, curled into a flexed pattern, with our heads angled forward, eyes staring downwards, arms in front of the body. Over the years, we undo our natural upright posture and our capacity for extension. Gradually, the body hardens around this C-curve, and layers of fascia form around this new posture we have adapted to. Then, when we do get up to walk, it doesn’t feel so good. When we cease to walk or to move around on our two feet, our muscles stop performing their respective jobs, our joints stiffen, and we lose our capacity to move freely and naturally. Our body aches and our energy wanes.
One of the benefits of Rolfing is invoking change. The other is enhancing awareness. The more aware a client becomes of the merits of walking, the more they appreciate how this seemingly simple activity — oft overlooked in modern life — can invoke the body’s innate capacity for self-organization, and, thus, changes continue to unfold and endure long after the table work is done.