Why Rolf Structural Integration (Rolfing) is the ultimate therapy for body balance

I have been working with Rolf Structural Integration (RSI) for over 15 years. In my training I was told that Ida Rolf, founder of RSI, had suggested that when a practitioner first takes on this work they follow simple rules to get results. She said that after two years the practitioner will suddenly begin to notice things they hadn't noticed before. From that point on, learning through each person we place our hands on takes off and our understanding increases year on year.

I have found that what she said is true. Each time I have experienced a breakthrough in understanding, another lurks just around the corner. Each understanding actually leads to more questions. As a practitioner I have developed the skill of listening through my body. My eyes see flows, tension patterns, aberrations, balance, imbalance. From the beginning of our training we are taught to look at the person in front of us as a whole.

In Rolfing circles Ida Rolf is oft quoted as having said "where you think it is, it ain't" and "go where it ain't". So we don't spend our time worrying about the specific area of pain the client may come in presenting. We look at the entire person in front of us and we begin to see the pulls, the resistance, the over-corrections that are leading to the current pain situation. We look at balance in the structure as a whole. We look at the head in relation to the feet, the ribs in relation to the pelvis, the knees in relation to the lumbar spine. Each element paints its own picture. And it is from that picture that we begin our work.

The Rolf series is a 10 session series. This really is just a start, but it is a very good start. Time off the table is considered integration time. Each session progresses to the next. Ida Rolf established an understanding of what needs to be release first. I now consider these points of release as necessary to allow the next area to have the right energy pathway within which to release.

While there is value in a manual therapist working on the area in obvious trouble, this does not actually create balance. Training one set of weak muscles in order to try to combat the over-working of another set of muscles does not create balance.

Balance in the body comes as a whole. The whole system balancing within the space of gravity. This balance requires a letting go of concepts about posture. It requires encouraging the body to release aberrant patterns and adopting patterns that are clearly more wholesome. Wholesome balance requires no tension, no holding, no compensations. This is a difficult premise for the human mind to accept, so we work through the body, layer by layer, section by section to show the body what it has forgotten.

The process of RSI is not always comfortable. It takes discomfort to show the patterns of tension. For both body and mind to experience these often unexpected areas of holding so that it becomes more possible for them to let go.

When the bones are able to sit where they were born to be, the tone of the muscles around the bones begins to alter. This alteration is rarely what we expect it to be. It is not the engagement of muscles in order to move. It has nothing to do with bracing. There is a freedom that can feel a little disconcerting at first.

The more I work with the extraordinary system of bodywork, the more I understand the sheer beauty of the what Ida Rolf must have seen. All this gives me the reasons why Rolf Structural Integration (Rolfing) is the ultimate therapy for body balance.

The process is a journey. It is not me as practitioner enforcing my will on my clients. We move through the series together. My clients are participants in the process. We use movement, sensation, words, touch to bring balance back to the body. All the while, if the partnership is a a genuine 2-way response, the mind will also become more familiar with the body and will begin to balance with it.