tructural ntegration S ® I THE JOURNAL OF THE ROLF INSTITUTE JUNE 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION: THE JOURNAL OF ® THE ROLF INSTITUTE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2 June 2017 Vol. 45, No. 2 COLUMNS Ask the Faculty: The Energetic Taxonomy 3 PUBLISHER The Rolf Institute of ‘ENERGY’ – ROLFING SI AND NONPHYSICAL REALITY Structural Integration Energy Work: Re-conceptualizing an Inclusive Spectrum 6 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 of Interventions within an Informational Model of SI Boulder, CO 80301 USA Kevin Frank (303) 449-5903 The Felt Capacity to Do Work: Working with Energy 10 (303) 449-5978 Fax Jeffrey Maitland and Deborah Weidhaas Increasing Your Bandwidth: An Interview with Jim Oschman 13 EDITORIAL BOARD Michael Murphy and James Oschman Anne F. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief Shonnie Carson, Lineage Editor Energy, Geometry, and Presence: 20 Part 2 of an Interview with Ray McCall Szaja Gottlieb, Research/Science Editor Anne Hoff and Ray McCall Linda Loggins, Movement Editor Heidi Massa, Latin America Editor Intuition and Intention: The Yin and Yang of Subtle Energy 24 Keren’Or Pézard, Arts Editor Kathy McConnell John Schewe, Faculty Liason Integrating the Invisible: A Direct EM Approach 26 Matt Walker, Asia/Pacific Editor Deborah Stucker Naomi Wynter-Vincent, Europe Editor The Energetic Foundations of SI: An Origin Story 30 Diana Cary Bob Schrei Lynn Cohen Craig Ellis How Do We Know?: The Magic to See and to Hear in Order to Do 33 Theresa Zordan Lina Hack Dorothy Miller ‘Horse Listener’ 34 Meg Maurer Felisa Holmberg with Anne Hoff Deanna Melnychuk Recognizing Energy 38 Max Leyf Treinen Deborah Weidhaas Letting ‘What Is’ Show Itself: Jeffrey Maitland on 40 LAYOUT AND Mind, Zen, and Energy Work GRAPHIC DESIGN Anne Hoff and Jeffrey Maitland Susan Winter PERSPECTIVES Articles in Structural Integration: The Explorations of Earth and Sky: An Interview with Sally Klemm 44 Journal of The Rolf Institute® represent the Anne Hoff and Sally Klemm views and opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official REVIEWS 49 positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute CONTACTS 50 reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to accept or reject any article for publication in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute.

Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute® (ISBN-13: 978-0997956931, ISSN 1538-3784) is published by the Rolf Institute, 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, CO 80301.

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Ida Rolf believed that her work of Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) could support human evolution and potential. This evolutionary movement would come about through the work of aligning human beings in the gravitational field – the work of integrating the physical into something nonphysical (gravity) with which it closely interrelates. Rolfers™ live and work by her credo that “gravity is the therapist” and that alignment of the physical body in the gravitational field brings an embodied experience of the ‘Line’ and a sense of ‘lift’ – felt experiences that are hard to nail down with science. Rolf was a scientist, deeply embedded in that paradigm, but not constrained by it. She earned a doctorate in biochemistry, and initially engaged in a research career before developing Rolfing SI. She was also deeply interested in fields outside the ken of the mainstream science and medicine of her day, as indicated by her explorations in osteopathy and homeopathy. Moreover, her open-mindedness extended to domains more associated with the numinous, such as yoga, the work of Swedenborg, and the phenomena of ‘energy’. She seemed interested in all aspects of being human and in developing the human being. So Rolf was a scientist, engaged in the physical, and she was also something else – a mystic, a contemplative, psychically gifted? Whatever you choose to name it, she was curious about nonphysical, energetic phenomena that are not yet fully explained by science. In Rolf, the physical/nonphysical, or science/energy, met in how she talked about the work: often in terms of anatomy and biomechanics, yet sometimes in terms of an ancient mystery school (see Bob Schrei’s article in this issue). They met in how she was observed to practice Rolfing SI: firmly hands-on, relating to the physicality of the fascia, yet seemingly directed by more than the client’s intake or physical presentation revealed. (You can read examples of this in “Memories of Training with Ida Rolf,” my interview with Gael Rosewood and Sharon Wheeler in the July 2015 issue of this Journal). They also met in Rolf’s directives for how her work should be further explored: she wanted scientific research done to back up her method, but she also hoped that science would develop the instrumentation to explain how her method affected nonphysical phenomena such as ‘energy fields’. The September 1974 issue of the Bulletin of Structural Integration (the precursor of this Journal) published “Ida Rolf on Rolfing [SI],” based on a speech Rolf gave to an annual membership meeting. She said: People . . . ask, “What does Dr. Rolf want?” . . . Here is the answer . . . I want to see what happens to the energy fields in and around an individual as you order his structure and what is the change in his behavior that parallels this change in energy. I want to see whether those fields get broader, whether they get brighter, whether they get more vertical, whether they get less confused. I want to see whether fields interdigitate, etc. These are all directions in which logically we should and must go if we are to fulfill what I envision as our destiny. In 2017, some forty years later, I wonder how Dr. Rolf would view the state of affairs in the Rolfing community in regards to this wish. Although many Rolfers share her interest in the nonphysical, in ‘energy’, we have kept these questions of the numinous well out of the main thrust of our teaching and discussion of Rolfing SI. Rolf could inhabit two worlds – science/energy (or physical/nonphysical) – with fluidity. Many of us cannot, or do so quietly, lest it influence perception of our work. Later in that 1974 article, Rolf alludes to throwing out “bait” in hopes of catching fish in her audience: I hope that among you there are the kind of fish that will go out and bring in another school of fish . . . Not to get their aches and pains taken out, not to have their symptoms removed, but that they might contribute to the understanding of energy in the human universe. This issue of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® is dedicated to the theme of “Rolfing SI and Nonphysical Reality” – aka “Rolfing SI and ‘Energy’.” While the Rolfing community has no unified view or teaching on ‘energy’, Rolf did catch a number of “fish” in her time, and they have, in turn, caught others. Here, a number of them ­– Jeffrey Maitland, Ray McCall, Kevin Frank, Jim Oschman, Bob Schrei, Deborah Stucker, Deborah Weidhaas, Kathy McConnell, Theresa Zordan, and Felisa Holmberg – share their understandings of and work with Rolfing SI as it relates to energy, to the subtle, to the nonphysical. Perhaps in the process they will catch a few more fish for this endeavor that so interested Dr. Rolf.

Anne F. Hoff Editor-in-Chief

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by Thomas Kuhn. New paradigms are Ask the Faculty appearing that may, over time, break the resistance of the older ones and lead to The Energetic Taxonomy a new understanding of reality – and its possible levels. Q: Ida Rolf was a scientist, but she also had an interest in how Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) affected human beings on many levels, including the energetic. In the meantime, I ‘gauge’ my words How do you relate to the energetic taxonomy and see its impact on SI outcomes? according to the context. I include the How can we represent that dimension of our work in a plausible manner that ‘energetic’ aspect of our work whenever I helps to promote our work in the larger world? am communicating with a client/audience that is already within the framework of such questioning. For those more ‘evidence- A: First of all, I believe in openly including where I tried to quantify client responses based’ counterparts, I may bring up the the energetic taxonomy in our concept of from NAPER questionnaires and reports. existence of ‘unexpected’ or ‘unexplainable’ the work. We don’t need to have all the I believe that producing simple but honest observations and relate them to quantum answers to this complex issue, just a stance papers and case studies in this way could physics and to transdiciplinarity, bringing of reflecting on it, trying to find out from begin to shed light on the energetic up the idea of a possible scientific revolution our own experience its definition and its phenomena seen in Rolfing SI. This sort of that may eventually give us a broader scope in our work. How do we affect energy work should come from the community as a comprehension of our existence. and how does energy affect our work? The whole. Although the faculty are wanting to point is how to frame this inquiry in an Luiz Fernando Bertolucci better articulate the energetic taxonomy, my elegant, open, and constructive way. To do belief is the answers will not come from top Fascial Anatomy Instructor this collectively would show the public that down. Empirical reality will be the source A: When we do our manual, fascial work we honor our paradigm, that we are not of this articulation. So a conversation needs as Rolfers, what affect is that having putting ‘the cart before the horse’ but that to happen between all ‘layers’ that deal energetically? How does cultivating we are engaged. with energy: clients, Rolfers, instructors . . . energetic awareness and sensitivity help In Rolfing SI we come from a holistic NAPER has made a start, and soon its data or hinder our fascial work? paradigm, which includes an energetic bank (2,000 cases now) will be available Perception and touch affect the ‘energetic dimension. Because it is difficult to articulate online and Rolfers all around the world will flow’ and integration throughout a session. and define, the energetic taxonomy tends to be able to add their data. I imagine the energetic phenomena as the make practitioners either shy, fearful, or connection that occurs between seemingly skeptical on the one hand, or credulous, Pedro Prado distant anatomical parts within the body. free-floating, or pretentious on the other. In Basic & Advanced Rolfing Instructor ® This flow of energy through fascia, bone, or the past, we have either been hiding from Rolf Movement Instructor fluid seems to facilitate a kind of ‘listening’ this question, or been extremely loose in A: The Western world has mostly been through the whole of the body. This stream our statements. governed by information produced by the of energetic conductivity enhances the Yet even the most skeptical Rolfer™ scientific method, and one commonly seeks ‘system’s’ sense of wholeness. I am always secretly has some stories, observations, and objectivity and efficacy in ‘evidence-based’ humbled when a client says “I feel this in questions regarding this subject. Can you practices and disciplines. Nonetheless, my little toe” even though I am working imagine what we would find if we could the span of the scientific method, as it is in the axilla. collect all the stories, reflections, questions, conceived now, is already being questioned When this kind moment occurs, I notice and testimonials of clients over the past fifty in its capability to deal with certain clients settling more deeply into the table, or so years? This sort of documentation has observations and outcomes in experiments. taking a deeper breath, or exhaling more been undertaken for years now by NAPER, One example is quantum physics, which fully. They might comment about feeling a clinical project of the Brazilian Rolfing is pushing science beyond classical logic. an ‘opening’ that is based in the anatomy Association (ABR). Bottom-up research is Quantum-physics observations and the and yet is more than their anatomy. I carried out by ABR Rolfers, and we have a growing evidence of the existence of intentionally engage locally but hold the data bank of collected results from intake biofields are showing the necessity of new possibility of contacting globally, asking forms as well as client’s and Rolfer’s reports. approaches to a broader understanding of “Does this contact connect through the Some of the questions asked relate directly processes governing life and existence. body or is it just where my hands are to this issue. A transdisciplinary approach presupposes touching?” I hook, hold, and wait. I wait Our client testimonials are outstanding, the existence of additional levels of reality, and listen, and often I begin to feel/sense/ revealing the presence of the energetic besides the physical. It encompasses touch a whole-body response. dimension in their awareness and nonlinearity and related phenomena For me, another key for accessing the discussion of their process; they often use and may be an important step in energetic, in addition to structural/ the word ‘energy’ as they describe physical transcending linear ‘cause-and-effect’ functional considerations, is perceiving and existential changes. Empirical evidence logic. Transdisciplinary methodology the whole person as I work . . . front and and good methodology can lead to new may become a new way of producing back, down to the heels, etc., as well as the knowledge, as I found in my doctoral work, knowledge. My understanding is that we are living a scientific revolution as defined space around an individual’s body.

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Often there is fulcrum of unusual quiet A: Energy is that stuff that is everywhere, and observation open allows me to feel, within an individual’s body – as if the tissues like qi in Chinese medicine. We feel it, we sense, and appreciate the complexity of are organizing or holding a previous insult move in it, and it moves in us. Yet there the person who comes into my office. I will and wrapping around it as a way to contain is great disagreement about what it is. never know what the client is really there the insult. Osteopaths say, “The body wraps Also some disrespect is sent toward those to discover. I think many times s/he doesn’t around its lesions.” These fulcrums seem practitioners who investigate the field of know, even if there are stated goals. But as to be doing just that. When recognized and energetic realities, even though Dr. Rolf Ray McCall said in an earlier article, the released, there is a concurrent flow and herself was curious on this subject. thing that everyone comes for is change. We release through the system. can’t appreciate how that change will occur, In my own practice, and in keeping or what the later effects will be; we only I notice an energetic shift at the end of company with other Rolfers and structural know that change will take place whether a session as a client sits and then stands integrators, I have noticed that the people we can apprehend the nature of that change and walks. For my eyes, there is the lift of who do not move, for instance, are beyond the purely physical or not. integration and a ‘glow’ of remembered sometimes hostile to movement work. Is uprightness. Movement is more graceful it because the work is of no value to them, I will leave you with one thought – why and fluid. The body is whole . . . a ‘new or is it that they do not move, and hence do we have the capacity to perceive in being’ stands who is more than the sum of cannot appreciate the subtlety of energetic whatever way we perceive? One mode his or her anatomy or structure. The unity of transmission through a structurally of perception is not inherently better body-mind-spirit seems to be realized and integrated body (or, one that has not been, than another; one style will usually feel refreshed when I as practitioner engage the as Dr. Rolf used to say, ‘processed’.) Perhaps more natural to the observer in question. energetic qualities of our work. the same is true of energy. This is an easy How do we cultivate that mode, and add leap for me to make, since movement is layers to our understanding, not just of the Carol Agneessens evidence of energy, which travels not only biomechanics at work in our clients? How Rolfing Instructor vertically along lines of gravity, but in every do we do what Dr. Rolf suggested, and look Rolf Movement Instructor direction through the fascial matrix. Those to feel and illuminate the energetic layers A: People who were there in the early days who move can see this movement, or lack of the people who seek out our service? I of Rolfing SI have told me that Ida Rolf of it, in others. hope readers will be encouraged to trust more their senses and intuitions, while reacted very aggressively when students We notice it in all of our clients, even used the word ‘energy’. According to their always grounding them in the physicality though many practitioners interpret of themselves and the client. reports, she would challenge them: “What their observations in mostly mechanical, do you mean when you say ‘energy’?” geometric, or structural terms. But the body, Libby Eason Later she was more tolerant. There’s no which is not only structural elements, does Rolfing Instructor doubt that Rolf was interested in the effect not reveal itself in static postures. It reveals I notice a perennial problem in of manual work on the energy field that itself in how energy – movement – does A: discussions about ‘energetic work’ within surrounds living organisms – but she did or does not flow, and in what directions, SI; that problem stems from trying to it by touching the fascial system. vectors. Much is written in the flesh in this parse one dimension of the SI work as Some of our Rolfing colleagues like to go manner. It is not a mystery to those whose fundamentally different, but without really the opposite way: they try to influence studies have included learning to discern defining how it’s different. My opinion is the structural order of the physical body this part of the ‘code’ of a human being. that this issue plagued the Rolf Movement without touching the fascial system. If I Energy shows up in my practice in a variety work, but, at the same time, many people understand their approach correctly, they of other ways. In the practitioning phase have now worked to remedy that situation touch certain points outside the body. It of my training in 1992, one of my student – better defining how Rolf Movement is would be interesting to practically test such clients showed up in my vision as wearing different from Rolfing SI and, at the same a purely energetic approach, say on a client the kind of garb and headgear that I had time, how and why it fits naturally into a with a displaced coccyx that does not move seen on people who are of the Amish faith. more comprehensive model of the work. at all when we perform a motion test. The Upon questioning, with the support of The mystery is always there – we don’t result of the energetic treatment could also my instructor Bill Smythe, she spoke of have to fear losing our friend, the mystery, be checked using imaging like radiography. having grown up in an isolated, cult-like by taking the trouble to ground the work This might help to prove whether the arrangement with her family and small in contemporary science. energetic taxonomy has real value or it is community. Was this energetic awareness of The value of so-called ‘energetic work’ is just wishful thinking. her background that somehow revealed itself real. The word energetic is disappointing; Working on the energy fields that surround through her structure and/or movement and it obfuscates. The word ‘energetic’ us will certainly help to promote our work and/or energetic presence? I don’t know, but begs for specificity. Worse, SI suffers from for those people who have chosen to live the vision of her matched her experience and another puzzle for people to struggle in an esoteric world. However, it may not made sense in my observation. with; useful work gets put in a context do much to promote our work to the rest How was it important to the work? I’ve that insures the least chance of being of the world. asked that question many times, as I’ve appreciated as an important dimension of Peter Schwind had many similar experiences. I can only SI. How to move forward? Good to start Basic & Advanced Rolfing Instructor say that having that ‘window’ of sensing with the basic premises and questions:

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What is the nature of what we do? – fields of our muscles, our organs, and our experience. In a place of rapport, we see/feel Structural integrators restore normal brains. These dimensions of ourselves what the system wants us to see. Relational capacities to stand, sit, and perform all never turn off so long as we draw breath. communication transcends traditional the vital actions of life. How do we evoke Energetic dimensions of our being and our physics. We can ground what we observe these outcomes? We touch fascia, deeply work are omnipresent and ubiquitous to all in terms that can be agreed upon. or subtly. We inspire people to feel a that we do. What then is useful about the Rolf’s SI proposal is about delivering better more differentiated sense of their bodies. descriptor ‘energetic’ for which we have no information. Define those dimensions of We bring awareness to the manner in distinguishing feature? information, ones that are missing for an which movement is initiated. We offer It’s practical to back up and ask, “Why individual, and that does a lot to define the challenge and reassurance. In short, we does one wish to use this term, energetic?” work. We step out of the ‘material versus touch the minds and hearts of our clients “What are we pointing to?” There’s maybe nonmaterial argument’ and move towards in numerous ways. We communicate – we something itching to be expressed. We hear a model of the work congruent with the listen and we inform. We communicate and feel passion from those who use the modern world. One can acknowledge all the essence of Rolf’s vision, via physical term, there’s passion to hold a container for the complex ways we swim in an ocean of touch, skillful presence, words, guidance, something very important. The work itself interpersonal communication. inquiry, and – most important of all – the is important. clarity of our own heart and mind. We Kevin Frank communicate things that may not, as yet, Do we need to indicate that some or Rolf Movement Instructor be fully explainable. But communication much of our work is invisible? As a Rolf itself is the nugget of what we do. Movement Instructor, the challenge of teaching things that are mostly invisible Communication is a two-way activity. We is familiar. It requires digging a bit deeper can only communicate meaningfully with than the ‘body as anatomy’, for example. someone with whom we have developed What capacities that change coordination some degree of rapport, with whom a can be taught, can be evoked? You can’t portal of interpersonal availability has dissect coordination. Coordination is not opened up. Communication deepens as ‘stuff’. But many invisible things no longer rapport deepens. Once there is rapport, strike intelligent, thinking persons as odd communication enters another level. This or needing of camouflage. Much of what ‘other level’ is the domain of what Daniel occurs in SI is at the level of mind. And what Siegel calls ‘interpersonal neurobiology’. occurs at the level of mind doesn’t have This level reveals itself – something to be kept in the closet. We can measure both profound and, at the same time, and prove the repeatability of outcomes in not completely mapped. We know it’s which, somehow, the brain demonstrates scientifically real. Researchers can see, that something new has registered. We for example, brain changes, endocrine can objectively observe that integration of changes, and so on, as two individuals new information has occurred: information communicate invisibly. that human beings typically hunger for We don’t know exactly how all this works, – information about belonging/not being although we know how to build skills to do alone; information about location via so. But the phenomenon of communication weight and the matrix of space; information that shifts physiology at the most subtle about safety; information about body levels demands words and phrases more differentiation and articulation, about thoughtfully determined than ‘energetic’. permeability to the life all around us, that We need words that point to what changes, we literally cannot lose touch with but, from what our intervention is intended to shift which, we often feel isolated. at a behavioral level. For example, are we And bodies typically hunger for better intending to facilitate support, and if so, proprioceptive, interoceptive, exteroceptive how do we determine and demonstrate information, for example – but all of these that a person’s system has more support? forms of information are, to the naked The word ‘energetic’ doesn’t tell us anything eye, invisible. What’s more, these flows about what is particular to the intervention of information often cannot be traced in in terms of the Principles of Intervention, measurable ways, even with advanced the putative basis of our work. To put technology. As relational organisms, we this another way, what about all of our fortunately have other, better, ways to work lies outside the domain of energetics? determine the presence or absence of vital Energy means the power to do work, information. We have inherent capacity physically. It’s the power to think and feel for whether vital information ‘lands’ in and imagine. Energetics is the activity of a system or not. We observe a person’s our metabolism. It’s the electromagnetic behavior and ask about the person’s

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operates is critical to moving the SI field Energy Work forward in a world where models of physical and mental processes are rapidly changing. Re-conceptualizing an Inclusive Spectrum of Unhelpful duality holds us back. Interventions within an Informational Model of SI What is needed to resolve what might turn out to be an artificial duality? The evidence By Kevin Frank, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Instructor urges us to consider that it’s time for a holistic meta model – a model that naturally Preamble: Two Interventions Domain Identity and satisfyingly embraces bodywork and energy work as two parts of one thing. Looking for a Home This article suggests that what has been Personal history: In 1979, a friend who described as energy work has a place at There already exist words and concepts practiced homeopathy did an experiment to the ‘table’ of Rolfing® Structural Integration that unify the domain of bodywork, and the see if he might affect elevated blood pressure (SI), an important place. When people call domain of energy work – so called. There is using his newly acquired acupuncture doll it energy work, it’s possible that it’s been a path that lets us step out of a mechanical – a two-foot-high model of the body with helpful to place that type of work in a view of bodywork – a vestige of the classical labeled acupuncture points. He placed a special category, in part to hold a space for approaches to biologic modeling. We replace needle in a point near the right elbow of the human activity not ready for ‘prime time’. it with what can be called an information- doll. A few minutes later, I noticed my hand Isolation can be a strategy to preserve those based or systems view of our various was rubbing the equivalent point on my crafts that assimilation might dilute or interventions. Rolf was not far away from elbow; there was a vague quality of irritation weaken, or that skepticism might eliminate. this point of view. What are systems models? there. I went home and, that night, had An historical note: Ida Rolf declined The Arrival of sudden fever and chills, with accompanying invitations to make her work part of the Systems Models nausea and vomiting. The next day I was osteopathic or chiropractic curricula, she fine – I never checked to see if my blood is reported to have said, to preserve her The twentieth century produced new pressure changed, but it felt like a useful, as work from assimilation into the domain of models to describe complex, nonlinear well as surprising, treatment. I reported the osteopathy (Rolf 1978, 12-13; Frank 1987). phenomena – systems models that advanced experience to my friend and he didn’t appear At some point, integration (rather than science in to new areas of study. Two of very surprised. His form of homeopathy assimilation) starts to appear possible. these systems approaches are likely to have involves placing plain sugar pills in a metal influenced Rolf: they are general semantics container that’s part of a device into which When integration between two domains – (Korzybski 1933) and general system theory are placed cards, each card printed with energy work and bodywork – is formally (von Bertalanffy 1976). It is this latter the geometric patterns associated with the considered, there may emerge a need to systems-thinking approach that is most various homeopathic remedies. The pills, re-examine the premises behind the larger relevant to our present discussion of energy thus ‘potentized’, are ingested by the patient domain (SI) in which both subdomains work and its appropriate relationship to to receive the treatment. (bodywork and energy work) live. This bodywork/SI. General semantics and its article suggests a conceptual basis to move vibrant derivative, epistemics (Bois 1996), What can we say about this form of that process along. treatment? How would the world label such are, however, germane to the topic as well. interventions: Energy medicine? Placebo? Unhelpful Dualities However, general semantics has already Intersubjective relational dynamic? received recent attention (Frank 2015, The terms ‘energy work’ and ‘bodywork’ Hypnotic suggestion? Agneesens 2015, Murray 2010). (or SI), when used comparatively, produce General system theory provided a fresh Here’s another intervention, one widely a duality at cross purposes to both way to view living systems in a manner that reported in books and articles. interventions. Energy work, as a term, appreciated the complexity of what was represents earnest efforts to give credence In 1996, V.S. Ramachandran used a mirror being modeled. This approach is in contrast to dimensions of human relationship that box to create the illusion that an arm with the more deterministic models of what are not evoked through mechanical means. amputee could watch his missing limb Bertalanffy calls ‘classical science’. Scientific Bodywork, as a term, represents a parallel move. After several ‘treatments’ in which models evolve. As the limits of one model assertion that human touch in soft tissue the amputee watched his intact limb provide reveal themselves sufficiently, new models is intrinsically useful to shifting behavior. an illusion of his missing limb moving in must be proposed. The modern study of The difficulty for this duality, as with precise and controlled ways, the subject’s living systems turned out to not fit within many conceptual dualities, is that, upon phantom-limb pain disappeared (Doidge the science of olden times. examination, it is revealed to be unnecessary. 2007, 177-190). Was Ramachandran’s The field of SI benefits as it acknowledges creative and effective approach to phantom- A familiar example of revolution in scientific therapeutic/educational phenomena that limb pain an example of energy medicine? models starts with the historical notion that fall outside of Newtonian physics and Placebo? Intersubjective relational the sun revolves around the Earth. At some biomechanical models of human health. dynamic? Hypnotic suggestion? Are these point, Copernicus, and then Kepler, noticed (Forward-thinking physicians – people useful questions? How do we choose the math didn’t work. The old model like Dan Siegel – have taken this step.) names for interventional strategies? What produced flawed predictions. Revised Examining how the ‘non-mechanical’ consequences derive from these choices? examination of the data led to a model in which the Earth revolves around the sun. 6 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY

Rolf had a model of human posture based soft machines created from pre-shaped parts. these factors. Assessing these behavioral on plasticity of fascia, in which readjusted Rather, they are developmental wholes. milestones is the best way to know if the fascia changed body shape. This model They are self-shaping, self-organizing, self- system has integrated. [This is the subject was intuitively obvious. It’s like looking at sensing, seamless unified wholes in which of an article on the processes by which we the sky and seeing that the sun comes up, no one aspect of relation is more important assess integration (Frank and McCall 2016)]. crosses the sky, and then goes down on the to the organization of the whole than the To work from the Principles, we need to ask, opposite side and returns again the next whole of itself” (Maitland 2016, 41). “What does support look like?” and then, day. It’s natural to conclude that the sun is “What elements might likely be interpreted Nowhere do these principles posit a the thing going around. When one checks by this particular system as support, at this mechanical priority. Nowhere are the the bigger field of observation, the easy particular time?” These questions reflect mechanism or tools of intervention suggested. answer turns out to include inconveniently systems approach modes to intervention. What are described are qualities one identifies false results. The ‘math’ doesn’t work. as present or in need of further evocation. To ground these ideas let’s consider Rolf’s view that posture is restored through View the principles as implying: the system an example: We suppose that support activation of ground substance in fascia will organize itself to manifest the named is important and that it will improve feels true to one’s hands, especially if one principles (qualities) as one communicates adaptability, but what constitutes support? hears the oft-repeated explanation. But the with the system to offer useful information in A practitioner could decide that helping putative obvious can fail under scrutiny. an acceptable format. A practitioner doesn’t the client experience differentiation of New data emerge about motor control make support or adaptability or continuity or tarsal and metatarsal bones will improve and brain plasticity for example, which palintonicity happen, in the way one makes support. The practitioner performs some engenders new, more satisfying models. a house stand up straighter using a hydraulic fascial mobilization of the feet, the aim Like the idea that the sun goes around the jack. In living systems, information, offered being to provide enhanced support. The Earth, we learn that fascia as mechanical by a practitioner, becomes useful only when client walks and, in outcome A, we see a governor of posture is an attractive idea that it manifests through system receptivity, and shift toward improved movement of the limits the consideration of smarter ideas – subsequent integration as changed behavior. foot, derived from a more differentiated and other dimensions of work. map of foot articulations – differentiated Further, whatever value any SI intervention information. More movement in the feet Rolf, it must be pointed out, did not launch has, for the results to express in posture appears to offer improved adaptability in a deterministic approach to the practice of SI. and movement – in the client’s behavior – other places in the body. The work itself transcends the premises of the process requires a self-organizational the theory. The theory, however, is on thin integration of new data. Self-organizational On the other hand, in a case B, we can ice. That’s where we find ourselves in 2017. activity is the point of the Principles. Self- imagine little to no change in what the Rolf’s ‘systems approach’, clearly visible in organizational activity is a measure of practitioner perceives as better movement her interaction with clients, enables us to useful intervention – conjecture about the and more support in the system. What then? now, in the twenty-first century, evaluate explanation behind the mode of delivery The practitioner has options. One option, to if the old model (a biomechanical one) remains just that, a guess about complex make a point, would be to learn more about is wholly appropriate. There are many interactions between two or more human the client’s experience. One might ask the bases on which to look critically at the old beings, phenomena that are not entirely client, for example, about his relationship to model. This author has written about how a explainable in many cases. the feeling of ground, the floor, the feeling movement system model offers advantages Let’s further examine how the Principles of of the floor surface. Through dialogue, (Frank 2008, 2012). In the present discussion, Intervention suggest a systems approach. back and forth, the practitioner is fortunate the energy work topic provides another First of all, holism is, in Maitland’s latest to discover that the client lives with an example of how a systems model solves iteration, mentioned first. Holism says inhibition to allowing weight into the floor, many troubling theoretical, educational, that you are never intervening but that that there is a held pattern of association to and scope-of-practice impediments. all elements of a system are in play and the meaning of, say, heavy footsteps. The A Systems View of no element can be influenced without client can now renegotiate his behavior – Intervention: The Principles consideration that all other elements are new options start to be available. influenced and are influencing what you do. Support is only meaningful when The Constitutive Principles of Rolfing That’s an approach the echoes the work of recognized as such through the lens of the Structural Integration (aka Principles of Bertalanffy. It can be overwhelming, at first, client’s system. Intervention) – Maitland’s groundbreaking if we try to just ‘think it’. It’s refreshingly schema for defining what constitutes Rolfing SI transformative to feel, when a practitioner The support the system recognizes in – posits that holism, support, adaptability, works this way. the second example manifests in at least palintonicity, continuity, and closure are two different forms. In both forms, there the necessary and sufficient elements to Principles and Integration is new information: first there is the appropriate intervention for SI – intervention Take support. Support is something we revelation that one is able to imagine that is in accord with the inherent order that can observe in a person’s behavior. It’s the one can allow louder footsteps; second, living systems represent. Maitland states, same with all the other principles – we there is the revelation that one is being “The principles of intervention must reflect look for whether the system is capable spoken and listened to in a supportive the nature of biological order, not the way of organizing to a level of behavior such manner. Support isn’t a mechanical thing. machines are ordered. Living bodies are not that we can assess the expression of one of It’s in the experience of the organism. In

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 7 ENERGY building a house, support is a mechanical definition of energy, why are we using the information with touch; with embodied thing – you can insert a beam and fasten word ‘energy’ to represent it? presence; with practitioner visualization; it in place. In living creatures, support with perceptual embodiment; with listening The duality between energy work and can’t be reduced to mechanics, except, for and with, or non-reactive observation of, bodywork is fraught because energy is “the expediently, if one isolates a mechanical inherent motion so that the organism is capacity to do work” – that’s the definition. issue and chooses to use a device or better able to organize? Do we listen to the But that’s not what we typically mean when surgery to resolve it. Information also, as sensory experience? Listening is a deep act. we use the term for body health. The author illustrated, is something that passes in both Quantum physics posits that observation asked a proponent for energy work fitting directions – from client to practitioner and is already an intervention with a system. into Rolfing education, “What aspects of from practitioner to client. Listening is an What are the various means to receive and your practice don’t involve energy work?” intersubjective activity. offer significant information to the system His reply was that all of his work included it. we are working with? Information Model The author submits that all the interventions An information model steps out of the trap done by practitioners of SI involve energy Once we affirm the value of the Principles of imposed by definitions based on method in the classic physics sense; and all of it Intervention, we can reflect on the revolution of delivery. We don’t have to define an involves energy in the other, less-defined, that has taken place. We no longer have to intervention only in terms of what tools meanings that energy workers posit as consider biological phenomena only within we use. It’s less important. Rather we can well. We need to ask, what is that “other, the domain of mechanical science. We move describe an intervention on the basis of less-defined” meaning? to a model that matches the integrity of the what type of information is intended and Principles. That new model must be based But, first, how useful is a term in which how we assess the observed value of that on how one makes a difference within a the definition fails to offer meaningful information within the framework for the holistic system. The new model must say distinction? Hands-off work – does that Principles of Intervention. The vehicle of that only if an intervention has value to the make it energy work? Mental imagery – communication ceases to be the central system of the client or student – such that it does that make it energy work? Work done feature for evaluating what falls inside the contributes to that person’s organizational remotely – does that make it energy work? scope of practice. evolution – can we claim that it is successful. Work done with high energetic force – does Useful inputs to the system constitute what that make it energy work? These questions ‘Energy Interventions’ could be termed significant information – point to a fruitless attempt to substitute an Defined in Terms of Subtle information that the system determines is ambiguous term, at best, for the essential but Significant Information valuable. An information model is a humble point of the intervention. model. We can only claim the intervention Deliberately simple examples of is valuable because the system tells us so ‘Energy work’ is a term that remains, at the interventions subsumed under the ‘energy through changes in behavior, the word Rolf current juncture, too vague to do justice to work’ category – when looked at through used to define structure in systems (Rolf the phenomena it represents – the important the lens of an information model: integrative outcomes that occur. Better terms 1977, 31). • Listening to and observation of the for both bodywork and energy work can ‘spatial territory’ of the client’s system, This author suggests that an appropriate derive from a systems model. Such a model within the body matrix itself and/or name for a holistic meta model is this: holds a container for fascial mobilization; surrounding the body in the matrix Information Model for Structural evocation of shifted orientation; evocation of space. Integration. In such a model, information of perceptual awareness; evocation of shifts in any of the of Principles of Intervention in pre-movement; eliciting awareness to • Evocation of orientation to the vectorized categories becomes significant information how context and meaning are interwoven; space around one/inside one, including when the holistic social/biological system the power of intersubjective experience; the a space inhabited by nonmaterial informs you so. power of embodied non-reactivity; the power geometric relationships – information The Informational Model Idea within the vastness of somatic imagination – that assists the system to reorganize via Applied to the Bodywork vs. inputs that assist human biological systems missing geometric elements, missing to achieve self-organization. To extend this places in the dimensions of action space. Energy Work Question approach to include what has been termed One asks questions like: “How might We come back to the topic of energy ‘energy work’ now becomes easier. We gain practitioners perceive value in this form work and bodywork. These two domains an avenue to describe the type of information of information to this particular person at are separate as long as one insists on a that is offered to the system via embodied this particular time?” and, ”How might biomechanical model. How can ‘energy relationship – the realm of what Siegel one assess shifts in behavior such that the work’ and ‘bodywork’ be reconciled to (2010) calls ‘interpersonal neurobiology’, system indicates that it has been useful?” coexist in a biomechanical model? All for example. (Spatial matrix geometry is a central bodywork involves energy. How do we mechanism to how the brain predicts give the important contributions that What’s the System movement and conceives of movement. ‘energy work’ stands for a place in a Hungry For? It’s, effectively, ‘bundled software’.) model in which it’s all energy work in the What type of information is the system • Listening to, and observation of, inherent standard definition of energy? And if we hungry for? How do we perceive motion. What’s moving at a gross, subtle, mean something that is not the standard opportunities to deliver it? Do we deliver and very subtle level? How do we

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perceive motions in the space around us, All ‘structural body interventions’ can be Bois, J.S. 1996. The Art of Awareness A in the body, in the interaction of body and described in terms of types of information Handbook on Epistemics and General Semantics, space, in the gravity response system, in organized within the Principles of Fourth Edition. Santa Monica, California: the mind? How does such listening and Intervention. The catalog extends from Continuum Press and Productions. observation shift autonomic nervous imagined/perceived invisible geometry Doidge, N. 2007. The Brain that Changes Itself. system activity? to vectorized fascial mobilization. There’s New York, NY: Penguin Group. a spectrum of informational options to • Evocation of awareness (cortical or assist a system in finding holism, support, Frank, K. and R. McCall. 2016 Sep. “Inter- subcortical) to subtle or non-conscious adaptability, palintonicity, continuity, and Faculty Perspectives: Integration – How kinetic information such as wave closure. It remains for each practitioner or Do We Define It? How Do We Assess It? forms and rhythms within the body, instructor of the various elements of our Where Do We Place It in the Ten Series?” or connected to wave forms perceived work to better define what information, Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf outside the body – what have been and for which aspects of the Principles, Institute® 44(3):3-10. termed inherent motion (the tides). their specialization applies. The energy Might it be proposed that practitioner Frank, K. 2015 Jul. “What Is the Role of domain examples, invented by the author observation of these rhythms supplies Language When We Integrate Structure?” for illustration purposes, aren’t claimed to useful information to the system? How Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf fairly or fully represent how practitioners do we observe shifts in the behavior of Institute® 43(2):42-47. who offer SSI might wish to represent the organism to indicate it was useful? their work. But, it behooves those who Frank, K. 2012. “Body as a Movement Bony Articulation practice or teach dimensions of subtle System Part 2,” Structural Integration: The Intervention Defined in information within the SI field to confront Journal of the Rolf Institute® 40(1):6-10. Terms of Information the self-limiting consequences for failing to provide definitions in which the work Frank, K. 2011 Jun. “Rolf Movement Faculty Perspectives: Orientation and If we place the previous examples next is adequately conceptualized, named, Empathic Resonance, Considered as to, for example, evocation of information and related to the Principles. And if a Psychobiological Elements in Structural related to bony articulations, what new principle is perceived as worthy of Integration.” Structural Integration: The happens? One can posit that a ‘structural’ consideration by energy practitioners, Journal of the Rolf Institute® 39(1):2-5. fixation of bony articulation is mechanically perhaps the SI community will listen resolved with manual skills. One could with curiosity to what is proposed. The Frank, K. 2008 Jun. “Body as a Movement also consider that, without changing moment calls for integration rather than System, A Premise for Structural anything about the application of manual self-imposed isolation. Integration.” Structural Integration: The pressure and timing, we can reframe that Journal of the Rolf Institute® Rolfing SI, or SI of any brand, has the 36(2):14-23. intervention. Instead of a mechanical opportunity to better assure its relevance resolution of fixation, consider that we see/ Frank, K. 1987. Lecture notes of the author. in the coming decades when it embraces feel how the system is interested in highly an information model as an overview to the Korzybski, A. 1933. Science and Sanity. specific information – information about range of interventions that fit within it. SI Englewood, NJ: Institute for General mobility/motility of joint function – and is best represented as education, education Semantics. that we observe the holistic value of doing about and within a field of significant so by virtue of how other articulations, Maitland, J. 2016. Embodied Being: The information – information that, when and motor patterns, respond – that the Philosophical Roots of Manual Therapy. integrated, leads to restored posture and system indicates interest when there is an Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books. adaptive capacity to meet demand. improvement in adaptability, palintonicity, Murray, R.K. 2010. “Exploring Our Legacy, and continuity in the response? Kevin Frank is Certified Advanced Rolfer and Ida Rolf and the Untapped Root of General Rolf Movement Instructor. Kevin’s teaching When the information is subtle, we can label Semantics.” Missoula, Montana: IASI 2010 and private practice are informed by study with it as subtle. Forms of information that we Yearbook of Structural Integration, 5-11. Hubert Godard, Continuum Movement with could call significant subtle information(SSI), Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper, and practice Rolf, I.P. 1977. Rolfing, The Integration of can then find relationship to how they serve in Zen and Meditative Inquiry. Kevin lives and Human Structures. New York, NY: Harper to satisfy the Principles of Intervention. works on land in rural New Hampshire. and Row. SSI becomes an obvious supplement to information conveyed via fascial Bibliography Rolf, I. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks about Rolfing and mobilization, perceptual and coordinative Physical Reality. R. Feitis, ed. Boulder, CO: education, and psychobiological education/ Agneesens, C. 2015 Jul. “’The Map Is Not The Rolf Institute. the Territory’ – ‘The Word Is Not the Thing’ - nervous-system regulation. Perhaps subtle Siegel, D. 2010. See www.drdansiegel.com/ and not-so-subtle are also an unnecessary Exploring the Use of Language in the Art of ® about/interpersonal_neurobiology/ distinction since the subtle can have large Rolfing Structural Integration.” Structural ® (retrieved 5/7/2017). impact and the not-so-subtle can have Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute limited impact. The impact on the system, 43(2):37-41. von Bertalanffy, L. 1976. General System the breadth and scope of the integration, is Theory: Foundations, Development, the arbiter of relevance. Applications, Revised Edition. New York, NY: George Braziller, Inc.

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JM: I have talked with a number of energy The Felt Capacity to Do Work practitioners who found their way into energy work similar to the way you and Working with Energy I did. Here and there, I took some classes in energy healing. I’d have these moments By Jeffrey Maitland, Advanced Rolfing® Instructor, and Deborah Weidhaas, where I saw or felt something out of the ® Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement Practitioner ordinary. It became clear to me that there was something there that I needed to attend Deborah Weidhaas: Okay, I’ll start with to. I didn’t always know what it was and, this: my definition of ‘energetic’ is that the for years, I struggled with how I knew it root, or origin, of what’s happening in the and what part of me knew or felt this. I structure is mental, emotional, or spiritual. only had inklings in the beginning. In time, So, what’s present in the client’s structure is I knew I was opening up to energy. There having a clear effect in the physical body, were times when I’d catch myself and think, but this effect didn’t originate as physical. “Wait a damn minute, what just happened? What is driving this physical response is What did I do?” And that really set me on something mental, emotional, or spiritual. my ear. I learned to set aside my onlooker’s perception and intellect and participate Jeffrey Maitland: Okay, that is one with what I was perceiving. As I worked, way to look at it. But, instead of trying to I discovered that I can feel energy-at-work explain energy or say what it is (whether it with almost any part of my body. I realized is spiritual, physical, or incorporeal), I begin that the root of perception (what is known with a much simpler and more circumspect as ‘sensorium’) is the whole-body-person- question: How do you experience energy? Jeffrey Maitland energy. I realized that one of the first Beginning this way is a more manageable distinctions an energy practitioner had to approach, and we are less likely to be make for himself or herself is the distinction seduced by metaphysical or speculative between energy and physicality. When you explanations. Then I borrow from physics can feel the difference between those two the idea that energy is the capacity to things, then you are on your way. do work. DW: That’s cool, and I’m not arguing with Central to all forms of energy is the capacity you when I say that I thought the most to do work. This way of looking at energy important, or the first one, was to have a suits the physicist, but only partly captures clear distinction between you and me. what is important to the energy practitioner. A bigger concept of energy is needed to JM: That’s very important, but the first capture the experience of energy work. step is one in which you open yourself to Our understanding of energy work must what’s there and create a sensitive space for acknowledge the felt experience of energy. change. And if you truly open that sensitive To do this work, the manual therapist has space, that loving space, people begin to feel to be able to experience the energy – to feel Deborah Weidhaas safe. When you truly open to that, in itself, it – whereas the physicist is not interested it has the potential to start the process, and in feeling his definition of energy. and the Worm by Mae-Wan Ho, where she to resolve dysfunction, without your doing theorizes about what’s going on, this was a thing. If you can simply sit or stand there At the heart of energy work is the ability the first time any scientist got anywhere in that space, then everything flows from both to feel and to manifest the capacity close to what I actually feel in my hands that. This is the first step, fundamental and to do work. Thus, as a preliminary and every day. common, to all energy work. tentative attempt to understand how we experience energy, we can say that energy JM: I had a similar experience. She caught DW: Can you tell me more about what that is the felt capacity to do work. Our job is what I feel. The body as a liquid crystal space is. I’m not asking in general, “What is not to explain it, or bring it in line with became reality in my hands. that?” I’m asking what kind of qualities do some metaphysical concept, but to properly you live in, in order to step into that space? describe how we experience it. DW: To experience energy, and allow it to let the body change, requires a highly JM: That’s an interesting question. DW: I like your distinction between energy skilled level of perception. “Stepping into that space” is a quality according to physics and energy according that you live and feel. We are actually JM: Yeah, that’s critical. Energy work, for to a practitioner’s perception. I really like “stepped into that space” every day of our us, requires a highly skilled perception. This quantum physics because it is beginning to life. There’s not a time when we’re not. So, kind of skilled perception doesn’t happen come toward the dynamics I experience as I yes, we’re already in it, and our job is to overnight. I fell into it over time. do Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) work learn to see that it is so. We don’t have to with clients. Or, to say it another way, when DW: Yeah, actually, I did too. do anything to get there. We have to not- I read the last two chapters of The Rainbow do to get there and to see what’s true. We

10 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY struggle because our worldview has been JM: These are the questions to answer. JM: Your teachers want you to perceive. As skewed by the mechanistic approach to You are up to it. Because you have a highly for the feeling-nature, you have feelings nature and perception. This mechanistic tuned sensorium, you can answer these by virtue of having a feeling-nature. If you approach has us thinking the world is questions. had no feeling-nature, you would have no made up of separate people, objects, things, feelings. So we’re not interested in your DW: I don’t think I see it. I feel it. diseases, rocks, and so forth when, in truth, feelings in this context. We’re interested in everything is connected and in process. JM: Yeah, I know you feel it, but what is your feeling-nature and how it perceives. The more you spend time examining this, it you feel? How do you feel it? What part I got that from Zen. Also, I think, years of feeling it, the more obvious it becomes, and of you feels it? meditating opened this up for me. It took the clearer it becomes. But you cannot know me a long time to see it. It was right in front DW: Oh, that’s tough. I’m going to have to it through your ordinary thinking mind, the of my face, but it took me a long time to think on that one a bit. objectifying mind. You can’t see it through realize that. that mind. You have to see it through your JM: If we stop and experience how we’re But to describe it, it took a while for me feeling. You have to get to the point where doing what we’re doing, and work with to find the right language. I’m still not you understand that our feeling-nature is it, we can then begin to articulate our convinced I have the right language. I’m capable of revealing or disclosing aspects experience in a way that would be beneficial saying that energy is just as obvious to of reality; that our feeling-nature is also to a whole lot of other people. So when us as our hand is to us. I’m saying we capable of revealing and disclosing aspects you say what you say, I’m trying to gently have to disabuse ourselves of this notion of reality; that our feeling-nature is also suggest that you look even deeper. There’s that because we’re not familiar with how capable of perception. In fact, the totality of something that you’re aware of in that to talk about energy, that we don’t know ‘what-is’ is capable of perception. We live in process of seeing where to work that you what energy is. We do know. It is with us an ocean of sentience. So the job is to come haven’t put into words yet. I am suggesting all the time. But we have not learned how to see what’s always so. Does that answer that you look deeper. Because we have to perceive it, how to just stop and become your question? trouble finding the words, and delving into the sky. The cultivation of the sensitive, the experience, we say, “My eyes saw it” or DW: Yeah, it does. For me, I have come to sentient space comes from Taoism and “My brain or my sonar picked it up.” No. experience that there’s a field of conscious the practice of wu wei, which means ‘not You saw or felt it. Your eyes didn’t see it – awareness, and it’s not the conscious doing’. Working with energy is not an act you saw it. It’s an experience of the whole awareness that we all live in all day long, of will only, it is also an act of allowing. person. It’s not just a part of you that has and it’s not the chattering mind; or any of You allow what-is to be what-it-is, and let an antenna or sonar. Your sonar metaphor that. It is literally a field of accurate truth. I it take shape. As you’re in the presence of takes you out of your experience. use the term “stepping into it” because it’s it, you then begin to understand it because a shift in my own level of consciousness to DW: Yes, it is a whole-person experience, you take it in, and you clarify it, and you go there; it is always here, but it’s a shift an entire-being experience for me. And come to understand what it needs, and you for me to step out of my everyday and go that’s why it’s hard to say it’s this or it’s respond appropriately. (For more on this, to that field. And when I get into that field, that. And it’s also hard for me to attach it see Chapter 6 in Spacious Body and Chapter literally, the information and the answers to seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling, 7 in Embodied Being.) just come. And when I ask questions, the because we are so much bigger than those I do want to say one thing, and make sure information and answers I get are accurate. five senses. I say this clearly: I don’t think that we JM: Yup, that’s it. The shift is absolutely JM: So how do we describe that? That’s should be teaching energy work in the Basic essential. the place where we have to come in very Training. I think it confuses most students. I carefully to try to understand what that is. think working with energy should be saved DW: But I actually don’t have the experience So I suggest that we have a feeling-nature until the end of the Advanced Training. of feeling a client’s symptom in my own and the feeling-nature is perceptual. It is body. DW: Yeah, I agree completely. part of our perceptual framework. And it JM: How do you perceive it? can be trained. JM: Most people I’ve had this conversation with, among Rolfers, are in agreement DW: I would say it is like the bat or whale. DW: Trained and also refined. with it too. Because of years of doing and It is like having sonar as my perceptual skill. JM: Refined, yeah, absolutely. receiving Rolfing SI, I can’t help but practice JM: So you have a metaphor that is of energy with the eyes of a Rolfer. All the DW: So, let’s be really clear about what limited help in helping us understand concepts of Rolfing SI can be in play when you’re saying here, in Basic Rolfing what you’re doing. So can you drop your I’m working energetically. Training, in Advanced Training, when metaphor and try to think back to a really instructors say, “What do you see?”, are DW: It was a fascinating thing when I clear experience in which you perceived they literally asking you to say what your worked on the Standards of Practice (SOP) exactly what the body needed? What did eyes see, or are they asking you to tell Committee. One of the things I contributed you see? How did you see that? Which part them what you perceive? And when you to that was ruthlessly holding the line that of you saw that? Remember our approach: say “feeling-nature,” you’re not talking a definition is awhat not a how. And toward How do you experience that? about the five senses – you’re talking about the end of our work, when we’d submitted DW: You’re really going to challenge me feeling/perceiving as a full being? everything to the Rolf Institute® Board of here. Directors, two of us were really grappling

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 11 ENERGY over this one final question we couldn’t DW: I figure that all the senses, plus much and Embodied Being. He lives and practices in answer. We grappled with it behind the more, are all working at the same time. And Scottsdale, Arizona. scenes, debated it with each other, and then all of them together are what cause me to Deborah Weidhaas is a Certified Advanced all of a sudden I realized, or it dawned on come up with the conclusion of “I need to Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner. She both of us at the same time, that we didn’t be there” or “This part is calling to me.” I’ve has been in practice for twenty-five years. She need to answer the question. We didn’t need worked with clients where I’ve even gotten had over 110 Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement to answer the question because, literally, information from smell. sessions in her own body before she trained as a in Basic Training, as we are being taught JM: Interesting. Rolfer. After completing a ten-session Rolfing SI Rolfing SI, everything is already there. In and a ten-session Rolf Movement series, and our SOP, we didn’t need to distinguish DW: Did you find language for describing doing a few tune-ups, her inner voice told her to that you get these pieces in Basic Training, how inexperienced people shifted from not go back to Rolf Movement, and it would tell her or those pieces in Advanced, or this other seeing to seeing? when she was done. For two years, she actively stuff in continuing education. It’s all already JM: Yeah, I have some. There’s a chapter worked her own healing process by coupling there. So you learn what you learn in Basic, on seeing in my latest book. The chapter on weekly Rolf Movement sessions with the mental, and then over time, and through continuing seeing is theoretical, but the next chapter, emotional, and spiritual healing processes that education and experience, you will become Chapter 7, “The Beauty of Normality,” is her inner voice presented her. Even so, she spent enlightened to more of this stuff that was where I lay out the exercise. her first two years as a Rolfer ignoring the already there to begin with, you just weren’t energetic/perceptual information that presented at a level where you could see it yet. So how In delving into this subject of energy, we itself to her about her clients as she worked with do you get students to transition from Basic need to appreciate that we are under the them. She spent the next two years cautiously Training to feeling their being/perceptual spell of Plato’s and Descartes’ worldview, testing and verifying the accuracy, reliability, state, and working from there? Or is it which puts us in the position of being and sources for the information she received. something they just evolve into over time onlookers who live in separation. These Deborah recognizes herself as highly adept in at their own pace? limited frameworks muddy the waters and the organization and dynamics of the structure leave us in confusion about our work. We JM: Your realization, “It’s already there” is of being and in engaging her clients in ways know what energy is because everyone has a smashing insight. If you stage the teaching that allow them to resolve their own mental, experienced it, to one degree or another of the material in the right way, you can emotional, and spiritual issues that arise from – whether they fully realize or not. We train very competent energy practitioners. receiving Rolfing SI. She recently relocated work in it, and bring about change with it, Ray McCall and I facilitated a couple of from Los Gatos, California to live and practice whether, as practitioners, we acknowledge seminars on perception. We did one for the in Richmond, Virginia. this or not. Our job is to learn to see that this faculty. We called it A Seminar for Peers. is so, and to recognize that this is so. We No one person was the teacher. We had a Bibliography need to discuss, and experiment in groups, wonderful bunch of people come just to and come to consensus as to what it is we’re Maitland, J. 2016. Embodied Being: The discuss energy work. Everybody was in talking about. Philosophical Roots of Manual Therapy. agreement that you had to take that first Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books. step into letting what-is show itself. That Hokaku Jeffrey Maitland, PhD, is internationally was critical. The level of understanding, known as an author, instructor, innovator, and Maitland, J. 1994. Spacious Body: Explorations presence, and talent in the room expert in soft-tissue manipulation. He has spent in Somatic Ontology. Berkeley, California: was amazing. most of his adult life deeply investigating Zen North Atlantic Books. practice, philosophy, and the nature of healing. DW: When opening myself to a Rolfing He has practiced Zen over forty years and is session, it feels like I’m stepping into the a Zen monk. He is also a Certified Advanced field and suspending my ordinary way Rolfer, an Advanced Rolfing Instructor, of paying attention to things. Suspending a former tenured professor of philosophy these everyday concerns allows something at Purdue University, and a philosophical else to come forward. counselor. In addition to teaching Rolfers, JM: Yeah. So you are integrating will and Maitland also teaches workshops and classes in allowing in order to live from an allowing- myofascial manipulation to physical therapists, will rather than the willful-will. When chiropractors, and other healthcare professionals, we’ve discovered the difference between as well as workshops in perception and energy. what the physical feels like and what the Maitland has published and presented many energetic feels like, we have discovered papers on the theory of somatic manual something profound. In my latest book, therapy, Zen, philosophy, and Rolfing SI. Embodied Being, I present an exercise, a His research, articles, and book reviews are three-step process, on how to see holistically published in numerous professional journals. as experienced Rolfers do. I borrowed a He is the author of four books: Spacious Body: piece of Goethe’s thinking to create this Explorations in Somatic Ontology, Spinal process. Even inexperienced people can Manipulation Made Simple, Mind Body find this way of seeing. Zen (written at the request of his Zen teacher),

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problems. One is the problem of how a Increasing Your Bandwidth tiny amount of energy from a hand could actually affect a cell in a client’s body An Interview with Jim Oschman without physical contact. How can subtle energy therapies possibly produce effects on By Michael Murphy, Rolfing® Instructor, Rolf Movement® Practitioner, and cells? An important source of information James L. Oschman, PhD on this topic is an article (McCraty et al. 1998) from the HeartMath® Institute. They From Michael Murphy: I first met Jim Oschman at a Rolf Institute® annual meeting in the showed that your cardiogram entrains with 1970s. I met him again at several symposia on the science of Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI), your client’s brain wave even when your held at 302 Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado. Later, he and I collaborated to design a curriculum hand is eighteen inches away from his body. to introduce basic science concepts into a class that we would teach at the Rolf Institute, instead of asking prospective candidates to study that science elsewhere. By now, our relationship has At the same time, Pall solved another developed into a friendship. In the following interview, Jim shares his perspective on the science problem, which is why do some people feel relating to the work of Rolfing SI, and how to think about energy work in the context of Rolfing SI. awful when driving under a power line or driving past a cell phone tower; why does Michael Murphy: I wanted to start this just being in the presence of cell phones or interview by telling you that this issue of the Wi-Fi cause some people to get sick in the Journal has the prevailing theme of energy presence of very tiny fields coming from and other subtle aspects of our work. our technologies? Those are two important problems, and Pall found the answer. I Jim Oschman: Good. think he made a classic scientific statement MM: I thought I would begin by trying to when he said that the answer was lying in get your definition of what energy work plain sight in the scientific literature, but means. What is it for those of us that are in no one had taken the time and trouble to the business of putting our hands on people’s put the pieces together. He put the pieces bodies? How do you understand what we’re together and explained it by stating that doing with respect to energy work? all cells have what are called voltage-gated calcium channels on their surfaces. Calcium JO: Let me give you an example; I was channels regulate everything that a cell just thinking about this. Rolfers™ have does. Cells have lots of different activities Jim Oschman told me stories about observations they’ve they can do, and they’re switched on and made, and I looked to see if there was any off via calcium channels. science that fit with their stories. Some of their stories were totally astounding, but I Pall’s literature search documented many found science that fit with them, and here’s examples of the effects of an extremely an example. small electromagnetic field, a tiny, tiny, field, the kind of field you would get when Rolfers have told me that sometimes when you were a mile away from a cell phone they begin to work with a client, the tissue tower or when your cells are six inches or a begins to move before they touch it. In foot away from a Rolfer’s hands. Very weak the ordinary mechanistic way of thinking fields can activate these calcium channels of things, that’s kind of ridiculous. Then and the effects are almost instantaneous. I came across Toyoichi Tanaka, and his He has created a model that explains very article (1981) in Scientific American on gels. subtle energetic influences; from the energy Gels are a major part of connective tissue, medicine standpoint, these influences and are probably what hardens up to make begin to take place as soon as your client the dense places that Rolfing SI is able to enters the room, even so far as when you melt. What Tanaka described was how gels Michael Murphy begin to talk to him on the phone to set up can be at the critical point such that a tiny the appointment. amount of energy, a temperature change or That was interesting to me, and I talked magnetic field, a very slight input of energy, about that years and years ago. That’s MM: Is he researching energy medicines of can cause a gel to change its consistency, energetic; that’s energy medicine. It’s an one kind or another? and go through a phase change. I thought energetic relationship. More recently, there JO: No, this is speaking to pure physiology well, maybe that’s an explanation for what’s are other factors that play into this that and biophysics. It’s what I’ve been going on. Maybe the work that had been may be even more profound. Specifically, looking for in my investigations of energy done in the past prepared the tissue so that there’s the work of Martin Pall, a biochemist therapies. I’m interested in all of them; as a Rolfer approached it, it was at a critical from Washington State University. He has in Reiki, Therapeutic Touch®, Healing stage in terms of its gel-sol relationship, and discovered something really profound that Touch Program™, Polarity Therapy, the warmth of a hand or magnetic field from I think is the most important discovery and craniosacral work. I got started on a physical body took it over the edge, and it relating to energetics in a very long time. this quest when I discovered that in went from more solid to fluid-like. He has simultaneously solved two big

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 13 ENERGY order to understand Rolfing SI, I had to MM: Have you experienced isolation in misleading, and a little bit annoying, to understand everything, because Dr. Rolf, the scientific community because of your say the least. in her work, produced an amalgamation of interest in these topics? MM: That’s a kind of isolation; sort of an many different approaches. There was no JO: No, I don’t experience any isolation. I intellectual isolation or an institutional approach to therapeutics that was off limits speak to the choir; I speak to people who isolation. It sounds like you’ve been to her. I’ve found it to be very interesting, are very interested. I don’t get any rotten busy yourself. and the scope of my work has made my vegetables thrown at me. I have given investigations of interest to virtually every JO: I have met physicians, for example, talks at medical schools. For example, I branch of therapeutics. I give lectures and who give a copy of my book on energy did grand rounds at a hospital in New workshops for just about every school of medicine (Oschman 2000/2016) to every Haven, Connecticut. I had an auditorium complementary and alternative medicine. patient because they believe energy full of doctors, and the only feedback I medicine is important and they want their MM: How did you happen to meet Ida Rolf got afterwards was that various doctors clientele to know about it. There are, of in the first place? were mumbling, “Well, I’d like to see course, other physicians who run to the more research on that.” Well, of course. I JO: It was Jason Mixter who introduced nearest fire escape at the mere mention of would like to see more research on that, me to Dr. Rolf. He did my last three Rolfing energy medicine. What’s changed all of this too! Until the advent of the National sessions in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is the popularity of Reiki. In New England, Center for Complementary and Alternative where we were both living at the time. Reiki is used in hospitals and rehabilitation Medicine (NCCAM), recently re-named as My first seven sessions were with Peter facilities. Hospitals are in competition for the National Center for Complementary Melchior. Jason was taking the Advanced patients, so once a hospital offers Reiki and and Integrative Health, there was little Training, which was Ida’s last advanced people like it, the other hospitals have to financial support for research on alternative class, conducted at Robert Toporek’s home offer Reiki, as well. For example, I went to medicine. What I discovered, however, is in Philadelphia. Jason invited me to come to a local rehab center and there was the social that there is actually a lot of fundamental meet Dr. Rolf and give a talk. That’s when I worker standing behind one of the patients, research that has been done on energetics met Ida, and a number of other Rolfers who holding her hands above the patient’s head, in the fields of biology, physics, and have been my friends ever since. Shaking not touching, offering Reiki to a patient who biophysics. This is the research I talk about hands with Ida Rolf was such a remarkable had been agitated. The Reiki work calmed and write about in my books and articles. experience that I wrote an article about the person down very nicely. That kind of it for the celebration of the hundredth The research that’s being sponsored by thing shows a shift in consciousness. anniversary of her birth in 1996 (Oschman, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) One of the doctors in the local hospital J.L., 1997). The Philadelphia class took place is somewhat interesting, but there is here in Dover, New Hampshire, actually toward the end of the 1970s, maybe a year still a negative bias towards energetics. asked me about Reiki. When you go for or two before she died. It was expressed, for example, in an surgery, the surgeon will give you a little article by an unnamed author, which MM: Had you been interested in various pamphlet offering Reiki. What this doctor was posted on the NCCAM web page, forms of bodywork prior to that, or did noticed was when patients had Reiki before contrasting so-called “veritable” energy being exposed to Jason and to Ida really and after surgery, they needed fewer pain with “putative” energy. Veritable energy start your interest? medications in the recovery room. The was described as mechanical vibrations doctor was impressed, and he thought it JO: It was actually being exposed to Peter (such as sound), and electromagnetic would be interesting to do a study. Whether Melchior that got me started. He gave me forces, including visible light, magnetism, they actually did such a study, I don’t my first seven sessions of Rolfing SI, and monochromatic radiation, and rays from know, but that is a common observation. he talked to me the whole time. I wish I other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s energy from the hands. Sometimes had a tape recording of all the fascinating A quote: “They involve the use of specific, touching, but not always. things he said. He talked about energy. The measurable wavelengths and frequencies to stuff that he talked about was scientific treat patients.” My local massage therapist, Tina Michaud- material that I had never been exposed to Gray (www.healingnh.com), is an expert in “Putative” energy was described as alleged in twenty years of being overeducated at energy medicine and has developed her own “energy fields” that human beings are the university. I had never heard of Harold unique practice. She uses a combination of supposedly infused with. A quote: “This Saxton Burr, for example, whose work was energy techniques, including grounding is what practitioners of Reiki, Therapeutic very important. I was curious about what or Earthing, on patients before and after Touch, yoga and others purport to be Western medicine thinks about energetics surgery. She calls this work The Rapid manipulating.” This statement is out of and why they don’t talk about it. Because Recovery System. Patients experience far date and ridiculous. Biofields are alleged physics is not taught in medical schools, less pain and extremely rapid recovery to be putative: that is simply false. Biofields energy is very confusing to most physicians, after surgery. have been measured around the human which is a huge problem. I discovered, body since the 1970s, using sensitive MM: If Rolfers were wanting to deepen after many years of inquiry, that Western magnetometers. Biofields are alive and their study in this area, do you have a medical science, or biomedical science, well, and were the subject of an extensive suggestion about ways they could proceed? simply doesn’t think about energy. There multi-authored review (Hammerschlag is no opinion about energy except that it’s JO: First of all, they need to know that et al. 2015). To say that biofields are ‘woo-woo’, which it is not. they’re already doing it, whether they unmeasurable is completely incorrect,

14 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY know about it or not, and they can pay You mentioned at the beginning of this to in 1864 by the well-known British attention to and discuss among themselves interview about “subtle aspects of Rolfing professor of anatomy, James Bell Pettigrew, the energetics that are going on all the time. SI” and this paper discusses scalar fields, as a Gordian Knot, a term that is often They could read my books and articles on which are the basis for the so-called ‘subtle used as a metaphor for an intractable energy medicine that were inspired by my energies’ discussed in many branches of problem (as disentangling a ‘hopelessly interactions with Rolfers over the years. alternative medicine. impossible’ knot in a rope). After some Many of the articles were published in years of meticulous research, Professor MM: There was reference made to a Spanish Rolf Lines and in Guild News. They could Torrent-Guasp untangled the ventricular cardiologist, who is now deceased. take an introductory class in any of a knot for the first time, discovering that number of energy medicine therapies JO: Yes. The group I am working with has the 3D configuration of the ventricles that are available all over the country, all continued his work; his name was Francisco is a double helix, known as the helical over the world, actually. I can rattle off the Torrent-Guasp. I have an interesting story ventricular myocardial band (HVMB). This, names. They could take Healing Touch, about how I connected with him. I was his main discovery, was revealed through Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, Polarity Therapy, looking at the section on the heart in the a blunt dissection of the heart. A video or Zero Balancing®. I find BodyTalk to 35th edition of Gray’s Anatomy, edited on the Internet shows Dr. Torrent-Guasp be very interesting. There are a lot of by Peter Williams and Roger Warwick, performing the dissection and unrolling energy-based therapies, schools that offer and came across a reference to a paper the myocardial band (http://tinyurl.com/ introductory courses, and by the end of a Dr. Torrent-Guasp had written with the title the-helical-heart). I have since learned that day or a weekend, you’re doing it. I think “The Electric Circulation.” This seemed it took him fifty years of work to be able to that Rolfers would do very well to become highly relevant – just what I was looking demonstrate this simple dissection. familiar with this kind of work, for they for. I asked the interlibrary-loan librarian His discovery has been confirmed, and has would pick it up right away. It’s already in at Woods Hole if she could get a copy of led us (the people who continued his work their systems; it’s already in their hands. that article for me. After a month, she came and myself) to reconsider the significance to me and said that the article did not exist A valuable resource is the International of the T wave in the electrocardiogram anywhere in the U.S., and she suggested Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and (Ballester-Rodés et al. 2016). I got to say in that I write to the editors of Gray’s Anatomy Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). I joined this that paper something I’ve always wanted and ask them if they had a copy. I wrote organization the moment I heard about it to say in print. I’ve always been impressed to Professor Warwick at Guy’s Hospital because of its goal of bridging science and with the evidence that the blood spirals Medical School, University of London, and spirit. For many years they have published through the aortic arch. I’ve always felt that he responded that because Dr. Torrent- a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Subtle that was very interesting and important Guasp came to London from time to time, Energies and Energy Medicine, and an because the heart produces electricity. they had met, and that he could vouch archive of the complete twenty-one years That is the electricity that gives rise to that Dr. Torrent-Guasp would be happy to of publication, volumes 1-21, is available the electrocardiogram. What’s interesting communicate about his work. He provided on the web for free (http://journals.sfu.ca/ about the aortic arch is that the conductor the doctor’s address, which was in Denia, seemj/index.php/seemj). This is a very rich of the electricity produced, which is the Alicante, Spain. A note to Dr. Torrent-Guasp source of information on energy medicine. blood, is moving helically (Figure 1). The led to an enthusiastic response consisting helix, in electric engineering terms, is a MM: I read the articles that you forwarded. of a collection of reprints, some in English, solenoid. It’s a device that greatly increases I was particularly interested in that study and some in Spanish. On the reprint of his the strength of a field. A straight wire will about the shape of the human heart and electrical circulation article, he had written have a magnetic field around it (this is due speculation about how the physical shape an effusive note expressing profound to a fundamental law of physics known as and the fibers in it could contribute to a appreciation for interest in his work. Ampère’s law). A coil of wire will have a sense of core (Oschman and Oschman 1998 Dr. Torrent-Guasp also sent me a silicone- much bigger field around it, especially if it Apr; Oschman and Oschman 2015). I know rubber model of the helical heart. This has a conductive core inside. Ida Rolf used this image of core and sleeve, model was developed by Torrent- and you were sort of hinting that that core It seemed that blood and electrical flow Guasp, Whimster, and Redmann in 1997. could be aided and abetted by the physical through the aortic arch should give rise to Dr. Torrent-Guasp had unraveled the contours of the human heart. I wonder if a large field. There are the arteries, also, ‘Gordian Knot’ that had been a profound you have any more to say about that. which have spiral grooves in their walls mystery of heart anatomy for almost (these grooves disappear on death, so we JO: My wife, Nora, and I have recently five centuries. The myocardium had only know about them from fiber-optic published a couple of papers on the heart. traditionally been viewed as having a examination of arterial walls in living One of them is highly relevant. It describes more or less homogenous morphology. patients). The descending aorta and the the heart as a bi-directional scalar field This assumption dates to the seventeenth veins, e.g. the ascending vena cava, are all antenna (Oschman and Oschman 2015). century, when physician William Harvey electrical conductors. The phenomenon It has been very interesting to scientists; described the circulatory system. His of ‘core’ might have energetic, electronic, we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback. In fact, simplistic anatomical perspective, which electrical aspects by virtue of the electricity I’ve been invited to write another paper for is widely accepted to this day, was that going up and down, with each heartbeat, the same journal, because of the positive the heart is a single homogenous muscle. through those conductors, which are comments. I have been collaborating The ventricles, however, had long posed right in front of the spine. They’re in with some cardiologists from Spain. profound mysteries, and were referred

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from some years later shows him again attacked by a group of strong fighters, and they quickly end up on the floor of the dojo. O-Sensei announces that, “Spiritually there are no strangers or borders. Everything is part of the same family. The aim of Aiki is to banish fighting, warfare and violence.” Jason Mixter got excited when we had our natural science meeting at the Rolf Institute many years ago. Were you at that gathering? MM: There were several and I was at several of them. JO: One of the things that made Jason very happy was when he interviewed me and I said, “I’m not coming here to teach you about science. I’m coming to learn from you to teach science about a new way of looking at the human body.” Jason liked that. The whole story is summed up in my Figure 1: At left, the vortical flow pattern in the aortic arch. The heart electricity is favorite quote from an acupuncturist in thought to be conducted through the circulatory system by ions in the blood, and the Lexington, Massachusetts, Kerry Weinstein: conductor itself is moving helically. At right, from an electrical engineering perspective, the helical electrical flow through the aortic arch resembles a coil or a solenoid that “There’s this method and that method and amplifies the electromagnetic output. this medicine and that medicine and then there’s the way the body really is.” I’m really interested in the way the body really works. the perfect place to make a magnetic and pointed to the spiral in his hair. What The phenomena that take place in Rolfing core. This fits with ancient teachings of he said next was absolutely astonishing sessions can teach us some things that Oriental medicine. There’s a very important to me: “Everyone has a spiral like that on medicine, Western biomedicine, needs to energetic source, which has been seen the top of their head, and it continues all know if they’re willing to listen. Biomedicine between the kidneys, described in the the way down through their body.” This has only a rudimentary understanding of ancient texts from thousands of years ago: was a completely new concept for me, and ‘human structure’. Rolfing SI has a great deal it is called “the rising qi between the I was fascinated. What could this mean? to say about structure. kidneys” (Oschman and Oschman 1998 This was the beginning of a lifelong study Apr). What could this be? The aorta and that continues to this day, and that made MM: Another of the articles I read over the the vena cava are positioned between the me want to digest and share Chloe’s book. weekend talked about the phenomena of kidneys, and perhaps the core experience In the foreword for her book, I traced the ‘lift’. I know that’s been a puzzle for Rolfers by Rolfers may be the same core that is steps in my adventure that began with Jan’s for years. We do our work and suddenly referred to in Oriental medicine. Different comment, and ended with the conclusion the body seems to have a rising something terminology, but what we look for is the that the spiral has profound energetic or energetic lift up, a physical lift, a same thing, and I’m very interested in the significance because of the way it deals with biomechanical lift. Many of us have been ancient philosophies, the ancient traditions, the intersection of forces. trying to explain it with negative pressure traditional medicines, and what they have gradients and this area’s lower pressure One of the steps along the way was the to teach us; how they link to modern than that area. I just sort of wondered what discovery of the importance of the vortex biomedicine. I’m interested in anything that your current take on the notion of lift is in in the martial arts. One of the methods of will teach us more about the human body. the human organism. Aikido is called tenkan, described as the These stories about the helical heart and force of the tornado or cyclone. The master JO: I have experienced that lift, so I know the helical properties of the fabric of space is in the center of a vortex and attackers that it’s there. I wrote two articles about were part of a thirty-year adventure with are flung around the edges of this cyclonic lift (Oschman and Oschman 1998 Winter; the science of spirals. I wrote up the story force. You can see a demonstration of this, Oschman and Oschman 1998 Apr). I made as a foreword for a fun little book entitled and other techniques, in a rare 1935 film a suggestion or hypothesis about it, and it Spiral Up! 127 Energizing Options to be Your of the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba arose from work that I did with a scientist Best Right Now, by Chloe Faith Wordsworth. (‘O-Sensei’; see http://tinyurl.com/p69s2oo). at Woods Hole many years ago. His name The adventure began when I was auditing a During a short section near the end of the was Ray Stevens, and he was studying Rolfing class taught by Peter Melchior and film you can see the master attacked by what he called levity. His project was called Jan Sultan. One day, Jan called me over to seven strong men. They do not appear to “the Levity project.” He was interested in look at one of the models in the class, who be able to touch the master, and all of them levitation. One of the dictionary definitions was lying on a Rolfing table. Jan drew my quickly end up on the floor of the dojo. for levity is “unseemly jocularity.” I got the attention to the top of the model’s head Another video (http://tinyurl.com/lsogwy5) book Levitation by Steve Richards, which

16 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY has an appendix listing “Forty Levitated MM: How do you suspect that that would Myers (2009, 131) writes, “The spiral line Persons, Canonized or Beatified.” The list apply to Rolfers and their work? Do you loops around the body in a double helix, was first compiled and published by Sir see a link? A levity connection? As long as joining each side of the skull across the William Crookes in the Quarterly Journal we’re out here speculating, let’s go a little upper back to the opposite shoulder, and of Science in February 1875. Over the years farther. Can you induce levity in another then around the ribs to cross in front at the many individuals have been beatified by human being? level of the navel to the same hip. From the the Catholic Church because they levitated. hip, the spiral line passes like a ‘jump rope’ JO: There’s another aspect to it that I didn’t One of them was a little friar in a little along the anterolateral thigh and shin to the mention, which is intimately related to cathedral in Italy. He would kneel down medial longitudinal arch, passing under the Rolfing SI. This is the core musculature and before the altar and he’d just go up. Right foot and running up the back and outside of the ligaments associated with the spine, up off the floor. The Pope came and saw the leg to the ischium and into the erector including the erector spinae, for example. him do that. That was verification from a myofascial to end very close to where it Rolfing SI reorganizes this vertical system. pretty reliable source. When a room full started on the skull.” It is the system that Tom Myers refers to of people suddenly levitates and everyone as the spiral line. For a number of years, I One of the ideas is that as the spiral line starts floating around, it is hilariously funny taught the Comprehensive Studies course becomes better organized in relation to – unseemly jocularity sets in! with Tom. Both of us were fascinated with the vertical, and more functional and What Ray Stevens had discovered, what spirals. Eventually, Tom wrote his famous connected to the psoas and so on, as that we were working on together, was an idea book, Anatomy Trains, that is used as the whole system becomes better organized, about how spin can take away inertia. It is text in anatomy classes for bodyworkers the core experience increases. Would you not anti-gravity. It is a phenomenon that and movement therapists around the agree with that? takes away inertia. It’s not making gravity world. In it, he describes the spiral line MM: Yes. go away, but if you take away inertia, that is a part of the head-to-foot system we you can become very light. In those two are talking about. Tom acknowledges me JO: The double-spiral arrangement articles of mine on gravity, lift, and inertia, for giving him a key article by a famous described by Dart (Figure 2) is important I suggested that the spin of the water anthropologist, Raymond A. Dart MD, in acupuncture theory, as is described by molecules in the blood as it’s going through of the University of the Witwatersrand Yoshio Manaka (1995). For Manaka, as well the aorta and vena cava can give rise to in Johannesburg, South Africa, where as for myself, there was profound energetic what my friend referred to as a levity field. Dart was Dean of the medical school. In significance to this system because of its This has never been confirmed, never been his DVD, Anatomy Trains Revealed, Tom analogy to a coil and a core, otherwise researched any further. But it made sense said, “I thank Dart for the inspiration and known as a solenoid as described above. in a lot of ways. Oschman for pointing his finger in the right Manaka viewed the place where the direction, but the progressive development obliquus internus muscles attach to the This may seem kind of ‘far out’, and I of the Anatomy Trains system involved anterior superior portions of the iliac haven’t written this up, but one of the a lot more perspiration, including the spine as the location of the important places it shows up, believe it or not, is work of demonstrating the reality of the acupuncture point known as Gall Bladder 29. in the phenomena of flying saucers or myofascial lines through dissection . . . .” He states that the continuous muscular unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which I, in turn, must acknowledge Peter Levine band or ‘coil’ relates to the physico-electrical are able to accelerate extremely rapidly. as the person who originally gave the Dart medium of the Yang Qiao Mia and probably People have actually observed what they article to me. the Yang Wei Mai as well. He is referring to call ‘flying saucers’ and they have been recorded on radar screens near airports. There is verification that they can travel extremely fast and that they can make right-angle turns at very high speed. They are described as having some spinning component inherent to them, either inside or around the rim. What makes you go through the windshield when you slam on the brakes of your car is inertia. Any beings inside of a flying saucer would be plastered up against the leading edge of the vehicle unless inertia was cancelled. Cancelling inertia would enable the object to accelerate very rapidly, to make right- angle bends at very high speed, and it would also take away the inertia of the occupants so they wouldn’t get plastered up Figure 2: The double-spiral musculature of the human body as described by Raymond against the front end of the vehicle during a Dart. The diagram was provided by Dr. Yoshio Manaka. The anatomical arrangement sharp turn. That’s a little bit of a speculative corresponds to the spiral myofascial line described by Tom Myers in his book explanation, but there it is. Anatomy Trains.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 17 ENERGY the Extraordinary Vessel points, sometimes MM: I keep hearing that the standard MM: Oh yes. called ‘master points’ or ‘respectable points’ for scientific research has to do with JO: You’ve noticed that? (descriptions dating to the Jin dynasty, repeatability. I’m suspecting you’re looking 1115-1234 A.D.; Matsumoto and Birch for a way to repeat those experiments; to MM: I’ve also noticed the medical 1988, 363-364). find research projects that elucidate these associations have professional debunkers. rare phenomena and then repeat them. I’ve known a few. Those erector spinae muscles run vertically, like the aorta and vena cava, and they JO: I don’t do that. There are people who JO: I’m reading a book, it’s called Arguing will transmit electrical energy vertically do that. The gold standard for proof is Science and it’s a dialogue on the future of up and down with each heartbeat. One the randomized controlled clinical trial. I science and spirit. It’s a dialogue between of the ideas is that as those erectors get think that is a disaster. The randomized biologist Rupert Sheldrake and the skeptic more functional and more oriented with controlled clinical trial was designed to Michael Shermer. Rupert Sheldrake has the spinal cord and the cerebrospinal fluid test drugs. The phenomena that are most some extraordinary ideas about the origin and establish relationship with the double- interesting in life are not drugs. What I’m of form in living things that many scientists spiral ventricles of the heart and blood interested in is explaining how things work. get worked up about. They don’t like vessels, the electrical flow through the To me, a good explanation cuts through a his ideas. I think they’re great ideas. The system could increase and that could give lot of confusion. Your clients sometimes biggest unsolved mystery in biology is you an experience of lift in this core system. say, “Michael, how did you do that?” I how Michael Murphy emerged from a It is conceivable that the new organization want you to have a really good answer for single cell. It’s also highly relevant to that arises from the Rolfing process enables how you did that, an answer that makes Rolfing SI. Sheldrake’s model describes a a better energetic resonance between the sense. I’m describing what may be going morphogenetic field, the morphic field. This double-helical heart, the double-spiral on in your work. Being able to provide a is the field that contains the information on arrangement of the musculature, and the logical and understandable explanation is how to make Michael Murphy. This field core musculature, which gives rise to the much more interesting and valuable to the is present everywhere in space. Sheldrake phenomenon of lift. There may also be a average person than a randomized clinical proposes that living systems tap into resonance between the double-helical heart trial, in my humble opinion. I find that information through an information field, and the double-helical DNA throughout explanations are extremely powerful. If which he calls the morphic field. the body. you have insomnia, read the New England I like that idea. We do not really understand Journal of Medicine: it’ll put you right to One of the interesting things that Peter morphogenesis. Not only do I like sleep. People aren’t interested in that Melchior told me about was night walkers, Sheldrake’s idea, but I am also beginning stuff. They don’t want to read statistical people who go out and walk in the dark. to understand how space stores that analyses of randomized clinical trials. An They can’t see a thing. They are operating information. That’s the first of the vortex explanation of how something works is from their core. If there’s a rock, they step articles (Oschman and Oschman 2015), directly relevant to their life. over it. If there’s a ditch, they jump over it or describing the spiral grain of the universe. they avoid it. They can do this blindfolded. MM: I got it. In my opinion, when there are no good Even though they’re not seeing what’s in explanations for a phenomenon, any idea, JO: I have fun. I think I have more fun front of them, their bodies know what’s in no matter how unusual, is better than no than people who do randomized clinical front of them if they allow their movement idea. It is a place to start. trials. The big problem with those trials is to originate from their core, which senses that even with the best trials with the best I think that ultimate energetic healing is the terrain ahead of them. The phenomenon statistical outcome, the information gets tapping into the morphic field to read may also be related to ‘blindsight’ as lost. I can give you an example. There was the blueprint by which the organism was described by Weiskrantz (1986) – the ability a very good study of homeopathy involving created in the first place. Rolfing SI has a of people who are cortically blind due to many, many, many patients with asthma. I great paradigm for this, of bringing forth the lesions in their primary visual cortex to think it was done in Costa Rica. It showed pattern in the body that is your birthright. respond to visual stimuli that they do not that the homeopathic remedies worked. That’s a beautiful statement. In a sense, consciously see. Human subjects who had The experimental design and statistics were that may be what all successful therapies suffered damage to their visual cortices impeccable. The study didn’t go anywhere do. What is that pattern and where does due to accidents or strokes can have partial because of the media. The media do not it come from? A good candidate is Rupert or total blindness. In spite of this, when report things like that, or if they do, they Sheldrake’s morphic field. It’s not DNA for they were prompted they could ‘guess’ twist the story. No matter how good your sure. One quote about DNA, “The genes with above-average accuracy about the randomized clinical trial is, your work is not are not on top, they are on tap” (Strohman presence and details of objects, and they over until you make sure the media report 1993). DNA contains information that is could even catch objects that were tossed it correctly, and usually they don’t. Why? available to the organism as it forms, but it at them. When asked how they are able to The pharmaceutical industry spends a lot is not the director of the process. do this, the usual response is, “I guess.” on advertising in newspapers and news These are bizarre phenomena, but they’re MM: Is there anything else you had hoped magazines and so on. They take their news interesting. I look to them as possible we might talk about in this conversation from an industry that actually has teams of evidence to explain things that are normally that you haven’t had a chance to say yet? people who are paid to debunk anything considered inexplicable. that comes along that doesn’t increase sales JO: I’m pretty happy with the things we’ve of pharmaceuticals. talked about. I can certainly thank Peter

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Melchior and Jason Mixter and the Rolfers Michael Murphy has been practicing Rolfing SI Strohman, R.C. 1993. “Ancient Genomes, and Ida Rolf for giving me a career. I taught since 1975, and has been a member of the Rolf Wise Bodies, Unhealthy People: Limits in what was called “the Pre-Training” and Institute faculty since 1979. He lives in Los of a Genetic Paradigm in Biology and later became the Comprehensive Studies Altos, California with his family. His other Medicine.” Perspectives in Biology and Program. We decided that there should passion is choral singing. Medicine 37(1):112-145. be a piece to this introductory course on Tanaka, T. 1981 Jan. “Gels.” Scientific biophysics, which I taught for a number Bibliography American 244(1):124-138. of years. I was trying to assemble the Bair, P. and S. Bair 2010. Living from the biophysics that seemed most relevant to Heart. Tucson, Arizona: Living Heart Media. Weiskrantz, L. 1986. Blindsight: A Case Study Rolfing SI. It turned out that everybody who and Implications. Oxford: Oxford University does therapy of any kind is very interested Ballester-Rodés, M., F. Carreras, J. Narula, Press. in this material. I took that material all J.L. Oschman 2016. “A New Look at the T Wordsworth, C.F. 2014 Spiral Up! 127 over the world. I’ve been to twenty-five Wave.” Fluid Mechanics Open Access 3:128. Energizing Options to Be Your Best Right Now. countries. I go to Europe all the time. It’s Hammerschlag, R. et al. 2015 Nov. “Biofield Resonance Publishing. a tale that grows with the telling, as they Physiology: A Framework for an Emerging say – that’s from The Hobbit. And I wrote Discipline.” Global Advances in Health and books based on this information. Medicine 2015 Nov; 4(Suppl.):35-41. MM: I like it. Thank you for spending this Manaka, Yoshio 1995. Chasing the Dragon’s time with me. Tail: The Theory and Practice of Acupuncture JO: One last thing: I was once asked by in the Work of Yoshio Manaka. Taos, New an expert on energy medicine, “What can Mexico: Paradigm Publications. I do to increase my compassion?” I said, Matsumoto, K. and S. Birch 1988. Hara “Increase the bandwidth of your heart.” I Diagnosis: Reflections on the Sea. Taos, New don’t know where that came from, but out Mexico: Paradigm Publications.. it came, and he liked it and I liked it. In Memoriam McCraty, R., M. Atkinson, D. Tomasino, and Structural Integration: The Journal of MM: All right. Now you have to come up W. Tiller 1998. “The Electricity of Touch: the Rolf Institute® notes the passing with a ‘how’ – how you’re going to do that. Detection and Measurement of Cardiac of the following member of our JO: I have a recommendation. Learn Heart Energy Exchange Between People.” In: community: Rhythm Meditation. It’s taught by Puran Karl H. Pribram, ed. Brain and Values: Is a Ann Rosamond Ohlmacher, and Susanna Bair (2010) who founded the Biological Science of Values Possible. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Institute for Applied Meditation on the Rolf Movement® Practitioner Heart (iamHeart) and the IAM University of Publishers, 359-379. the Heart. Their book, Living from the Heart, Myers, Thomas 2009. Anatomy Trains. was hailed as “one of the most important London: Churchill-Livingstone Elsevier. texts ever written on meditation.” People love this kind of meditation. It’s very Oschman, J.L. 2000/2016. Energy Medicine: different from Transcendental Meditation The Scientific Basis. Edinburgh: Churchill (TM). It involves paying attention to your Livingstone. heart and your breath. Amazing things Oschman, J.L., 1997 Apr. “What’s in a happen. That’s a method of increasing the Handshake? A Commentary on Human bandwidth of your heart radiations. There Energetics.” Rolf Lines 25(2):12-19. you go. Oschman, J.L. and N.H. Oschman, 2015. MM: There you go. Thank you very much. “Vortical Structure of Light and Space: James Oschman has a BS in biophysics and Biological Implications.” Journal of Vortex a PhD in biological sciences, both from the Science and Technology 2(1). University of Pittsburgh. He is the author Oschman, J.L. and N.H. Oschman, 2015. of numerous articles in scientific journals “The Heart as a Bi-directional Scalar Field and the author of Energy Medicine: The Antenna.” Journal of Vortex Science and Scientific Basis (2000/2016) and Energy Technology 2(2). Medicine in Therapeutics and Human Performance (2003). He lectures and teaches Oschman, J.L. and N.H. Oschman, 1998 worldwide, is involved in the application of Winter “Gravity, Lift, and Inertia: Part 1 – energy medicine to medical devices, and is the What Do We Know About Gravity?” Rolf president of Nature’s Own Research Association Lines 26(1):9-19. in Dover, New Hampshire. At his website Oschman, J.L. and N.H. Oschman, 1998 Apr www.energyresearch.us you can find links to his “Gravity, Lift, and Inertia: Part 2 – Lift and books, videos, and various articles. Inertia” Rolf Lines 26(2):10-19.

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So that complicates, confounds the issue Energy, Geometry, and Presence right from the get-go. Historically, there is always the anecdote of Emmett Hutchins Part 2 of an Interview with Ray McCall asking Dr. Rolf if he stood across the room and thought of the psoas lengthening and By Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Ray McCall, Rolfing® and the interosseus membrane opening, and Advanced Rolfing Instructor you saw it happening, and the person was integrating more into gravity, was that From Anne Hoff: This interview was conducted in the spring of 2015, when both of us were in a Rolfing SI? And the story I’ve heard is that class with Will Johnson on his view of embodying the ‘Line’ and its support for meditation practice. she considered and she said, “Yes, I think Part 1 of this interview, “The Work of ‘The Work’: An Interview with Ray McCall” was published so.” The conclusion that has been drawn in the March 2016 issue of this Journal. from that is that Rolfing SI is defined by its goals and results, not by its techniques. So We talked earlier [see “The Anne Hoff: whether you use hard, direct touch or soft Work of ‘The Work’: An Interview with touch is not the point. I tend to agree with Ray McCall” in the March 2016 issue] that point of view. about the ‘tension’ between one group of Rolfers who are very orientied toward The downside of that view is that, then, the physical pressure and using that to change question becomes “What is not Rolfing SI?” tissue, and others who are more drawn to And we have never taken on that question, the energetic taxonomy and subtle forms not discussed it or dealt with it, or come of work. And, of course, there are many up with an answer. Jeff Maitland framed in our Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) the question with the following analogy. community who do both. In terms of the If you have ice cream, you might have divide between these camps, do you locate strawberry, or you might have chocolate, yourself somewhere on one side, in the or vanilla, they are all ice cream. But when middle, or do you flow back and forth? does it stop being ice cream and start being something else? So is sorbet an ice cream? I like to think I flow back Ray McCall Ray McCall: Most people say probably not. So if you are and forth according to the client’s body, doing craniosacral work, is it Rolfing SI? I and psyche. One of our goals is to teach a don’t think so. It has a different premise, it broad spectrum [of touch]. Some people has a different way of working, a different need very direct, even forceful contact way of evaluating results, etc. to feel themselves, or to feel change . . . other people, if you do that, you override Another way to talk about it is, each of these their nervous system and they dissociate. modalities is a song. You can hear a different So I think people need to leave the Basic rendition of a song, and still recognize it as, Training (BT) with the ability, at least to for instance, “Send in the Clowns.” So when some degree, to work across the spectrum is a way of working no longer a rendition of contact. but a different song? When is something an ‘adjunct modality’? Rolfers like to How do you recognize how to work AH: produce results, so in their practices if they with particular clients? couldn’t accomplish what they wanted, they RM: By their response. You touch, you give explored other modalities. So we went into input, and you see whether they contract, or craniosacral [work], we went into visceral Anne Hoff whether they stay connected/engaged, and [manipulation], we went into Somatic does the body respond? Does the body shut Experiencing®, etc. And people always say, researching and rereading what Dr. Rolf down? So – you listen. “Well, when those things are done by a wrote, the whole energetic element is there. Rolfer, they are different” – implying better, AH: Talk a bit about some of the more She was interested in it; she worked with it. more effective than when done by someone subtle things you’ve studied and where So for me, it has expanded my perception just trained in that ‘song’. That drives you see their connection to the lineage of of my work, and reinforced what I’ve me a little crazy because – what makes it Ida P. Rolf. always thought. different, better, when a Rolfer does it? RM: Certainly the craniosacral work. And AH: When you teach, how do you bring We never define what it is. I think to some then the work that I did with Bob Schrei these elements into the classroom so it’s degree we are self-serving in affirming in SourcePoint Therapy®: exploring a way still Rolfing SI? How do you help students our uniqueness, that if a Rolfer does it, it’s to work effectively within the energetic assimilate these orientations? different/better. But back to your question taxonomy that was accessible and effective. of “How do you deal with that in a class.” RM: Well, that is one of the most complex, And my whole meditation practice. [I think I hold it as a broad spectrum of touch. challenging questions or parts of teaching. Part these have] reinforced my connection to Like someone may have trained and used of it is that we don’t seem to have an agreed- the lineage, because when you really start muscle testing as his diagnostic. That’s okay upon definition of “What is Rolfing SI?”

20 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY with me, but I still want him to be able to accomplish. In addition to what the student RM: The bell curve is alive and well. I explain to me what he’s doing, and how it tells me, I have a felt sense in my own would say there are approximately 30% serves integration and relating the body, the body. And what is the client’s response? Is of our membership who are interested in structure, to the ‘Line’ and gravity. his body becoming more coherent, more the subtle/energetic taxonomy. Another organized, or not? Sometimes students 30% are oriented to a more direct linear What is the fundamental tune/song of will want to do subtle work before they approach, and then 40% are somewhere in Rolfing SI? If we are going to use other are really able to, and so they will be sitting the middle. Regardless of a person’s interest modalities of intervention, we have to there holding the body and nothing’s and orientation, if you, as an instructor, try make sure we know when we are doing happening. If an experienced practitioner to force someone to work in a way that he that. If we want to start singing a different or instructor is sitting there holding the or she cannot relate to, it doesn’t go well. song, we have a responsibility to inform body, there’s a whole lot that’s going on. Students have to have a skill set that they the client. We may need to renegotiate the Students may or may not be able to see feel confident in, so that they can then go therapeutic relationship. And does what what it is, depending on their mode of out and explore the territory and learn. we are doing support, produce, the goals seeing. Given all those factors, the litmus When you are out there doing the work, of Rolfing SI? At the end of the session is test is always when the person stands up the energetic phenomena will present itself the body better related to gravity so that and walks: Is the client more organized in whether you want it to or not. So I try to gravity is a resource rather than a liability? gravity or not? Is there a greater expression provide some basic hooks to hang things on AH: I find your metaphor of the song really of contralateral movement? If not, then when they arise. I also feel that if I haven’t interesting, because musicians nowadays you have a conversation with the student demonstrated or shown something that make mash-ups of songs, right? Some of about that. they go, “Wow, what was that?”, and if I those are very melodic and pleasing, but it’s haven’t given them something to aspire AH: So, do you bring any of the subtle clear that they are two different songs put to and want to learn about and grow into, pieces you’ve learned into the AT, and together and you recognize that. I think that’s then I haven’t done my job. So I attempt if so, how do you bring them in, so that the challenge when you have these other to meet the various students where they students can contextually hold it in the modalities and you do them well – finding are, and the reality is, you’re not going to Rolfing ‘song’? out individually as a practitioner and us satisfy everyone’s needs all the time. It’s finding out as a community when are we RM: The agreed-upon syllabus is that 20% necessary for students to take responsibility just very nicely using a few different things of the time, which is five of the twenty- for learning the work. and when are we actually integrating them four days, you can present what your I often say that Rolfing SI is a self-taught into the SI vision. interest, passion, or orientation is. In terms art. And it takes time; this is why Ida said of the energetic approach, I find it is most RM: I had an interesting experience recently it takes three to five years. Go out there and effective in informing how people presence when I did one session and it was a very practice. One of the highest compliments themselves when they are working. When straightforward, tissue, direct-pressure, I ever received was when a student said, we did the first peer workshop in Phoenix classical Rolfing session, and then the next “You’ve not only taught us the ‘Recipe’, (Jeff Maitland and I put that together), client who came in, it was very much what you’ve taught us how to learn to do the we asked the faculty that attended, “Do I would call an energetic session. And the work.” It’s like the quote from Richard you do energetic work in your office?” aha – and this is still a working premise, Feynman, the physicist, “I’m fine with not Everyone said they did. When we asked, it’s not a conclusion – was that I felt like I knowing. I’m much happier not knowing “What is it that you do, when you say you was doing the same thing in both sessions, than having a false answer.” So students do energetic work?”, without exception, I was organizing the body’s relationship to who want it concrete and linear may find what they reported, is that they managed gravity. The energetic session was like in my classes more challenging than those a state shift in their own being/presence/ a different octave, a different vibrational who are on the other end of the scale. body. So one of the ways that elements of state; one could also say ‘played in a the energetic taxonomy can be introduced is AH: Let’s talk some about the energetic different key’. It was still the same song, to consciously manage your own awareness taxonomy. but it had a different quality. I’m fascinated – e.g. presence in the back of your body; a by this, and I have many more questions RM: In the energetic taxonomy you’re touch that lets the body shape your hands, than answers. relating to the ground matrix and the rather than you needing to shape it. You substance out of which volume and three- AH: Say you’re teaching an Advanced know the catch phrase, ‘work locally, dimensionality come. So if you’re relating Training (AT) and you have some students perceive globally’? So when a person has to that reality, then whatever arose out of who have studied other pieces that they a hand on the body in a location, say the that is being addressed. I’ve always been bring into their work, can you recognize knee, you cue him to expand his awareness, fascinated by the Line. I’m trying to see whether they’ve ‘brought it into the perception, to include the foot and the how the whole system relates to the Line. song’ or whether it’s a different song that hip and maybe even the space around the they’re melding in at the moment, but it’s body. So those are ways that I incorporate AH: Are you seeing the Line or are you not integrated? those techniques. sensing the Line? RM: First and foremost, be it a Basic or AH: Do you find that most students are RM: I sense it in myself; I either see or Advanced class or a workshop, when I able to get it? imagine it (‘imagine’ is different than ‘make approach the table I ask students what up’). And I sense/see it in clients. I can see they’re doing, what they’re trying to when the body is relating to the Line and

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 21 ENERGY when it isn’t. The powerful thing that arose around a line.”) They are different in that RM: So when you said it was “palpable,” out of Bob Schrei’s and my conversations the long tide is not an energetic structure how did you experience it? How did you around SourcePoint is that the usual and the Line is. (More about the function know that was happening? therapeutic relationship has the Rolfer and of energetic structures in a moment.) This AH: There was a stillness in the field. the client as a dyad: A-to-B, B-to-A. As the difference is why I think BDCS work and During some demonstrations, when a practitioner, when we relate to the place/ Rolfing SI are different songs. Both are teacher is working, students are in the reality where the formless comes into form periodic, vibratory phenomena, but it gets back, whispering to each other, “What’s – it could be called the ‘Ur’ phenomenon, or too complicated to go there in this context. he doing?”, or whispering to the assistant the blueprint, or whatever – if I’m relating We usually try to make the Line (an instructor, “Tell me what he’s doing.” I to that and also relating the client to that, energetic structure) socially acceptable by don’t remember any of that going on. There then something very different happens. It saying that it’s a precursor of the spine and was a sense that people were impacted by creates a triad: we are relating to each other incorporated into the spine. So how does the presence, and were respectful of it. and I am relating both of us to the source of the Line function as an energetic structure The room was holding the container that order and health. I don’t do that constantly in its own right? The closest analogy I’ve was extending from the presence of what in a session but that is my orientation, my come to is this: if you had a piece of paper you were doing with the client. And there intentionality. That is the context in which and you had iron filings on it, and you was this palpable depth and stillness that I hold the session. held a magnet under it, you would see the could be recognized and that elicited a AH: So is this ‘formless’ and ‘form’ the filings align with the (invisible) force field certain respect. ‘emptiness’ and ‘form’ of the Heart Sutra? of the magnet. The magnet is physical like RM: There are several ways to talk about it. Or the Mahamudra ground that Will Johnson a spine. So take the magnet away, shake the One way would be that the field entrained refers to? paper to unalign the filings. Draw a picture those in the room. I think I have a pretty of a magnet on a piece of paper (you now RM: I’m not sure. The Buddhists talk powerful field when I work. When I teach have a visual symbol of a magnet) and hold about how form comes into manifestation a class, I instruct the students to hold space it under the paper with the iron filing on on this pIane. The analogy is, first there is for the demos. So I verbally cue people to it. ‘Magically’ the iron filings again align vapor, then there is mist, and then there is do what you saw. And their doing it in the in the force field of the (now) nonexistent rain: the formless condensing into form In room without being told – it’s interesting. physical magnet. The visual symbol the various treatment modalities each one (picture) of the magnet is analogous to an So the client is there for the students, to be has a story as to what creates order, form, energetic structure. of service for their learning; I think the most and health, these explanations are about important thing for them to learn is how the phenomena after the event of manifestation. In the development of the embryo, you have practitioner relates to the client. I listen, and If you reference the place from whence the primary streak, which then turns into I do consider it a sacred event, so I relate those manifestations arise, it’s like you’ve the somites, which turns into the notochord, to it that way. And this goes all the way gone to a . . . which turns into the spine. These all arise, back to what I said [in the first part of this if you will, out of the energetic structure AH: Source! interview] about that weeklong meditation of the Line. I did before assisting the first time, which RM: Yes. And a more powerful way of AH: It seems like there are relationships was the best preparation that I could have working. And ‘powerful’ makes if sound between modalities, and that the exploration done. First we have to be present with like you’ve gotten a longer lever with of those relationships might help clarify ourselves. So whatever arises, we can hold/ which to move something, but for me, the where there are overlaps and where there manage/allow, not act out, etc. In being experience when I work that way is it’s the aren’t. But back to formlessness, and to Will present with ourselves, then we can be a Taoist ‘the effort of no effort’. Johnson’s work, when you sit in meditation clear mirror, we can be present for others. AH: This brings the question back to the and your Line is present, that seems to open I don’t need something from them. I don’t ‘song’ of Rolfing SI, or the song of any the body in a way that phenomenologically need them to get better, I don’t need them to modality. Is there a relationship between you can begin to feel the emptiness of look a certain way. It allows me to give them the long tide [of craniosacral work] and the the body. the space and the freedom to have their Line, or are they different songs? Do they experience. And I think that’s part of that RM: I am not exactly sure what you mean have a common source? quality that I think you were describing. I by the “emptiness of the body.” I would mean, I never thought or talked about it this RM: Not to be glib, but one could posit that probably say the emptiness of everything. way before; but there’s that quality within everything has a common source . . . we But that is a much longer conversation. myself, there’s that quality between myself don’t really know. But, about the long tide AH: Say a little bit more about presence as and the client, and that quality with those and the Line. Back to how each modality you work. The first time I saw you work, in the room. has its story about how form, order, health you came into a class I was in, maybe come about. In the biodynamic craniosacral AH: You’ve taught workshops on seeing, Unit 3, and you did a demo that was very (BDCS) world they say that the long tide right? What drew you to making that a topic palpable. You didn’t speak a lot, but there creates and sustains form, order, health. In for a whole workshop? was definitely presence enveloping the the Rolfing SI world we say that the Line space of you and the client, not detachment RM: Well, from the very beginning, creates and sustains form, order, health. but a very engaged, in-the-field-with-the- we’ve always talked about seeing, and (Ida Rolf said, “Man is something built client presence. how very important seeing was, and that

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Dr. Rolf could ‘see’. That’s why she did RM: To express who it is, in the way it wants AH: We were just in a class together with the amazing things she did. But we never to. Which for me is the goal of Rolfing SI. Will Johnson. His books all seem to speak directly taught the skill of seeing. It was to the idea that when a person is present, AH: And so rather than looking at the always a concomitant skill set. And so for aware of his or her Line, something body as something we have to shape into years I’ve been trying to figure out, since it’s ‘spiritual’ can happen, a change in state. a Line . . . important – it’s essential – I’ve been trying RM: It certainly is a change in state of to figure out ways to teach seeing. And the RM: It already has a Line; it has to relate conscious. And if in fact (which I do believe) workshop in Phoenix with Jeff Maitland to its Line. Or maybe the Line is not there the Line is the energetic structure out of was our attempt at that. – I saw someone who had had a tragic car which the form arises, if you relate back to accident, whose Line was outside the body. AH: How did it go? that primal beginning, you’re going to have AH: You could see it, or sense it, or what? access to that out of which the Line arose. RM: Aaahh . . . for some people, it was Wow. I’ve never said that before. That’s life-changing. There was one person, just RM: I don’t see it the way I see the door or, interesting! being seen resulted in her having a whole you know, a statue, it also happens with my experience of her core that she had never eyes closed. So it’s a kind of knowing, and AH: Yes, it is! Thanks so much for this rich known existed before. No hands-on work; one of the things I’ve had to do over the and inspiring discussion. just being seen. This comes out of Goethe years is to give myself permission to know Ray McCall has a master’s degree in structural and phenomenology. It’s covered in some things without knowing how I know them. linguistics. He completed his basic Rolfing detail in Jeff’s newest book,Embodied Being. AH: So how do you work with students, certification in 1978 and his advanced [Editor’s note: Ray McCall’s review of and their different ways of seeing? certification in 1981. He joined the Rolf that book is in the March 2016 edition of Institute® faculty in 1997. He teaches Basic and this Journal.] RM: I’m trying to teach seeing by having Advanced Trainings and continuing education them look at relationships and how these AH: It’s so interesting when you say that workshops both in the U.S. and overseas. He has relate to the midline. It is my experience what evoked change for that person was also trained to instructor level in biodynamic that in order to see you have to be present. being seen. craniosacral therapy. He is interested in how You have to let go of the agenda. You have change happens and how form manifests out of RM: That seeing someone is an intervention. to be willing to put your hands on and let the formless. He is also interested in making old whatever you thought you were going to do AH: Does that mean that we’re usually not cars look good and go fast. totally go out the window. And what I stress seeing someone? over and over and over, my litany/mantra, Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer in RM: Well, I don’t think you can see someone is “test, intervene, retest.” So I want people Seattle, Washington, a teacher of the Diamond if you have an agenda. So in classes, when to do a diagnostic, I want them to do the Approach® to inner work, and the Editor-in- we’re looking at someone to try to figure work, and then repeat the same diagnostic, Chief of this Journal. out what to do in a session, we have an in the same way, in the same taxonomy. agenda. So we’re already looking through a That’s the way you teach yourself how to filter that distorts what we see. We already do the work. DIAMOND APPROACH is a registered trademark have something we think the person has or of The Ridhwan Foundation in the U.S., Europe, and doesn’t have, so s/he feels judged and feels various other countries. like an object. The degree to which we can see someone is the degree to which we are willing to be seen. So if we can be – and this goes back to presence – if we can be present, without an Advanced Training agenda, then we can let the person’s reality form our perception. It’s like when we touch Take It to the Next Level someone, can we let his or her leg shape our hand? Can we let his or her reality shape AT2.17 with Tessy Brungardt our perception? & Ellen Freed AH: In the trainings, there’s work on Monthly between how we language. Like instead of saying Sept. 27, 2017 – May 6, 2018 to the client “I need to fix your right Charlestown, WV shoulder, it’s too high,” we elicit their body’s participation by wondering “What would AT3.17 with Ray McCall it be like to feel your shoulder here?” while Sept. 18 - Oct. 6, 2017 & indicating with our hands. What you are talking about seems like even a further Jan. 22 - Feb. 2, 2018 step, where you’re not imposing at all, but Boulder, CO you’re inviting that being to have the space to speak to you. www.rolf.org for more info

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 23 ENERGY

• Don’t dismiss something because it Intuition and Intention doesn’t make sense, you can still affect profound change from what you don’t The Yin and Yang of Subtle Energy understand.

By Kathy McConnell, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® • Honor your first impulse and act on Practitioner it with authority. You may not get immediate feedback, if at all. Sometimes Yin and yang (see Figure 1) are polar a resource for information gathering. As a something we say or do can initiate opposite, interdependent principles, or result, the default way of paying attention a process that takes longer than the forces, that together make up a whole. The tends to be through a narrow lens, and series, or longer than the relationship. balancing action between the two positions favors externalities to the detriment of our Rolfing SI changes lives in ways we will underlies a spiral phenomenon that keeps internal experience. Our lives and practices never know. the universe in perpetual motion, for can be greatly enhanced by taking the time The bottom line is, information we get example, energy/matter, inside/outside, to examine beliefs we have about how to from the intuitive sense tends to be quiet sympathetic/parasympathetic, and so on. pay attention. (but not always), and dwell at the edge Information is accessed and processed of awareness. It emerges in the moments through the senses. Broadly speaking, between thoughts and spins away easily. information coming from outside the body The information wants to be recognized, is called exteroception (vision, hearing, and will show up when we create the etc.), and information we get from internal right circumstances. We embody the signals (proprioception, emotions, thirst, contemplative nature of intuition by etc.) is called interoception. We can engage opening and softening sensory portals. the wide-lens, whole-field aspect of the Intention: The Yang nervous system by working with any or Transmitting Force one sense because all the senses work in tandem. For example, softening the Intention comes from the Latin root eyes and widening the visual field slows intentus, meaning the act of stretching out. thinking and enhances tactile sensation. In our work, intention is an infinite, Intuition comes online when we soften blooming fractal that unfolds on many the senses and split our attention between layers at once. The umbrella intention in interoception and exteroception. Rolfing SI is to optimize the relationship of Figure 1: Yin and yang symbol. Rolfing SI supplies us with tools that support the physical body with the field of gravity. the development of better interoception, in Gravity is a big-picture/universal anchor For the purpose of this article, I am referring both ourselves and our clients. When asked that accommodates our meaning-seeking to intuition and intention as a nonmaterial to describe body sensations, we validate nature and is what sets Rolfing SI apart (subtle energy) information transfer, our subjective experience and create a more from other forms of hands-on bodywork. using thoughts, feelings. and imagination. fertile habitat for intuition. Following are a We literally study the physical sensation ® Inextricable from Rolfing Structural few general principals I try follow during of our connectedness to the Earth and Integration (SI), as well as other holistic sessions that help me stay present to intuitive enveloping cosmos. therapies, intention is systematically information. As with any kind of practice, Other layers of intention include the and deliberately taught in our trainings. some days I am more successful than others. Intuition naturally emerges in a somatic intention of your practice, the intention practice, and can be vitalized with some • Notice what you notice, stay present. of the session within the ‘Recipe’, the intention specific to the client, etc. The more simple techniques. • Ease up on trying; the less you try, the clear we are about each layer, the more more you relax, the more receptive Intuition: The Yin effective the work. Skillful intention doesn’t you are. or Receiving Force necessarily mean concentrating hard. In • Resist the urge to overly strategize, leave fact, concentrating narrows the flow of Intuition comes from the Latin root intueri, space for improvisation. information, as it does with intuition. meaning to look at or contemplate. Intention needs to be clear, simple, and • Trust your perception, refrain from Today we use the word intuition to talk about embodied by the practitioner. Embodied second-guessing yourself. direct perception, or the ability to know means having a deep, sensory knowledge something without any proof. Intuition • Ask yourself open-ended questions, of the terrain under our hands. In the early is a normal, natural sense that is often not necessarily expecting an answer. Rolfing SI trainings, we study muscles, dismissed or invalidated by Western society, The question itself implies wholeness bones, and fascia; as practitioners, we are especially in academia. We are trained in and will open a portal for the flow of then drawn to additional fractal layers of school to value focus and concentration information. For example: “What wants anatomy. This might include nonphysical over curiosity and play. This helps maintain to be seen here?” or “What does this anatomies as well, such as chakras or the cultural taboo against using intuition as relate to?” meridians. Even though they can’t be

24 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY carved with a scalpel, subtle energy systems are integral to the physical body. In our Rolfing practices, we have the privilege to experience the incredible, often surprising effects that imagination has on tissue. As hands-on hours and results accumulate, we develop and refine our own style of stretching out, or transmitting thought, thus embodying the power of intention. Mind the Hands Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. Carl Jung I attended a Medical Qigong certification course with Suzanne Friedman at AIMC (Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College) in Berkeley, California, in 2011. In this course, we learned a qigong movement form, as well as hands-on table work. Figure 2: Sensory homunculus. Much of the table work was done off the body, using very precise hand shapes with exotic names, such as Dragon Mouth or Thanks to language and tools, we are able effects the ‘energy body’. These claims Five Thunder Fingers (Friedman 2006, to record our history and build on the work are easily dismissed by skeptics, but if 66-67), to achieve desired effects. This of others. As embodied/enhanded agents, we we substitute ‘neural activity’ for ‘energy practice deepened my understanding of have been gifted with language, creativity body’, the concept fits well with our the power of intention, and launched me and culture (Radman 2013). Hands deserve present-day Western point of view. our deep reverence. on a quest to understand how hand shapes As humans, we experience intention and finesse intention. In the relatively new academic field intuition in an infinite number of ways. As Another important inspiration for this of Embodied Cognition, researchers manual therapists, we endow our hands quest was learning Hiroyoshi Tahata’s are starting to validate the mind-body with special access to these forces. Our ‘Yield’ approach to Rolf Movement (Tahata connection with scientific studies. One hands have an inherent intelligence that and McConnell 2015). Tahata is a Certified group of researchers has demonstrated that serves as a direct conduit to the brain, and Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement hand gestures in children reveal changes in other perceiving organs. They are potent Instructor who came to Rolfing SI from a understanding that is not yet conscious. For transceivers, effectively transmitting and cellular-biology background. He uses the example, when a child is asked to describe a receiving information with or without our back side of his fingers, lightly resting on pattern of objects on the table, and her hand conscious input. At times I find myself the client, to evoke an almost instantaneous, gestures don’t match what she is describing watching and following my hands during system-wide activation of motility. He verbally, her gestures indicate an emerging, a session, surprised at where they end also uses the back of his hands, under the more accurate concept of the problem. In up. Hands are leading participants in our body, to cue the client’s system to yield to other studies, children who are encouraged human evolution, and as such, I believe, gravity. If you ever have the opportunity to use gestures when describing a problem hold an untapped potential, patiently to watch him work, the dance he leads learn more quickly than children who don’t waiting to be recognized. (Goldin-Meadow 2011; Goldin-Meadow between interoception and exteroception Useful Inquiry is exquisite. and Alibali 2013). I have recently been experimenting with We know from brain mapping that hands Ancient Hindus developed a formal system for manipulating the mind using using my hands as a stand-in for my head monopolize a disproportionately large during meditation. This can be easily amount of brain tissue (Figure 2). Becoming hand shapes, known as Yoga Mudra. Practitioners claim that specific hand shapes integrated into a movement practice as well. upright not only changed our relationship to Here is an example: gravity, it freed our hands and changed the (mudras) have therapeutic properties, which trajectory of our evolution. This new posture range from treating medical conditions After settling, checking in with my breath and allowed us to more easily manipulate the to communing with the divine (Mesko feeling the weight of my body in the chair, I environment, stimulating the invention 2013). Most mudras, however, address start to wonder about emptying my hands of and use of tools. Simultaneously we started mental states, such as calming anxiety or thought or action. Soon, they start to warm using gestures and noises to communicate, overcoming fear. The ancient texts say that and pulsate. Then I feel a wave-like motion forging the language/thought/hand system. holding certain mudras during meditation that is more than the blood pumping. My skin

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 25 ENERGY boundary drops away and my hands feel as if they have merged with the environment. At the Integrating the Invisible same time, I am aware of visceral sensations, especially in my heart. I invite my breath to A Direct EM Approach embrace the sensations coming from my heart, then my breathing becomes absolutely delicious By Deborah Stucker, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and nourishing. When I am able to recognize Editor’s note: Over the years, a number of Rolfers have experimented with developing energetic ways all these events at once, the world and my life to accomplish the goals of Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI), some working off the body, others gain relevance and I feel validated. Thoughts with minimal touch. Deborah Stucker developed her method in the 1990s, and had a conceptual slow down and remain in the background as I underpinning that allowed her to teach it to others, which she did through workshops for some years. enjoy the physical sensations of the whole-body experience I am able to access through my hands. The method of Rolfing® SI I use leads with The point of contact for me is at the My hope is that the thoughts expressed here the energetic taxonomy. observation phase of pre-materialization. might refresh a page in your own practice Once that stage is complete or self-aware, Rolfing SI always impacts the client’s energy manual (or manual practice, if you will). materialization proceeds. (and space). Unfortunately, we have very Kathy McConnell is a Certified Advanced Rolfer little to go on in formulating that impact I have to say that I owe a debt to the nun and Rolf Movement Practitioner who has been and how to achieve it directly. To reach the who taught me the importance of zero. If tending her practice in the San Francisco Bay energetic information, we need to look at our you start at one, one is a given. If you start Area since 2000. Further professional trainings clients from a different perspective. Make at zero, nothing is predetermined. For include Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, a shift from primarily seeing to primarily someone in the change business, zero is the Medical Qigong, Five Element Theory, and feeling. Not much is different yet nothing most powerful starting place. more. Most recently, she has been dabbling is the same. in Western Esotericism, including tarot and Somewhere along the way, I found this part Visionary Cosmology (Eakins 2016). She is We have said for decades that “structures are of a poem, “Light and Dark,” by William currently spending her free time researching functions that move very slowly, functions M. Bronk (of the Bronk family, for which and writing about hands in anticipation of more quickly,” but it is the other way around. the borough of The Bonx is named). It manifesting a book on the subject. Structures happen near the speed of light, encourages me daily. functions obviously much more slowly. We World, world, I am scared Bibliography cannot match the speed of structure, but and waver in awe before the we can determine much about its nature by Eakins, P. 2016. Visionary Cosmology: The wilderness New Paradigm. Pacific Center Books. tapping into its energetic life. The conjectures we make are then used as feedback into the of raw consciousness, because it is Friedman, S. 2006. The Yijing Medical Qigong system, which changes it. all System: A Daoist Medical I-Ching Approach to dark and formlessness, and it is Healing. Xlibris Corporation. Origins real Goldin-Meadow, S. 2011. “What Our Hands Peter Melchior told his class, “We don’t this passion that we feel for forms. Can Tell Us About Our Minds.” TEDx Talks, change the body so much as change But the forms available at http://tinyurl.com/Goldin- the mind about the body.” Over time, I are never real. Are not really Meadow (retrieved 5/8/2017). discovered a touch protocol that deals there. Are not. directly with how and when the mind Goldin-Meadow, S. and M.W. Alibali 2013. makes the body. Basis of Working with “Gesture’s Role in Speaking, Learning, the Energetic Taxonomy and Creating Language.” Annual Review of Another ‘kickstarter’ idea came from Ida Rolf Psychology 2013.64:257-283. where she quotes Norbert Weiner as saying, We know that there is a reciprocal “We are not stuff that abides but patterns relationship between energy and space. A Mesko, S. 2013. Healing Mudras: Yoga for Your that perpetuate themselves.” Whoa! What?! human being is a stable system that enacts Hands. Mudra Hands Publishing. That is an exciting idea. How we perpetuate itself energetically. This stable system uses space in characteristic ways. If our Radman, Z. 2013. The Hand, an Organ of ourselves must be a vital question for us clients could change within the space they the Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT as Rolfers. Since we know from quantum currently occupy, they would have done Press. physics that we are dynamically coming- into-being, the question is not “How do we so by now. Tahata, H. and K. McConnell 2015 Nov. change?” but “How do we not change?”! Change can be introduced by quantifying “Rolf Movement® Faculty Perspectives: The the space that would be necessary for a Art of Yield – An Interview with Hiroyoshi Jason W. Brown, with his theory of the different use to occur. The quantification Tahata.” Structural Integration: The Journal of microprocessing of consciousness, and itself is the bulk of the Rolfer-client the Rolf Institute® 43(3):3-4. Duane Elgin, with his model of coming- into-being, both suggest that materialization communication using this approach. We and consciousness are reciprocal. Each participate in the formative consciousness organizational stage is ‘fixed’ into being to mandate change. I say “mandate” by self-observation inherent in that stage. because there is a certain inevitability about proposed change based on successful

26 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY conduction. Melchior called this idea of The direct EM approach observes the use of in the reflection of light with the client in proposing change that results in inevitable space by the client. This includes noticing ordinary movement and in repose. reintegration “working lawfully.” relationships between any given landmarks, Ask the client to stand without moving such as between navel and spine. If the Playing with the space that the system uses around or talking while you look nowhere client unconsciously keeps these two places adds or subtracts energy, impacting the in particular (you can use your notes as a in an unvarying juxtaposition – part of form. This integration of space and energy prop). You will see all kinds of unconscious a system-wide pattern of blockage and operates at every level of formation, from movements and shifts indicating that the compensation – then when that spatial the subatomic to the galactic. Rolfing SI client’s energetic pressure requires more relationship changes, the whole pattern can be understood as a practice that space than is available in the body as it will change. Creating a reference point of manipulates this relationship in the human appears. It is important to realize that the the navel to an alternate vertebra could be being therapeutically. shape and thrust of the shifts in space in a step in this direction. The actual work those unconscious movements is the body is carried out by tapping into the feeling/ Touch as a Protocol as it appears. The information is not visible impression of pressure and working with but nevertheless there to see. Start looking Touch is an agreement. What is touched it spatially to resolve the pressure. and its meaning are a negotiation between at the space instead of the form. They the touching parties. Grappling with this Working with ‘impression’ takes me into are related. contact with the system’s energetic being. understanding made up a considerable part Even the most relaxed client may exhibit Once I can feel a way to communicate a plan of my acting studies and came with me into some kind of improbable and totally for resolution of problematic pressure, there my development as a Rolfer. unconscious jerk or displacement. It is a simultaneous understanding on the part sometimes mimics a strobe effect. Did you Many touch protocols are learned of the client’s spatial consciousness. At that even see it? Often, the client cannot maintain conventions within a given society. These point, I get out and let the client come-into- a passive stance without doing something. conventions mask the process of selection being in the corrective space without me. of sensations and assignment of meaning To me, this almost certainly means that this to those selections. Intention is a way of The shape and pressure of the proposed person’s system requires unstinting upper selecting a protocol for establishing distinct solution is based entirely on whatever cortex involvement just to maintain itself. contacts. The intention that informs the impression I receive. I cannot say much Hyper-arousal is another indication of the touch of surgery allows all the parties about details as these impressions are fixed body of fight-or-flight. Observe all involved to proceed in an atmosphere of fleeting and nonverbal. Perhaps the closest uses of space, from flustering and release beneficence as opposed to butchery. Just the example would be when you want to of energy as the client settles into a new thought of removing a still-beating heart convey love visually to someone across a environment to compulsive action with and supplanting it with another is enough room. Imagine yourself squeezing your rationales. Look at how much pressure the to kill a person outright in some cultures. own body in a hug meant for the other client seems to be under. person. Your recipient understands what The standard Rolfing approach is to ask If nothing makes itself apparent, try you mean by reading the pressure and for fascial anatomy, and so we get fascial blinking softly to settle yourself down. duration of your squeeze and the focus and anatomy. With a ‘direct electromagnetic It is okay to feel panic while waiting, as content of your look. It’s communicating in (EM) approach, we ask to speak to the way long as you keep waiting. The panic will analogue, so to speak. the system is a perpetuating pattern and vanish when you catch a clue. You will voila! – it starts talking back. One reason why I like working this way is soon discover that the more still you can Working with Space that, since I don’t make the change, I am make yourself, the more information you to Change Form not needed for it to persist. In the client’s can receive. The more indeterminate you consciousness, I was never there. From the let yourself be, the more alert you will be By sticking resolutely with the relationship moment of information uptake, all the change to the determinations of the client. between space and energy – perceived is made by the client alone. Practically, this Look at the outline. Say the client is standing as shape and pressure – we bypass means that every time the client resorts on both feet and the head is centered over the organizational consciousness of to his or her habitual locations, the more that base. If a hip is yanked up or there fascial anatomy where the structural energy-efficient, and thus preferable, pattern is compensation, such as rotation and approach works. within the gravitation field reasserts itself. compression, then the apparent symmetry The client metaphorically goes ‘out’ the To discover the touch protocol at the level of is an illusion of ‘normalcy’. If the client ‘in’ door unconsciously to re-arrive at the the pattern, one must focus on experiences were a crumpled or twisted bed sheet, new integration. that engage the pattern. Sounds fancy but prevented from shaking out and reaching it isn’t. A shift in attention, nothing more. How Does One the far corner of the bed, you would be able After all, the experiences have been there Develop EM Perception? to visualize exactly how you would have to all along, so it really isn’t all that new once throw it to get it to straighten out. Looking one gets the hang of it. That said, there is no To develop EM perception, first soften at the yanked-up hip can give you clues getting around it: if you want to touch into your vision. Make yourself receptive to as to how you would need to position the pattern, you have to be willing to feel and movements that catch your eye. I work in upper body to allow the hip to drop back analyze whatever you feel unconditionally dim light to reduce color to grey scale. This down, and where the head would need to as your basis of information. enables me to catch near subliminal shifts go to keep from compressing the hip back in its usual position. The corrective position

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 27 ENERGY is almost sure to be off the body. That is the Everything That information has been taken. Or you may space it requires to change. Happens in the Room find yourself thinking about dinner. Place your hands lightly on the client and Is of Clinical Importance I do test the system for potential as a way let yourself feel the pattern of pressure. of making sure that the system can resolve One must cultivate observation without There will be a bias towards movement in its problems within the human space that censorship. Thoughts and feelings are never a certain direction inherent in the tissue. it occupies. Like water, which can assume a outside the scope of the work at hand and Your impressions of the bias will be enough shape only to have that shape dissolve, the can be mined for clinical observations. It to go on. human body ought to have the potential is very hard to not self-censor moments of to assume any shape possible with an Try paying attention to the way in which seeming detachment from the process, such immediate dissolve. So, in the science you may already be moving/responding as a sudden thought about dinner. ‘Off- fiction realm in which this approach resides, as you contact your client’s system. You mission’ thoughts like this spring to mind I can energetically ‘roll’ the client up to a may have felt something and are moving in as an integral part of the action – usually headstand. If there are glitches, then more response. You might find yourself habitually when the client is going through prolonged space would be necessary to accomplish the stepping back from that engagement in respatialization. It takes guts to even task. Resolve the glitches. Check again. It search of an objective ‘reality’. Go with pay attention, never mind pay attention can be used as the direct EM equivalent to your impressions. They may come to you without censure. the end-of-session back work and pelvic lift. as feelings, senses of shapes, a sense of Emotions count. Observe in what ways your pushback or resistance. Try to not second- client attracts and repels you. Be as wary of The Wet and the Dry guess. You will not get the ‘real’ impression, the love you feel as the repulsion. Examine just ‘another one’, if you don’t go with what During a session, the client adopts new your feelings as expressions of distortions you are being given at first. Just thank God starting points of coming-into-being. The of space between you. Read attraction and you are being given something so you can process creates novel flows of energy (the repulsion as space shaped by energy – quit panicking and start practicing! dry) throughout the system, followed push and pull. You will be able to detect by a cascade of hydration (the wet). (Or Here is a little experiment. Sit down in a relaxed, and analyze changes in your coexistence the other way around: a novel hydration upright position on a hard surface with your emotionally and spatially before and after resulting in proliferating flows of energy.) hands turned palm upward, resting by your a given session or series. How does it This activity in turn touches off more novel sides. Close your eyes and feel the front plane of feel? Take your immediate answer and go energy pathways and so on. There is a your forehead. Imagine where you might place from there. global change in hydration throughout the that plane so that your shoulders would drop, Everything that the client says and does system. The connective tissue is the primary your back and your front would balance out as from greeting to exit is meaningful. Every conductor of energy in the system, coupled they cascade down, and the psoas and rhomboids behavior is an expression of the whole system by water molecules. Change the flow of would engage and balance. No big intellectual and factors into the clinical assessment of the energy; change the hydration. deal, just like finding where you would need to client’s habitual use of space. Gather ye your toss the crumpled-up bed sheet of your posture Our proprioception of direction – which way impressions while ye may. to lengthen it out. Feel your way to it; wait for is ‘down’ – is based on the asymmetrical tug the sweet spot to reveal itself with a ‘click’ or So, you want maximum engagement with of gravity on water. It is always available some such other noticeable experience. Open maximum detachment. It’s kind of fun. It’s in present time in human consciousness. your eyes and blink softly. Feel yourself liquify, certainly a challenge. Water cannot be fixed, though patterns even vanish, with stronger support at the core. of hydration may be. It is always where There Is No Set Technique it is when it is. That’s a good place to start Botttom line: the result of all Rolfing SI is a for those of us in the Here/Now business. It is unfortunate that I can’t convey the post-psychological organization, one based Fooling around with the ‘fall’ (orientation many ways I have responded to each client’s on the balance, strength, and centeredness of the water molecule array) of water resets information. I have taught a few classes, derived from improved grounding and patterns and proprioception. given a few demos, but the methods used electrical conduction, rather than on the were how I did the work at that time. I struggles and ambiguities of human life. It Messing with the conduction and hydration am afraid I have sown more than a little will only stick – is only integrated – when of structure and being is as close to the body misunderstanding about the approach, the client’s self-perception aligns itself as it appears as this approach gets. We are inadvertently giving the idea that this or that unconsciously with the reorganization. In out before neurological organizations kick technique is the method itself. I regularly other words, if you must keep reminding in. Still, I think of working in ‘the wet and work with what I call Water Drop, Hold and the client to feel lifted from inside (or the dry’ as an indirect use of a direct EM Release, Align the Shine, and Imagine!, and whatever), you have failed to integrate the approach – one that works quite well. make discoveries every time I tap in. person in the gravitational field so that such Peculiarities of My Practice conscious efforts are unnecessary. I can say that a lot of waiting is involved. Allowing gravity and the system to The concentration required prevents me from We don’t improve or destroy the body renegotiate takes as long as it takes. There talking while working. More importantly, of fight-or-flight or the scaffolding of will be a feeling of release when things have as change accumulates, the client will be personality. It is what it is and is necessary settled. Meanwhile, you can softly look at profoundly engaged at the pattern level, to the client. We eliminate the compulsive the client to find out how the corrective which produces no words or pictures. S/ need for it. he will feel ‘out’, as though asleep, but s/he

28 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY is not. Talking only rouses the higher brain By projecting a ‘lawful’, alternative location that being around less doesn’t improve. functions. Let sleeping clients lie. for embodiment, we neither affirm nor Behavior that is forged in the struggles negate the existing pattern. We use it of childhood, often painful and tiresome, I may also experience mild blackouts at the instead as the jumping off point to the if done less becomes integrated as style latter phase of sessions as the client’s global new. The client’s habitual location is always and inclination. change of space demands change in my still potentially available but, like a lap, it own being. I call it ‘frequency synch-up’, In the direct EM approach, we can feel doesn’t have to exist all the time. to call it something. into pathological patterns in a way that is There is something mildly sadistic hard to do in standard Rolfing SI with its Except when taking pictures, I work in about rendering up our clients to the prioritization of visual perception. Pain is dim light. Darkness forces the eyes to see gravitational field – like getting Dad in to invariably accompanied by an energetic the shine beneath the surface, the brain to settle the argument. No one likes to fail. pattern that defies the anatomical view. compute shape at its most elemental. Plus, It’s unthinkable! Why fight when you can There is always an element of science fiction subduing the visual input reinforces the kill? These feelings are not peripheral to in the pattern that is creating pain that we primacy of feeling. the method I created. I wanted to offset can directly address. Words cannot touch I always use an overheated room, to blur my natural ferocity and need to help with this disconnection, in the same way that the lines of demarcation between the self a touch just this side of Schrödinger’s words fail at a certain point in ‘talk therapy’ and room for the client lying on the table. indeterminate state. Safety first! if trauma precedes speech. Connective Blankets are okay but I’d rather the room tissue is mute; anatomical organization is The touch protocol I wanted to find rejects be hot enough to make them unnecessary. words from start to finish. the Rolfer-as-heroic-actor model that we I use as little propping as possible. Propping, have inherited from modern medicine. Electromagnetic being is not constrained by to my view, reinforces the subliminal notion So seductive a place to inhabit and so the physics of everyday human reality. Any that the body has a fixed shape no matter treacherous both to ourselves and our space is accessible to us. In a classic Second what position. The ‘fixed-shape’ human is clients! If our clients derive their support Hour, for instance, you might want to the psychomotor ideal. We aim to locate from us, then where is the escape for them anchor your client’s grounding several feet support onto a strong energetic polarity, not into the infinitely more reliable primal below the floor – like planting a fence post the body of ‘fight or flight’ that is the human support of gravity? I believe that one can deep below the surface. We can gain access ‘fallback’ position requiring a fixed shape. use a firm-handed approach that serves the directly to such placement, and its potential same principle. It’s not a matter of technique for profound stability, when we ignore People may think of what I’ve been calling but of letting gravity arbitrate. apparent realty for an alternative one. a direct EM approach to Rolfing SI as being off the beaten path, if not off the reservation Time I love that all of the client is available when entirely. Maybe so, but I stick to a very strict working through the energetic taxonomy. Ten-Series protocol. I see the ten sessions In the energetic taxonomy, we get to Bones are as fluid and flexible as the jelly of as a progressive reorganization of the play with time as it relates to structural organs and as easy to reach. In the beginning ‘bodymind’, plane by plane. It is not even formation. I call this the ‘Don’t Be Here of this practice, I started fooling around with necessarily a ‘hands-off’ practice, though it Now’ option. Remember the power of zero? just the point where the fascial network mostly is for me. One of the main problems with the body interlaced with the periosteum. These fibers are where much of the rigidity of behavior Rather than getting to romp around in the of psychomotor organization is that it resides, seldom moving freely and subtly attractive ether of mysticism, my approach is simply around too much, going too pushing the client spatially to compensate to Rolfing SI – and Rolfing SI in general – fast. When the wavelength of the system for his inability to move. These micro- works in the basement of human existence. elongates, it reoccurs more slowly, with fixations are areas of hypo-activity, with We are in the Here/Now business of being. lots of time for indetermination in the self- observation process of materialization. hyper-activity elsewhere. Moreover, they are Unique Advantages integral to the fixed body of fight-or-flight. The impression of the speed of entry of Just introducing a counter-wave through Because we cite gravity as the arbiter of structure allows us to use time as an agent those fibers smashes through rigidity in the change, we are not matching opinions of change. ‘Reentry’ can be evened out to entire system. It is still a viable technique. with the client on how to be. As far as EM correct imbalance. Time is simply another conduction is concerned, if a person is aspect of the relationships within the We are looking, as all Rolfers are, for a conducting energy, that person is perfect. system. Indicating a change in the timing more stable yet more open system. I have It’s a merciless ‘on/off’ switch that will of conduction can reset the entire system. found that working at the planning stage continue to spark life into even the most Timing can be felt in a build-up in pressure, of materialization gets straight to the hideous of human contortion and loss like holding a fire hose before and after the part of consciousness that is in charge of until it doesn’t. It sees us from conception spigot is turned on. these matters. “Take me to your leader!,” to cremation. This same relentless self- marching into gravity. I see Ida Rolf smiling, The more indetermination you can introduce acceptance can be turned to the client’s with a flower in her hair. into the system, the better. Perhaps you’ve advantage. Energy’s indifference to human had the experience of having all the time in Random Remarks form includes putting up no resistance to the world to respond in human situations change, provided it can continue to conduct People have asked me if the way I work is as compared to your pre-Rolfing self. somehow. It is a relief to get out from under as good as the way I used to work. Let me There is nothing wrong with human being resistance. The job is big enough. just ask, “What kind of question is that?!” www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 29 ENERGY

Why would anyone sacrifice results? I can’t imagine. I slabbed ‘em and grabbed ‘em with The Energetic Foundations of SI gusto and not without results for years. All Rolfers evolve the work individually, and An Origin Story rightly so. And for each and every one of us, the clients’ needs come first. Right? By Bob Schrei, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ What about the charge that this way of working is simply imagination? Working . . . Is ‘balancing’ actually the placing of expanded on what was shared. By request, through the energetic taxonomy makes some the body of flesh upon an energy pattern I am sharing this tribute again here, with unconscious aspects of Rolfing SI conscious. I that activates it. The pattern of this fine some minor editing. energy would not be as easily disrupted think all Rolfing SI is imaginary. The touch of An Origin Story standard Rolfing SI is based on conventional and might well survive, relatively protocols of physical being, which confers a intact, traumatic episodes that distort Today [Sunday, June 7, 2015] is the Ida Rolf sense of reality to the process. Convention the flesh. Memorial Virtual Event at her final resting place, though I doubt she is resting there. More in no way contradicts the imaginary nature Ida Rolf (1977, 205) of the interaction. My clients do not have likely continuing her enquiry. to believe in me, or my method, for me to Introduction I was asked to be a part of this event and lead make contact at the level I do. I am in no My original training was as an architect and a meditation, but for personal reasons, was not way negating human reality any more than builder. There I learned that the foundation available in person today. standard Rolfing SI does. Imaginary and real a structure is built upon is what determines I would like this to be my contribution to the are not in opposition. “We do not change the the success or failure of its ability to unfolding vision of this work. It is interesting body so much as change the mind about the survive the forces of gravity – to exist in to me that despite all the discussions I have body.” Melchior was a hands-on guy: Why this material world. In the quote above, heard over the years about the nature of this did he say that? What did he mean? How Dr. Rolf is suggesting that there is an work, what Dr. Rolf wanted, and how to did he do it? As I hope I have suggested here, energetic foundation or pattern that heal this community, there is one aspect that human embodiment is largely imaginary. activates the body of flesh; she implies has completely been overlooked. Whether That’s why the client’s proprioceptive that perhaps all that we are doing as intentionally or accidentally I am not sure. To imagination can be appealed to for change. practitioners of structural integration (SI) is me it is the key to the difficulties we have had facilitating the body’s alignment with this Which Came First, the as a community in understanding the nature pattern or foundation. She also referred to Theory or the Practice? of this work and how it originated. It has been this pattern as the Platonic “blueprint for hinted at – but not spoken about openly. I literally felt my way to where I am now. structure” (Rolf 1977, 16). I picked up on threads from my Rolfing Several months ago, Liz Stewart posted a We could say the concept Dr. Rolf puts forth training and went back to my home lab. document from Peter Melchior on this Facebook here is the foundation not only of the “body Explanations or theories came later, as page. In her post she called attention to the note of flesh” but also other work. To understand I studied up. I’ve mentioned my debt at the bottom of the document, in which Peter this better, it might be helpful to take a to Melchior, but Jim Oschman has been said, “Ida Rolf once remarked, in a class in closer look at the origins of these ideas. a constant source of food for thought which I was present, that ‘This work is at least too, among countless others. Many have In the summer of 2015, a memorial event 3,000 years old.’” gone down this road before me in our was held at Dr. Rolf’s gravesite. Several The implication of this, of course, is that this community. Most have never been seen or people, including myself, were asked work did not originate with Dr. Rolf. So rather heard from again. I guess they met with to participate with tributes. I wrote the than feeling this day as a tribute to the founder some resistance. I can’t imagine why. It following piece as my contribution with of this work, I see it as a tribute to the woman is our own energetic taxonomy, after all. some hesitancy, and shared it on the Private with a flower in her hair who reconnected us Here’s my stab at trying to articulate it. Page for Structural Integrators on Facebook. with a much, much older tradition of which I was aware that the perspective of the piece Author’s note: A shout out to Karen Sallovitz we are a part. was potentially controversial and at odds and Steve Mettner, Rolfers of very long standing with the prevailing stories that we have told What is that tradition? I would like to share who gave me questions to answer and points ourselves and the public about the origins a story that walked into my life five or six to ponder. of our work. years ago, which may shed some light on this Deborah Stucker began training in the first CSP quote of Peter’s. I think this is important for To my surprise, the words were very well (now Unit I) class in 1987 in Carmel, California, understanding the story that we are within. received, both in comments that were certified as a Rolfer in 1988 in Boulder, and posted to the Facebook group, and in This story challenges the narratives that have completed advanced certification in 1995 in personal emails. I received confirmation been put forward about what our work is and Brazil. She stopped actively practicing in the from original teachers of Dr. Rolf’s method where it came from, or more hopefully expands early ‘oughts’ to travel, go to cosmetology of SI, as well as thanks for having made and augments the prevailing view, perhaps school, care for relatives, flip houses, work as the comments. I did not receive a single providing a key to understanding why there an interior designer, and hang out with a small denial or question of veracity. In addition, are so many views and perspectives on what it individual disguised as a dog. She still practices, I also received further information that is that is at the heart of this work. though, every so often – can’t help it!

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Briefly stated, the accepted narrative is that the I thought this was extremely pertinent. as a community we are ignoring or are ignorant work emerged from Dr. Rolf’s background in Dr. Rolf was risking a great deal of her of a part of our own family history, something the sciences, her interests in yoga, friendships reputation and being put in jail by telling that there are always rumors about, spoken in within the osteopathic community, interests these stories. It was a time when chiropractors hushed voices. In terms of family constellations, in Swedenborg1, general system theory2, and osteopaths and people like Dr. Wilhelm it is the piece that we are hiding, and as such, Korzybski3, and Buckminster Fuller4. Carole Reich8 were being arrested and prosecuted for is what is keeping us from moving forward as a LaRochelle has written beautifully about this unorthodox practices. Reich had been arrested discipline, as a community, as a family. narrative on her very useful blog5, and Sam and had much of his work destroyed as recently It also means that we have been asking the wrong Johnson wrote a very thorough overview of as 1956. Chiropractors and osteopaths were questions. We should be asking things like: Who this perspective6, as have several others. This being arrested for using Radionics instruments ‘channeled’ or ‘downloaded’ the information? story has become the public face of the work, and other more energetically oriented devices, What was the content – was it the Ten Series, as evidenced most recently in an article in The including Reich’s orgone machine. In the face was it the way of working deeply in the body? Telegraph, which stated, “How did it start? It of this, Dr. Rolf could have easily said: “This Does it matter if we change things? What was was developed by Dr. Ida Rolf, a physicist, in the is work I have developed from my background the full content of that information? Is this why, 1930s when she applied the principles of physics as a scientist studying fascia,” and she would as Peter Melchior stated (on that same class and mathematics to the body.”7 As always, the have been justified in doing so. She chose to handout), the Ten Series is a work of genius – emphasis is on her science background [although tell another aspect, a riskier story. She did not “elegant to a fault”? the article incorrectly labeled her as a physicist; remain silent to her clients or those around her she was in fact a biochemist]. about this. Why? What have we lost by conveniently eliminating what Dr. Rolf freely told many people? Most Clearly these were all influences on her life and A few months later in 2010, I was giving a important, though, is that if it were ‘revelatory’ work. And it is not the full story. presentation at the International Association information, it means that this work is first and of Structural Integrators (IASI) conference in The story that I am going to share is not meant foremost a gift from Spirit. If gifts from Spirit are Denver. An Advanced Rolfing Instructor was to discredit or dismiss these narratives, but not acknowledged, there are many problems that the keynote speaker. I asked him out one night to complement what has become the accepted ensue, which is what we have witnessed in our after everyone had gone to bed and told him this narrative, to bring forth a forgotten aspect of community. Maybe on this memorial day, it is story to see what he would say. He laughed and that narrative. I am sharing it with a group of time to acknowledge the gift and where it came said, “She told all of us that story! She would people who have come together under her name, from, as well as the messenger and her story. tell that to anyone who would listen!” And then not with the general public. This is as much our he said what I think is very telling: “We all just As a community, we have become very dualistic. heritage as the biomechanical, scientific lens that laughed at her!” The underlying concern is that this knowledge has been adopted for public consumption and will destroy any scientific credibility. (And which many of us have accepted as gospel. As Two years ago, I was asked to give a presentation there is no doubt that Dr. Rolf wanted her work will become clear here, Dr. Rolf was quite open and demo at a Rolf Institute® faculty meeting researched and validated in that world.) But is about the more esoteric origins of this work. on the energetic taxonomy. During the course of this really true? I think not. Many of the old Maybe it is time for all of us to listen for moment this seminar, the same story emerged, and three osteopaths talked regularly about the ‘Master to this facet of the gem. different faculty members said that they had Mechanic’, God, spirit, love. Why do we feel that been in classes with Dr. Rolf where she told it. Five or six years ago, a new client walked into we must hide the spiritual origins of the work? my office for Rolfing® SI. I asked her if she had So, it is a story I have heard many references to I have chosen to share this, not in the spirit of ever experienced Rolfing sessions before. She in my thirty years as a Rolfer. I think there is revealing family secrets, but out of a feeling that replied that, yes, she had had thirty or forty more than adequate evidence that this story has the gift needs to be acknowledged, with the hope sessions. I asked her who her Rolfer was, and she at least some truth to it, as much as the more that the acknowledgement will begin to shift said Dr. Rolf! I realized I had a great opportunity public narratives that have also become the some deeper currents. On this memorial day, I standing in front of me and asked her if she context that many practitioners work within. acknowledge that gift. remembered anything about the sessions. Imagine for a moment that you are Dr. Rolf What was this gift of Spirit? It was about a She said “Yes, I remember a lot.” I asked her if telling your clients that this work was channeled process to help assist the unfolding of the full she would be willing to share those memories. information from ancient Egypt. How does that potential of the human being – our ‘uprightness’, She laughed and said immediately that the feel in your body? Are you comfortable? Can our human potential. That is the ancient sessions were painful. Beyond that she told me you feel the degree of courage and conviction 3,000-year-old story. This potential contains that the main thing she remembered were the and lack of fear that it took for her to say that? the ability for humans to relate within a field stories that Dr. Rolf told her. So, of course, I Back to the quote from Peter, which points in of mutual cooperation, sharing, compassion, asked her what the stories were. She said that the same direction. If this work is 3,000 years and love rather than the gravitational forces Dr. Rolf talked at great length about how the old, how did Dr. Rolf come to be in possession of that pull us ‘down’, such as anger, arrogance, work she was doing was channeled information the information? It is clear from what she was revenge, egotism, addiction, lack of cooperation, from ancient Egypt – that it did not come from telling some of her clients and students where poor communication, and lack of respect for her work as a scientist. Subsequently, my client the work came from. This has huge implications each other. Maybe, this day, it is time to take a asked her mother and her mother’s friends, who for me, as I think it should for all of us. First, moment to reflect on Dr. Rolf’s desire to see a were also Dr. Rolf’s clients, what Dr. Rolf had it means her students have basically created an new human being on the planet someday. told them about the work. Dr. Rolf had told alternative story of this work contained in the everyone the exact same stories. narratives referred to above. It also means that

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We often wonder as a community why this also said, “A joyous radiance of health is I can imagine that Dr. Rolf might feel that work hasn’t reached into our culture in a deeper attained only as the body conforms more her work was designed for the times in way. Perhaps the fact that we have ignored the nearly to its inherent pattern, this form, this which we now live. I think if Rolfers open very roots of the work, the gift of Spirit, has Platonic Idea, is the blueprint for structure” themselves to the energetic and spiritual contributed to that. A while ago I was having a (Rolf 1977, 16). “Platonic Idea” implies a aspect that is inherent in the work, without conversation with my son, who is a yoga teacher. pattern that is not yet physical, that exists discounting their important biomechanical He said to me, “Our culture has a way of taking in a consciousness/energy field prior to and other skills, they will find they have a Spirit out of everything.” It has happened in manifesting into physical form. potent mix to offer people. And that in these the yoga world and it has happened in our times, many people are looking for exactly I would like to suggest there is an energetic community. Perhaps it is time to bring it back, that range of experience – encompassing all perspective that is the foundation of this front and center, and acknowledge this day the of the five Rolfing taxonomies. work, and that the answer to this lies full range of who Dr. Rolf was. clearly in the ‘origin story’ I have recounted Bob Schrei has four decades of experience I would like to close this with a quote that one of and in Dr. Rolf’s continued reference to as a student, apprentice, practitioner, and the original students of Dr. Rolf shared with me. an underlying energetic pattern that the teacher of energy medicine. He is a Certified body organizes around, the ‘blueprint of Advanced Rolfer and Biodynamic Craniosacral One of the older Rolfers said Ida would perfection’. Dr. Karl Humiston, a student of Therapist. He is co-originator of SourcePoint always say that Rolfing [SI] should be Dr. Rolf’s, said that she used this term over Therapy® with his wife and partner in healing described as an educational process, and over in classes. [He wrote about this work, Donna Thomson. This energetic and and she didn’t want Rolfing [SI] to in an article for the IASI yearbook entitled, hands-on healing system evolved from his be destroyed by crossing swords with “The Mysteries of the Blueprint” (Humiston thirty-plus years’ experience in bodywork, as medical and physical therapies. And my 2010, 46-48)], and in that article references well as extensive personal study in vibrational friend said, “Education, what do you the Standards of Practice document of the medicine, sacred geometry, shamanic healing, mean?,” and Ida said, “Well, actually, Rolf Institute®, which states: and Zen meditation. With a BA in architecture if I had to say what Rolfing [SI] is really, and an MFA, Bob also incorporated his where it really falls, I’d say it falls under “Equally fundamental is the recognition lifelong interest in structure and pattern into shamanism.” that each human being has an inherent SourcePoint Therapy, which he developed, internal pattern for optimal organization So we have to ask, is it possible that this work refined and tested for ten years before beginning of form and function, which pattern is has been positioned in the wrong domain of to teach in the United States and Europe. essentially self-organizing.” manual therapy? That Dr. Rolf may have been This process of refinement and development correct about where it really falls? And that we and continues as SourcePoint Therapy evolves. have willy nilly moved into a position of crossing “The intent of Structural Integration is From 1970-1985 Bob was a student and teacher swords with medical and physical therapies? to identify and address that which keeps at the Rochester Zen Meditation Center. As It is my wish this day that the full range of who each person’s pattern from manifesting a former Zen teacher, Bob brings a unique Dr. Rolf was and the full range of the nature of as a higher level of order and function.” perspective to the field of energetic healing and the work blossom. I wish everyone well. manual therapy, helping his students develop In other words, the Rolfing series helps sensitivity to the subtleties of working with to identify the blockages that are keeping Conclusion energy and bringing a heightened awareness to the pattern, energy, and information their healing work. In the days following, as I mentioned above, of the ‘blueprint of perfection’ from I received comments and correspondence manifesting more fully within each person’s Bob currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in response to the tribute. One of the embodied being. where he maintains an active private practice original Rolfing teachers expanded on of SourcePoint Therapy in addition to teaching When I attended my auditing phase of the these stories and said that Dr. Rolf had it worldwide. also told him that not only was the work training with Jan Sultan, he compared the ‘channeled’ information but also that the Ten Series to ritual. Other teachers also Endnotes Ten Series, which is still the foundation of used this analogy. This is consistent with 1. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1773) “was a our work, had been an initiation process in the energetic signature of the work. It can Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, an Egyptian mystery school. be seen as a ritual to prepare individuals for the unfolding of their full potential. I revelator, and mystic. He is best known for What is the relevance of all this in repeat that Dr. Rolf’s desire was to see a new his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell relationship to the theme of ‘Energy’ or human being on this planet. Without this (1758). Swedenborg had a prolific career ‘Nonphysical Reality’ that is the focus of part of her vision, the work devolves into as an inventor and scientist” (Wikipedia). this issue? In the quote at the beginning of yet one more modality for physical health. 2. General system theory is based in this article, Dr. Rolf points to an important I am not suggesting that there is anything the work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, an aspect of this underlying energy: pattern. wrong or inherently negative about this; I Austrian biologist. A pattern that organizes our soma, that do my own fair share of ‘fix it’ work. What is stable and unaffected by trauma. This I am suggesting here, though, is that for this 3. Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) “was a is similar to what Goethe referred to as work to unfold more fully in this world, it Polish-American independent scholar who 9 ur-phenomenon or Rudolf Steiner referred needs to find a way to be congruent with developed a field called general semantics, to as ‘etheric formative forces’ (energetic its foundation, the 3,000-year-old tradition which he viewed as both distinct from patterns that gives rise to form). Dr. Rolf of which we are a part. and more encompassing than the field of semantics” (Wikipedia). 32 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY

4. Buckminster Fuller “was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, How Do We Know? and inventor. Fuller published more than thirty books, coining or popularizing items The Magic to See and to Hear in Order to Do such as ‘Spaceship Earth’, ephemeralization, and synergetic” (Wikipedia). ByTheresa Zordan, Certified Rolfer™, SourcePoint® Therapist 5. See http://redwoodempirerolfing.com/ blog/ – particularly the following posts: How do we know what we know? Well, magic. I knew all of these were requirements http://tinyurl.com/Rolf-and-Yoga and there are the things we are taught: 2 + 2 = 4. for that special something. I knew I needed http://tinyurl.com/swedenborg1 and There are the things we learn by living, by to study and understand all this stuff in http://tinyurl.com/swedenborg2 (retrieved observing. If I run up this hill as fast as I can, order to provide a safe place for the magic 5/9/2017). my breathing will speed up. But then there are to show up. But I also knew this wasn’t the things we just know somehow. This is the the magic. 6. See www.samjohnsonrolfing.com/ right city for me to live in. Sure, maybe there’s In Unit 2, I got to study with Ray, and again, reading/ida-rolf-and-the-two-paradigms/. an element of subtle, not quite conscious, I got to witness the magic, but that was all. pattern recognition to it. Maybe I know this 7. See “Alternative Health: What is I could see it happening in every demo he is the right city for me because I thrive in the Rolf Method,” by Anna Murphy, did, but I could not, for the life of me, figure cities of this size, with this climate, with this November 21, 2014. Available at out where he kept his wand. Learning about architectural style, with this median income, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ the Ten Series was still not me doing the and my best friend lives here. But maybe not. alternative-medicine/11243535/Alternative- magic, I knew this was still preparing a Maybe there are things we just know without health-what-is-the-Rolf-Method.html place to welcome the magic. (retrieved 5/9/2017). being taught, without learning through experience, without any pattern recognition. At one point, a student asked Ray, “How do 8. Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) “was an In short, there are things that we know that you know how to work?” And his answer, Austrian psychoanalyst of the second are not products of what we have learned. “I listen very, very carefully to my client,” generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud was maddening, while honest. It drove Once, I worked with a shaman who was . . . Reich became known as one of the most me nuts because I was trying so hard to also an engineer, and when I asked how radical figures in the history of psychiatry” listen to my client/classmate in that Unit 2. she knew where to start or which spots on (Wikipedia). I listened to what he said with his words, my body would hurt when she pressed, and what he didn’t say. I listened to what 9. Ur-phenomenon – meaning ‘earliest’, she responded, “My toes told me.” As an his body communicated while he stood, ‘original’, used in words denoting the engineer first and shaman second, she’d while he sat, while he walked. I listened to primal stage of a historical or cultural entity. initially struggled with the lack of logic his posture while he ate his lunch. I listened associated with why she was drawn to work to his tissues when I contacted in one place Bibliography one way and not another. Why she started versus another or with a different speed or Humiston, K. 2010. “The Myseries of the on a left knee instead of a right shoulder direction. And I still wasn’t able to hear the Blueprint.” IASI 2010 Yearbook of Structural blade. And eventually, she got to the way Ray could hear, I was no closer to being Integration. Missoula, Montana: IASI. conclusion that it didn’t matter. She started a magician. I knew that much. I was taking where she started because her toes told her Melchior, P. Handout from a Rolfing class, my first, halting steps toward being a Rolfer. to, and that was good enough for her. obtained when posted on the Private Page I never met Dr. Ida Rolf, as she died before for Structural Integrators on Facebook. The first time I set foot in the Rolf Institute®, I was born. But I know that Ida was special for orientation as a model in a Unit 3 class, Rolf, I.P. 1977. Rolfing: The Integration of since she created this incredible body of I heard my soon-to-be hero, Ray McCall, Human Structures. New York: Harper & work that brings abundance to thousands speak about Rolfing® Structural Integration Row. (Later editions from Healing Arts of us. She was extraordinary. She had magic (SI) in a way that lit me up. “This is it!” I Press retitled Rolfing: Re-establishing the of her own. From everything I’ve read and thought, “I’ve finally found the thing I’ve Natural Alignment and Structural Integration watched and heard of Ida, she had the been looking for all these years.” Eight and of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being. uncanny ability to see someone, notice his a half years later, I know that was true, even shoulder pain, and realize the exact spot it though at the time, I’d never had a single was originating from, be it a third toe, or a Rolfing session in my life. Call it intuition. restriction in the tongue. Call it pattern recognition. I don’t really care. My toes told me. It seems like Ida was able to see her clients really, really well, in the same way that When I started studying at the Rolf Institute Ray can listen to his clients really, really myself, I wanted to learn how to do what well. To me, it seems as if Ida had a special I’d seen Ray doing in that Unit 3. Even as magnifying glass, while Ray had a special a model, I could tell there was something stethoscope. Sure, she was ‘just’ seeing. special there. It wasn’t just manipulating And sure, he is ‘just’ listening. But there fascia; it was magic. But in my Unit 1, we was something that allowed them to see learned anatomy, physiology, therapeutic and hear in ways that the average person relationships, and skillful touch, but no

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 33 ENERGY could not. Call it intuition. Call it pattern of Rolfing SI for me is in knowing how to ’hear’ something it’s immediately registered recognition. My toes told me. bring about that balance by my eyes. Or my blood. Or my toes. I still don’t know how I know what I know. I just When I finished Unit 3 and was sent out What works for one client one day is almost like doing magic. into the world as a Rolfer, I knew I was guaranteed not to work for a different client ready, for Rolfing SI at least. I understood on a different day. This is where intuition As Ida Rolf (1978, 178) said, “Somewhere the Ten Series. I knew all about fascia and or divine knowing or ‘source’ or pattern along the line you are going to have to how to manipulate it. I knew my anatomy recognition or my toes come in. I’ve found fight both in yourself and in the world for and physiology and how to say, “Sad, in my practice that the more closely I listen recognition of the fact that you know how huh?” But I didn’t know any magic. And to my toes, the faster balance comes to my to handle the situation.” I didn’t have a special magnifying glass or client’s body. I’ve found that the better I Theresa Zordan is a goofball and a Rolfer who stethoscope to help me see or hear in a way get at listening to my intuition, the more lives and works in Denver, Colorado. When she that would help me understand better what efficient my work is. The fact that my clients is not mashing fascia, you might find her in the to do. Luckily, due to my hero-worship of think I’m a magician is just gravy. kitchen ignoring any recipe anyone tries to put Ray, I signed up for my first SourcePoint Seven years later, I still use SourcePoint in in front of her, or out on the trails where she is class a mere ten days later. every session I do. And seven years later, an ultra runner. I was terrified of that SourcePoint Therapy I think I’m starting to see. Or maybe my Rolf, I. 1978. Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing class. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical of internal translation software is just getting and Physical Reality. R. Feitis, Ed. Boulder, energy work. Yes, I’d been to see shamans. so good at pattern recognition that when I Colorado: Rolf Institute®. Yes, I’d had qi healing sessions with a Chinese five-element healer. Yes, I’d tried acupuncture. And I really wanted to believe in energy work. However, I’m pretty hands- on. I’m pretty grounded. I majored in physics, not in art. I wanted proof. I wanted ‘Horse Listener’ real. And energy work seemed a little fluffy and woo-woo and hippy-dippy. How Horses Taught Me to Work Most terrifying of all, I thought I would By Felisa Holmberg, Certified Rolfer™ and Equine Guided Educator, in conversation with Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer be bad at it. I thought I wouldn’t be able to feel anything. I thought the rest of the class would be happily setting points and Anne Hoff: Felisa, how long have bring the work back to the horses and ® waving their magic wands while I sat in you been practicing Rolfing Structural other animals. Something amazing happen the corner with my dunce hat on because I Integration (SI)? though, while I attended the Rolf Institute, I fell in love with working with people. was just not cut out for energy work. But I Felisa Holmberg: Twelve years, since What? That was not my plan! What is even really, really, really wanted to learn how to 2005. do that magic that Ray (and Ida) could do. more amazing is that since my Rolfing So I figured I’d give it a try. AH: How long have you been involved training, horses have taught me how to with horses and animals? work with humans. And three days into that SourcePoint class, I felt like I’d gotten my own magic wand. FH: I was born with a connection with AH: I’m excited to get to that, but first, let’s I felt like I’d gotten my own stethoscope horses and all animals. talk about how you applied your training in working with people to working with horses. so I could finally really, really listen to my AH: When you trained in Rolfing SI, did clients. I still couldn’t see, not the way Ida you know you wanted to work with horses? FH: Right before I started my training at the could. But I could listen. And I could do (a Rolf Institute, I adopted a three-and-a-half- FH: Yes, Horses in particular. Animals are tiny little bit of) magic. Suddenly the line year-old colt named Cool Linx, nicknamed in the breath of my bones. Horses, however, of communication between what my toes “Bay Boy” (see Figure 1), who was quite have a special place in my life. I saw my were saying and what my hands were doing traumatized, emotionally and physically. first horse at the tender age of four. It was was open, even if it wasn’t yet clean and He has been my greatest teacher on so a little black and white pony. I remember clear. I don’t know why or how SourcePoint many levels. I had planned to bring my the moment; I felt in a way something I Therapy opened that communication knowledge back from the Rolf Institute to never felt before. My mother says that little channel in me, but I’m grateful it did. help this horse. Prior to my Rolfing training, horse was my first real love. As a Rolfing I had watched a couple Rolfers working on This way of knowing informs my work at client, when I went through the series, my horses, they were chasing the horse around. every turn. Sure, I look at my client’s body. personal experience was so profound, I just The horses weren’t just standing still for the Of course I think about the goals of the knew it would work on horses also. session if I’m working within the context of work. I thought, “There must be a better the Ten Series. Once in a while, I even ask Many horses are athletes. They are ridden way to do it.” hard, at times with poor-fitting equipment, my clients to walk or do a knee-bend for me. A year later, working with my now four- and sometimes expected to preform beyond But there’s so much more to my work than and-a-half-year-old horse, I discovered their capacity. When I attended the Rolf just knowing there’s an imbalance between how sensitive he was. I needed to ask his Institute® I already had the intention to the rhomboids and the psoas. The juicy part body for permission. When I put my hands

34 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY on him, I had to do it in a very subtle way world we hear so much about being a different sorts of things happening than without the intention of doing something to ‘horse whisperer’, a term used in natural before you used this way of working? him. Then I got it, I needed to listen to his horsemanship training, a method where we FH: Yes! Shifting to this way of working, body. I began to place my hands softly on get the horse to do what we want. The horse I find I gain energy during my workday, his body and allow them to gently sink into responds to our body language. What I’m when before I was drained by the end of his tissue; he would stand very still and just speaking about provides us an opportunity the day. My clients have become the type of drop his head to the ground and enjoy the to become a ‘horse listener’ and really hone clients that want the more subtle work. A lot work. He started welcoming the work. My our intuitive listening skills. of them feel the changes happening all over horse taught me when I was trying to do AH: And this has changed your work with their body even though there’s hardly any something or putting too much effort into people? movement. They’ll say where they feel it. I the work. I let go of thinking I was going found that huge changes are happening and to correct a hip issue or a shoulder issue, FH: Extremely. I still see through a Rolfer’s I don’t have to work so hard for the changes. or thinking I was going to fix his structure. eyes. It is the foundation of my training and I’m not disrespecting Dr. Rolf’s work at all I know the value of Rolfing SI. I remember because I credit her for so many different in my Rolfing training hearing that Dr. Ida levels of me being where I am right now. I Rolf said, “It isn’t where you think it is,” and don’t want it to look like I don’t believe in I find that to be true. I ask people’s bodies Rolfing SI. to show me what they need, show me the patterns of strain. The way the horses AH: Do you still work within the Rolfing taught me to work at the subtle level is to idea of aligning the body in gravity, and do really open my own intuition and connect the visual assessments? with the client’s body wisdom. Anne, I FH: Yes. And then I let it go when the client opened to a higher level of listening. That’s gets on the table. It’s all still in my awareness what I would say. Listening to the body, but I’m now listening to the body. the horses responded so honestly and so quickly whether it was right or wrong, AH: The conceptual framework is there, but and I found that I could do that same thing the way you’re using your hands is different with a human. I still access visually what than what you learned at the Rolf Institute? appears out of balance, but now I listen with FH: Yes, very different. The roots of my Figure 1: Felisa Holmberg and her horse my hands and all my senses, allowing the work and ways of seeing are deeply rooted “Bay Boy.” client’s body to tell me what it needs. in my Rolfing training and I don’t believe I He taught me how to have a better touch, There are two different ways of connecting could do the work I’m doing now without which dramatically improved my touch in with horses, where they become the that foundation. Working at a subtle level in working with people. teachers. First, Rolfing SI or bodywork, the deepest layers of the body, whether in the where they have taught me a more skilled abdominals or in the shoulder girdle, asking AH: Interesting. Some human clients and intuitive connection with the intent to the body what it needs and waiting for the will tell us when the touch doesn’t work, release body issues. I witnessed they can body to draw my hands in completely, has and others just assume, “Oh, this is what carry emotional trauma along with the changed my work and my effectiveness. Rolfing touch is supposed to be like.” But physical trauma just like people. I don’t AH: What helped you in terms of he taught you. go into any session with the intention of developing your touch? processing or going after emotional trauma. FH: I found if I really connected with the I’m listening to the body and asking what it horses nonverbally, asking them if I could FH: Working with the horses’ within needs. I found at a visceral level, the organs, touch them and where they needed help, the two levels I described earlier and nerves, arteries, brain tissue, all really want giving them the time and opportunity studying the more subtle side of the work to be connected and released, drawing my to respond, they did. The horses starting like biodynamic craniosacral work and hands in a deeper internal level than just participating in a very intelligent way, visceral manipulation. Over the years, I thinking about the structure of the body. becoming very interactive and showing and have witnessed how powerful Rolfing SI The second way is learning to connect to teaching me what they needed. is and how it changes people’s lives. the horses on a level where they become a However, for some people, including my We can learn a lot from various animals. reflection of us, showing us what it is we own experience, the body is not able to However, horses are quite special. These need to release and learn. hold all the structural changes received beautiful four-legged creatures can reflect from Rolfing sessions; this left me seeking AH: This way of ‘listening’ and working back to us about ourselves. I’ve had help and asking, “Why?” Visceral trainings with people, is all nonverbal between you encounters that left me wondering if they helped me feel deep patterns of strain, and the client’s body? can read our emotional states and subtleties, release them, and free up space for the that they can incredibly somehow discern FH: Yes. Sometimes clients talk about it, organs. Working in the fluid levels along what is buried deep in our hearts, our but I wait for them. with Rolfing SI hydrates at every level, individual personal truth. Horses can teach releasing, unwinding, and freeing up space. AH: Did your clients notice that you were us how to read unspoken communications As I began feeling the deep patterns of doing something different? Did you get through body language. In the horse strain, nerves and arteries that are trapped

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 35 ENERGY in the tissue began to ‘pop’ into my hands. pull away, I would gently pick up the lead owner backed away, but the horse never Once space is created in the tissue, I can line and ask him to come back to me. He settled completely with the man around. feel the nerves and arteries settle back into reminded me of a child with ADD in a way. AH: If you have a horse to work with, do the body. I remember asking Jeff Burch, the I’m a small woman and he’s just a great big you try to work on the owners as well? instructor, “Why this is happening?” He horse, and if he wanted to, he could flip me said something like, “The body is showing around like a fly. FH: Definitely. That is ideal. I really prefer you what it needs, very gently release the to work with the horse and the owner, and I stayed really present with him and, all of a tissue around the nerve or artery.” It was do a more in-depth perspective where the sudden, he stopped and he looked me right like magic. I have a strong kinesthetic sense owners can look at the way they present in the eyes, and I felt him shift and connect of touch and working with the horses on themselves to their horses. Not everyone in a higher consciousness. His whole body both levels has giving me a broader and is open to it. just melted back into my body and he more sensitive awareness and my hands softened. He started allowing me to touch AH: You are taking your work in new are pulled into strain patterns. him and he started showing me what he directions. Tell us some about that. AH: Let’s talk about horses more. If you had needed. At one point, he was so connected FH: Yes, I founded a new business, a new horse to work on, how would you go with me that he wrapped his head and Horses Hope For Humanity, LLC, where about making contact? neck around my body and just hugged me the horses become the teachers for us FH: My preferred way is to have the horses (Figures 3A and 3B). Teaching us about come to me and be left with me for about a boundaries; communication styles, spoken week. I prefer to be in a round pen where and unspoken; connecting with one’s own they are free to choose to be worked on. intuition; and reflecting what we need to When I travel to work at someone else’s heal within ourselves. I’m at a point in my place, time is more an issue and usually I life where I’m shifting my practice and use a halter. Some horse owners can stand ready to incorporate the bodywork and back and just allow me to do the work, and horses into a healing center here on my some are really distractive to their horse. property, allowing the horses to bring even Maybe a horse is fidgeting, pulling me, not more wholeness into our work. It will be being connected with me when the owner is a place where, among other things, other there. Often, I can get a deeper connection bodyworkers can come and find the deeper with the horse if the owner steps away. connection themselves. When we give them an opportunity, horses will show us Your horse gives a really good indication what we need to work on within ourselves. of what you need to work on in yourself. Figure 2: The response of a horse who They can help us become better people and Observe your horse. Horses mirror us. If has settled and come to trust the touch better practitioners. you have poor boundaries, most likely and connection. your horse will too; same with being overly AH: How do you develop and connect to emotional, the horse will reflect that. Even (see Figure 2). He turned into a completely this place of consciousness that you connect if the horse comes into your life already different horse. with the being of the horse? Will you be able with underlying traumas, emotions, etc., to train others to do it? AH: When you said his body melted into there is a reason it has come into your life, your body, was that an energetic sense? You FH: When I begin, I shift into a deep to show what it is in us that needs healing. weren’t touching him? connection with the horses and the person Angry people often own or ride an angry or people that have come to participate. horse. The horse isn’t really angry, it’s a FH: Yes, I felt the energetic shift in my The horses become interactive with us. reflection of how it’s being treated. Just body, and he actually drifted back and I guide you through, watching closely, like in humans, there is often pain and fear pressed his body gently up against mine. It reading body language, listening quietly, behind the behavior of anger. was an incredible feeling, he became very and allow the process to happen and people cooperative, gentle, and loving. It was a AH: So when the owner leaves, you can to find their own truth in the experience, complete personality shift. work with the horse at a different level, but only stepping in to guide the process when what happens when the person comes back AH: Do you know if he was able to stay needed. I believe everyone can if they and is still angry or still fearful? that way? choose to let down barriers and be open. Many of the people that have come to do FH: The horses will eventually reflect the FH: No. They brought the horse back for this work are my Rolfing clients. It makes same behavior once back in the hands of the a second session, and the owner, the man, sense since the Rolfing process removes owner. An example is, I got called to work was there this time. The horse was reflecting barriers and protection within the body. The on this big paint horse, and the owner was that behavior, again, like he had ADD, people that have come [to work with my the woman’s husband and he wasn’t there really distracted and pulling me around horses and I] have been able to understand but the woman was. I like to hold onto instead of being present and being there and say it is a life-changing experience. the lead line myself, and this big old paint with me. I actually had to ask the owner to horse is pulling on me and jerking on me go out of the area I was working because AH: So you can work with the horses and not allowing me to touch him in a way the horse wouldn’t settle down and let me and their owners, or you can use the that I could be effective. Every time he’d work on him. It was much easier when the horses to educate bodyworkers about

36 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY

into your hands when they need help . . . it is all embedded in fascial layers. Obviously, it’s important to have training before we touch these other layers. However, the greatest shifts for me came from how horses taught me about myself, the things I needed to let go of and heal so I could become a better human being and bodyworker. Most importantly, they taught me about having a great touch, listening skills, better boundaries – and much more. It’s about asking and not forcing. Try to force anything on an animal, it will move away. I feel the same way. We want the body to openly receive and create change. Figures 3A and 3B: My horse helping my client Brenda in model-building work (part of The greatest gift has been understanding Horses Hope For Humanity, LLC) to work out what is next in life. unspoken communication, to see and feel the truth and trust what I’m hearing and touch and communication, or you can use holding the Rolfing changes. Visceral work feeling. There is only truth in the world, the horses to help people uncover more was huge for me in my healing process. The once you can see it. about themselves? reason I became a Rolfer it is because it is so effective. I’m just including other ways Becoming a Rolfer was the beginning of FH: Yes. As far as how this all has affected my of working and expanding my work into a a journey. Not only in my own healing bodywork sessions, it’s about incorporating listening mode. process, but being able to witness so many listening skills and combining all modalities people heal and rise above their own and asking what the body needs. Bringing AH: To me, the bottom line of what Ida Rolf trauma is a heart-opening and fulfilling a greater awareness and listening to developed is this idea of aligning the body way to be in the world. It has completely everything we do. in gravity through working with the fascia, changed my life. It opened doors that I had organizing fascia. To my thinking, if you’re AH: So in that it’s not really a shift away no idea even existed. My work has evolved doing that, you’re doing Rolfing SI. from Rolfing SI but bringing greater but Rolfing SI will always be the foundation awareness into Rolfing SI, which many FH: I think you’re right. I think there’s a of my seeing. people are doing in many different ways. lot of doorways that can enter into that, AH: Felisa, what’s the best way for Rolfers different ways to get there. FH: Agreed. And the horses can teach us to learn more about your work, and to come how to do that really well. To be honest, the AH: There’s a famous story in our Rolfing study with you and your horses? horses have helped evolve my touch and community, you’ve probably heard it, about FH: I hold workshops in Missoula, helped me learn to listen to the body, human Emmett Hutchins asking Dr. Rolf whether Montana, and people can also come for or animal, to allow my hands to be drawn it was Rolfing SI if he whistled “Dixie” private study. You can learn more at into the body rather than trying to make and the client’s structure changed. He said www.therolfer.com. You can also read space for change. I have had some clients he thought it was, and she allowed that he about my horse work for non-bodyworkers whose bodies just cannot tolerate even might be right. at www.horseshopeforhumanity.com. gentle Rolfing SI. They’re very sensitive FH: Perfect. and often are still holding trauma. Even In her passion for deep healing to the bodies, with horses and other animals, it helps to AH: That’s the furthest reach, and many minds, and souls of people and animals, Felisa do a softer healing touch and slowly release would disagree. But I think most people Holmberg – a Certified Rolfer of twelve years – layers of trauma. I feel that, human or in the Rolfing community would accept has adapted Rolfing practices for healing horses animal, ask the body what it needs, always. that you are doing Rolfing SI if you’re still and incorporated the healing power of horses working with fascia, hands-on, and you’re for the healing of people. She has integrated AH: Do you see that kind of touch as working to affect the integration of the body her bodywork expertise with her lifelong love potentially part of the Rolfing spectrum? in gravity, whatever spectrum of touch you of animals with amazing results. And, in FH: Yes, I do. Rolfing SI will always be the are developing and working with. her quest to integrate horses into her Rolfing root of my training and how I see. However, practice, Felisa has paradoxically gained greater FH: I’ve done many trainings since my the changes I’m experiencing, working from skill and ability in working with people. Felisa original Rolfing certification. Many teachings the subtle level, are profound. I incorporate works and resides in Missoula, Montana from other Rolfers, and I’ve also studied the touch of visceral manipulation and and also offers services Washington State. with osteopaths from the Canadian College biodynamic craniosacral work and bring Her websites are www.therolfer.com (Rolfing of Osteopathy. My work has developed the awareness of truly listening to the body. SI and horse work for bodyworkers) and from those teachings, including visceral Some clients who kept going back into www.horseshopeforhumanity.com (horse work manipulation and craniosacral teachings. their patterns seemed to need this work for personal growth). How to feel the organs, their rhythm, what even more. I still consider this Rolfing SI. to do with the nerves and arteries as they pop Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer in I experienced that in my own body, not Seattle, Washington. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 37 ENERGY

feels like a fit, like everything is in place as it Recognizing Energy belongs, as if everything has been waiting for this to be exactly as it is, like a door opens, ® By Deborah Weidhaas, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement Practitioner or everything calmly settles and becomes harmonious. A ‘no’, on the other hand, has Each time you get on a client’s tissues and emotion is the energy, but more accurately a completely different vibration. Feel for then shift ever so slightly into the place that we experience an energy that we then yourself what ‘no’ feels like in your own makes you say, “Ah, that’s where I need to label as an emotion. So beliefs, childhood body when you take on the experience of be,” you have been experiencing the energy conditioning, misinterpretations, and such, no. With a felt-sense of yes and no, you now of it. Like it or not, you actually perceived are not the energy but, instead, activate and have a tool to distinguish if the information with your whole body/being where the organize our energy into a pattern that we you’ve perceived is accurate or not. To begin structure needed you to engage. Yes, you then label as ‘such and such’. I mention the to get ARD information, begin by adopting are on physical tissues, but mostly, you vibration of emotions not because emotions the habit of verifying for ARD with yes/no. are on energy. This article can help you get are the energy, nor because emotional energy This is where I began when I started figuring more consciously aware of this and refine is the only kind of energy. I mention energy out what was up with me in my inner world your perceptual skills. associated with emotions because emotions and what needed to be healed. are familiar to us. So you can become more The development of my perceptual skills, familiar with energy by working this process Another key element for me happened in and my ability to distinguish between backwards: you know the emotion, take it my early thirties when I experienced that energy and physicality, came to me, in large on, let it embody you, then feel/experience everything is talking to everything all the part, from working my own process. I didn’t its vibration. This is for practice. Remember time. From this, I realized you can talk with start out with any sense of, or goal for, that everything is vibration/energy. anything. You may have skills in talking to energy. I just wanted to feel better inside. some things more easily than others, but Throughout my childhood, in the family Another key element in my foundation everything is talking to everything all the home, I felt horrible, but I also had a white of working with energy is what I call time. When I say “talking,” I do not mean spot in my chest that regularly told me, “It accurate, reliable, and dependable (ARD) telling it what to do. This is unproductive. doesn’t have to be this way.” When I got out information. I adopted this standard for I mean staying in a state of perceiving what on my own, away from family, I thought, “If working my own process because I wanted is presenting itself. it doesn’t have to be this way, what way can to do real work with real results. The sad it be?” – and I began the process of figuring thing about the thinking mind is that it If you don’t like the word ‘talk’ here, then out how it could be any other way for me. can create all sorts of false information. substitute ‘be’. Everything is being with Its information will send you off doing all everything, already, and all the time, and In my twenties, I came to realize that sorts of tasks that give the appearance that everything is available to be perceived by everything is vibration. Everything. And all you are working hard and making progress everything, all the time. To do this, however, vibrations are different and distinguishable. when, actually, you are not, since the you’ll need to lay down your ego, intellect, The vibration of angry is different from information was faulty to begin with. The the need to be right, attachment to outcome, the vibration of rage, and the vibration of thinking mind knows how to delete, distort, the thinking mind, rules, force of will, furious, and the vibration of mad. This is rationalize, deny, forget, and generalize. If intention, and any ideas you have that you why it is possible for you to say, “You’re you had a friend who was skilled in these have to do something. You need to go quiet, mad,” and the other person says, “No I’m traits, you wouldn’t go to that friend for the get present, and be available to experience not, I’m furious.” This response happens in truth. So the thinking mind is not the place whatever is there simply because you and everyday conversation because the vibration you want to go, and not the tool you want to what-it-is are there. Instead of taking your of “mad” did not match the person’s use, to become skilled in perceiving energy thoughts about it to it, let it, whatever it experience, so, without even realizing why and vibration. This could be challenging is, present itself to you. I often compare or how, the person corrected you. But this if you think you are your thinking mind, this state-of-being to times when you ask goes further. The vibration of one person is believe your aliveness and the function of a three-year-old a question, like, “Did you different from another. The vibration of one your body comes from your thinking mind, go to the park today?” The three-year-old tree (even of the same species) is different or hold that you do good work by virtue of will begin with, “Well, when I woke up from another. The vibration of one bird is your thinking mind. You have been through this morning,” and then ramble on and on. different from another. Since everything Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI), and you All you can do is stand quietly, be patient, is vibration, I set out to recognize and are a Rolfer. Your whole body, your feeling give up judgment and expectation, and distinguish vibrations in my inner world sense, is the best, and most accurate, tool to listen until the answer to your question and learn ways to heal what was horrible. achieve ARD information. comes. This is the state of being you want One key element of my foundation in to cultivate in yourself in order to hone your To sort for ARD information, I tell clients working with energy was to recognize, skills in perceiving energy more accurately. to remember a time when they were in a distinguish, and identify vibrations. In Open yourself and listen/be available for store trying on new clothes. You put on my own process, this was done by letting what is there to present itself to you. some new clothes, look in the mirror, and vibration arise in me, experiencing it, and say to yourself, “Nooooooo.” Or you look Another key element for working with identifying what that vibration/feeling in the mirror, your whole face softens and energy, and developing perceptual skill, is to meant. If you want to build some skill brightens, and you say, “Oh, yeah!” These become very comfortable with, and acquire in perceiving energy, you can begin by are the distinct vibrations of yes and no. ‘Yes’ implicit trust in, “I don’t know.” For many experiencing emotions. It is not that a specific 38 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY this state is scary because education and with a ‘how’: how does that makes sense for Each time you get on a client’s tissues and family conditioning have taught us that not you; how do you make sense of that; how then shift ever so slightly into the place that knowing is dangerous. But this fear, literally, does that fit for you; how did you come to makes you say, “Ah, that’s where I need to keeps us out of the state of being where a know or feel that; how do you organize it so be,” you have been experiencing the energy high level of perceptual skill and accuracy you are able to hold these two contradictory of it by perceiving with your whole body. is available. I-don’t-know is the willingness bits of information as both being true? ‘How’ Whether you realize it or not, you’ve used not to know, the willingness to put all (plus your lack of judgment and a desired your whole being to find where to be. A distractions of self aside (mind, ego, need outcome) will give you information. highly refined level of perceptual skill to for outcome, intention, training, technique, experience energy allows us to let what-is- Assumptions: Identifying assumptions being right, etc.), and the willingness to there present itself, instead of taking what and not making assumptions are so crucial pay attention to whatever presents itself we think we know about it to what-is-there, because making assumptions is so second without discounting or doubting it. Just to and instead of imposing or applying what nature to us that we don’t realize we’re be clear, staying with something in order to we think we know onto what-is-there. You doing it. Assumptions can have you perceive it more clearly, and to experience know that it is accurate because, in your expending massive amounts of effort that the accuracy of it, is not ‘doubting’; it is body, which is your best tool for perceiving, don’t produce results except to leave you verifying. I don’t know, and then perceiving you feel it. It fits. Everything has settled frustrated and believing something doesn’t what’s present, is a highly resourceful state calmly and rests harmoniously exactly work. So, during a session, when a client to be in and to work from. It is a state where where it belongs. For some, realizing says an area feels like a hard green block, I accurate information presents itself to your that energy and energetics were involved focus to perceive that area more fully and, conscious awareness. is disturbing. then, to engage both the client and myself Which leads us to four additional skills more actively in what’s presenting itself, Some reject the idea outright. If you’ve been in honing your skills for working with my response will likely be: Hard like stone, thinking that you found this place because energy: 1) asking questions; 2) not tedious, a hard rubber ball, impossible – of your thinking, your technique, your making assumptions; 3) curiosity; and what kind of ‘hard’? Green like forest green, training, or the anatomy, then you have an 4) experimentation. lime green, like it’s new or a rookie, grass, opportunity to shift from what you’ve been military clothes – what kind of ‘green’? And thinking you were doing into what you’ve Questions: My skill in asking questions a block like a child’s toy blocks, a wall, an really been doing. You have an opportunity came from two places (or at least this is impasse, cement, is it as small as a pea or to recognize that you can perceive energy. my story). First, I believe there is a facet of as big as a barn, what feels accurate? I ask You have an opportunity to begin to clarify me within the Who-I-Am that possesses a questions and don’t make assumptions. for yourself how to become even more bigger, broader, richer, deeper perspective It is amazing how much information you adept in working with energy and honing on things, and with more access to truth will receive when you lay down ego, a skill you already have. and accuracy, than my human, everyday, intelligence, doing, the thinking mind, and paying-the-bills, self. I focused on the Deborah Weidhaas is a Certified Advanced Rolfer let yourself be available to perceive and be vibration of that facet of Who-I-Am and and Rolf Movement Practitioner. She has been in willing to ask for clarity and specificity. asked it questions. These days, that facet practice for twenty-five years. She had over 110 is hardly a facet at all. It is more the Who- Curiosity: I place a very high value on Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement sessions in her I-Am instead of only a part of Who-I-Am. curiosity. It helps me stay in a state of own body before she trained as a Rolfer. After For those who experience the I-know-that-I perceiving so I can notice what’s here. Being completing a ten-session Rolfing SI and a ten- know within yourself, this is the aspect in a state of curiosity can help to stop you session Rolf Movement series, and doing a few to which you want to ask for information from grabbing for an answer or an outcome, tune-ups, her inner voice told her to go back to and verification. The second source of my from going for the apparent safety/security Rolf Movement, and it would tell her when she skill in asking questions is a knowledge of of preconceived ideas and techniques, was done. For two years, she actively worked Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I am not from getting caught in analytics, and from her own healing process by coupling weekly Rolf interested in the jargon of this model, and engaging with the structure as if your Movement sessions with the mental, emotional, it is loaded with jargon, but the tools within intervention is telling it what to do. and spiritual healing processes that her inner it are invaluable. To name a few: everything voice presented her. Even so, she spent her first Experimentation: When I am open to what is is information; learn what specificity is two years as a Rolfer ignoring the energetic/ presenting itself to me in clients’ structures, and ask for it; that people mistakenly perceptual information that presented itself to her many times, not only does the structure think language equals experience and that about her clients as she worked with them. She present what-is-so but also presents how experience equals understanding; how to spent the next two years cautiously testing and I can engage with what-is-so. Many times, listen for missing information in what people verifying the accuracy, reliability, and sources for I’ve never before done that particular ‘how say; how to listen for what people already the information she received. Deborah recognizes to engage’, so I decide to try it. After years of know but haven’t realized or have stopped herself as highly adept in the organization hearing clients respond to experiments with, hearing themselves say; and a distinction in and dynamics of the structure of being and in “Oh that’s perfect,” “How did you know questions. I suggest to clients that they stop engaging her clients in ways that allow them to that was there,” and “That’s connecting to asking ‘why’ questions. Why? Because ‘why’ resolve their own mental, emotional, and spiritual everything and letting go,” you acquire an begets a ‘because’, and ‘becauses’ are made issues that arise from receiving Rolfing SI. She implicit trust and willingness to experiment up in the thinking mind. What, where, when, recently relocated from Los Gatos, California to with the approaches that present themselves and how questions give information. For me, live and practice in Richmond, Virginia. via your perceptual skill. the most potent information question starts

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organic unfolding and flow of the creativity Letting ‘What Is’ Show Itself of the mind that sort of demands that you write. Jeffrey Maitland on Mind, Zen, and Energy Work JM: Yeah, that’s true. I discovered a long By Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Jeffrey Maitland, Advanced time ago – it sounds ridiculous, but I found Rolfing® Instructor that I wasn’t happy unless I was confused, because if I’m confused, then I’m working on what other people are confused about, Anne Hoff: You do a lot of writing, both for the journal and books? and trying to make sense out of it. Without confusion, I wouldn’t have anything to do. Jeffrey Maitland: Yeah. AH: I think you know I’m a student and a AH: Have you always been a writer? teacher of the Diamond Approach®, a path Did this come out of your academic of consciousness work. background? As the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, I am able to tell you unequivocally JM: Oh yeah – a very interesting approach. most Rolfers are not writers. AH: One thing that has always harnessed me to that path in the way that the founder JM: I’ve noticed that. (A.H. Almaas) isn’t complacent with any AH: You’re one of the people in the Rolfing one answer. There’s this ongoing inquiry. community, and one of the people on the Where other people or traditions have faculty, who really seems to have an ease sometimes determined a goal or end with writing, and a willingness to do Jeffrey Maitland point, such as enlightenment, Almaas engage in the discipline of it. seems to have a questing mind that asks, “What else is there?”, and then whole new JM: You know the experience you have if lines of experience and inquiry open up. I you hike to the top of a mountain, versus thought about this quality he has when you take a tram? When you get to the top of the mentioned the confusion that drives you. mountain by means of a tram, it doesn’t look You recognize that if you’re not confused, or feel as good as when you hiked to the top. then there’s something too pat or too simple The magnificence of your experience can in where you’re at, and you’re waiting for be stunning. Everything looks and feels the next piece to unfold. way different from the experience you get from a tram. You can touch into this JM: That sounds right as long as the sort of experience in all kinds of activities idea of confusion is not seen as ordinary like running, playing music, dancing . . . confusion that misleads one to think that they are inspired moments. Writing is like the practice is about throwing a monkey hiking to the top of a mountain. The world wrench into thinking. And yes, there is gets brighter, more expansive, easier, and I no stopping point. Every discipline has often make discoveries, it’s just wonderful. its points of confusion. Even Buddhism, Anne Hoff I feel like I have grown because I’ve learned which is the most phenomenological of something new about it and myself that can all approaches to the spiritual path, gets A similar thing happened when I started be helpful to others. confused about philosophical issues. It’s teaching at Purdue. My first year of really amazing to read Buddhist philosophy I had two experiences relevant to your teaching was filled with a lot of stress and and contemporary phenomenology and question. As a graduate student, I was an strain and I started meditating. Not long neuroscience and see that they’re all assistant in an honors philosophy course, after I started meditating, my mind threw worried about many of the same things, in which I was supposed to help teach off its constraints and awake again at a trying to illuminate these deep issues that Immanuel Kant the next day. Trouble was, much deeper more expansive level. It never are the conditions for there being anything at the time I didn’t know beans about Kant. regressed or stopped producing original at all. You will also see some of the same To top it off, there was a very difficult article ideas. The experience was never one of a mistaken answers. It’s just incredible to written on Kant by a famous Kant scholar whirling, run-away mind that Zen calls catch a glimpse of this fundamental quest that I was supposed to discuss. I didn’t a monkey mind. Writing keeps forming that lies at the heart of existence. know beans about what he was talking me, and giving me insight that’s useful. I about either. So I stayed up all night reading climb this mountain almost every day. I AH: What led you to Buddhism, and within this article over and over again, trying to had no idea whether I could write or not Buddhism to Zen in particular? figure it out. The next day I felt my mind/ when I was an undergraduate. I wanted to JM: I don’t know how to answer that body expand and awaken. Suddenly I was party and study philosophy. Today I value clearly, but as a kid I was always on a flooded with insight, expansiveness, and writing as a meditative discipline. a wonderful clarity. It was like my mind kind of quest. My mother turned me on AH: It sounds like there’s a discipline to it, turned on and my body woke up. to reading science fiction, and I just loved the act of climbing the mountain, but also an the stuff. I was eight years old when I read

40 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY my first science-fiction story. I couldn’t get reality just as accurately as our intellect can. AH: How do those meet, and how does enough of it. I think the reason was because And then if you learn how to live out of the that field become a field where the allowing it flirts with quasi-philosophical issues: allowing mind, or the feeling mind, then can happen? the paradoxes of time travel, can the mind you’ll see that the koans make great sense JM: Your question brings us to the second exist apart from your body, is it possible to – as long as you drop your onlooker stance part of the answer – there is no field that instaniate your mind into your neighbor’s and don’t give into an onlooker’s answer. becomes a field and there is nothing you body, can a machine be self-aware, why Zen teaches by indirection. You might need to do. Or the field is already here. We is there something rather than nothing, say that Zen doesn’t offer an alternative need to get rid of our willful will and just and so forth. I was a [university] freshman explanation, but offers rather an alternative do it! And without a will, the field is already when I learned about philosophy from my to explanation. here . . . just recognize it and just do it! Hang girlfriend. She told me that I talked like I AH: How does this come into your Rolfing out with those people who just do it and had had too many philosophy classes (it Structural Integration (SI) practice, and also learn to feel and manifest it. One of the wasn’t a compliment!). She was a couple into working with students when you are things I used to do with my students during of years older than I, so I had to respect teaching Rolfing SI? [body] analysis was to have the student sit her. The next day I went to the philosophy between me and the other teacher – because department and changed my major to JM: A huge part of Rolfing SI is about being in the presence of somebody who philosophy – and discovered my niche. I perception. After years of struggling to can manifest cleanly the spirit of Rolfing SI could barely contain myself. I loved going teach seeing, I finally created a three-step automatically entrains the people around to class. self-teaching exercise on how to see. him or her. By putting the student between This three-step process is in my book Then I learned about Zen when I was in the two teachers, we were doing our best Embodied Being. graduate school. I had no idea what these to entrain them in how to perceive – to see. Zen guys were talking about. What was I cultivate wu wei (at least I think I do). It The first, most important, fundamental a Zen master the master of, anyway? I comes from the practice of Taoism, and is step in any kind of healing or manual couldn’t understand any of it, but I loved it. often translated as ‘not doing’. It can also therapy is the step that allows you to be Do you know what a koan is? For example, be translated as ‘allowing’. This is a really open to whatever happens. You let yourself “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” difficult thing to articulate properly. It is the be shaped and touched by what you’re or “What is your original face before your practice of letting ‘what is’ unfold as it needs perceiving. You must let what is show parents were born?” Even though I had to unfold. The presence of the practitioner is itself as it shows itself from itself. The first no idea what they were asking about, necessary to hold the space for the healing step is fundamental. You have to learn that something about it just caught me. I loved to occur, but the practitioner does not get step. It is the first step of meditation. It is reading about it and desperately wanted to down into the trenches and perform the the first step of Rolfing SI, the first step go experience it. My first teacher showed up ‘healing’ itself. If you can hold that space, of phenomenology, and the first step of and I started meditating. then you create the possibility of change for creating art. It is of fundamental importance an individual or a group. You open a space AH: Is what I’m hearing in this love of the that you let what is show itself to you. If you within which possibilities abound. koans something similar to the recognition can truly let what is show itself, if you can of the value of the confusion? AH: Were you able to do that in a classroom? do that, then you are on your way. There is a lot of angst in being a Rolfing JM: Somewhat, yes. Getting to the place of a diminished student, particularly in the Basic Training, a ego requires the transformation of the AH: You’re talking about ordinary mind feeling of “I have to get this, I have to leave practitioner. The practitioner must get rid versus . . . here and go out in the world and be able to of his own conflicts and fixations so he can do this for people.” So the ego is present JM: . . . The way. be there for the process. To be a little more with its agenda, but you, the instructor, are precise, the ego is not really the problem. AH: Yeah. I don’t really want to call it trying to create this wu wei field to transmit The problem is the belief in a continuous ‘enlightened mind’, but a sort of a direct or embody something. self-subsistent self. The self like all things knowing. It doesn’t necessarily make sense JM: The first and last thing to learn is to appears and disappears continuously. to the ordinary mind, but is understood manifest clear-minded imperturbability You don’t have to drop the self. It is in the bones, in your being. It seems like and use your hands like a Rolfer. For most already dropping itself continuously. Our confusion points to something, it suggests students, trying to learn energy and subtle committed belief in a self-subsistent self that there is another knowing possible. techniques at the same time as basic Rolfing SI as the essence and core of what we are is JM: Yeah. It’s confusing because the is a huge mistake, often leaving them the issue. ordinary mind refuses to become a confused as to how to deliver the work. AH: Yeah, and that’s actually maybe a participant and steadfastly takes the So part of the answer is to carefully stage value to the pressure-cooker way that the stance of the onlooker or bystander and sequencing the work, and make sure they trainings have historically been conducted, insists upon its way of knowing. The way don’t learn energy work until the very last in that at some point the student does have it is cannot be captured in that ordinary days of the Advanced Training. A good way to sort of surrender. way of thinking. So some other way has to to handle those worries is to put them to be found. I call this other way of knowing work with clear instructions on how to do JM: The positive meaning of surrender is ‘feeling nature’. We have to realize that this job and recognize success. allowing. our feeling nature can disclose aspects of

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AH: Allow that you’re not going to think so.” After a number of experiences JM: Yeah. I did most of my healing by intellectually get it all, that you have to like that, I knew I was onto something. simply learning how to open up – that first just imbibe what you can. step is the first step of healing. And then I realized, after years of not JM: I like to say freedom is the creative realizing what I should’ve realized much AH: Was this opening up grounded in your appropriation of limitation. Everything that sooner, that I could work with energy. I Zen practice? exists is limited. If you let it limit you by realized again the importance of holding JM: Same thing, I would be able to open following in the footsteps of others, you are a sensitive open space. It is essential to up the space in meditation, and then open not going to produce creative work. If you the first step. That insight really started it powerfully with my clients. attempt to free yourself from all limitation influencing my work. Sometimes I would and successfully get rid of limitation, you do half a session of Rolfing SI and half a AH: So you need to find this place in just cease to be. Limitation is a condition session of energy. Sometimes I would mix yourself, this certain state. What about the of being. When you make it your own and them. A lot of times the energy work looked person on the table? Does he need to do it is appropriate to what is unfolding, then like Rolfing work as energy work, and it anything, or be in a certain state? Is the you’ve found freedom. The difference just got clearer and clearer. Eventually you energetic work you’re doing best when it’s between a master of the tradition and a must learn to distinguish, in experience, met by a particular orientation in the client? follower of the tradition is that the master the difference between energy and the JM: I wouldn’t say you have to have a bends, or appropriates, the tradition for the ‘physical’ body. state. I would say that you have to come to sake of art while the novice rigidly follows AH: You say it looks like Rolfing work, where you can experience where you come the tradition and kills art. The creative explain that a little bit. from. For example, we notice that when appropriation of limitation is where it’s at. we’re awake and looking at the world, that I think it was Robert Frost who said you JM: I often did the non-local energy work we have a world full of objects and people have to become easy in your harness. All sitting in a chair, while the client would lie and things. But what makes it possible for disciplines are like that, you have to learn on the table. We would work on various all of this to be? A state is something that is to become easy in the harness, then you’ve energy phenomena. I noticed that a lot part of the world that I know. What makes found your freedom. of the restrictions and their releases were it possible for me to have a state is what we what happened in the physical body. For AH: Talk a little bit, Jeff, about how you are really interested in when you’re opening example, I would sense the core opening work with people. that space. up, or a restriction around the heart area, JM: I am by instinct and training a Rolfer. and then it would do a little movement this Take the expression “the body is the temple I work across all the taxonomies as needed way, and a little movement that way, and of the soul.” Same point: the body is the by the client. A session might be mostly then it would lengthen. condition of inhabiting objects, it is not an biomechanical or non-local or a mix – inhabitable object. Likewise, we’re not as AH: So the phenomena happening in the whatever is required to achieve the goals interested in what appears as we are in what client’s body were similar to the phenomena of Rolfing SI. . . . By the way, I demonstrate makes it possible to appear. What makes it that would happen if you were doing working within the psychobiological possible for something to appear cannot hands-on Rolfing work? taxonomy in my latest book, Embodied Being. appear to itself. It is like the eye that sees JM: Right. and cannot see itself. This condition of the The energy work I employ is still very possibility of a world is what you have to much Rolfing SI. Bit by bit by bit, over AH: But you were sitting in a chair, and rest in. You see, that’s quite different than quite a number of years, I had a number the client was lying on a table. Were recognizing a state. of experiences with energy that left me you intending anything, or directing puzzled. I would leave a session thinking, it, or were you just an open field of AH: It sounds like there is a ground of “What was that?!” As a result, I took consciousness asking what needed to openness inherent to that. Would energy different classes and trainings in energy happen, or something else? work have an effect on somebody whose work just to see what was available and how attitude was skeptical and cynical? JM: That’s a good question. I answered they did it. Over time I experienced more it in my book Mind Body Zen. The last JM: They can wreck it. They can ruin the and more clarity and I noticed that energy two chapters are about Taoism and a session. A client once said to me, ‘Well, was becoming obvious to me. little bit about healing, and I talk about you know, every time you work on me, I I remember once I had an 8 AM appointment intentionality and intention. What has to open up.” I said, “Really? That’s great.” with my hairdresser. She’d been out shift – a lot of people say it’s intention, but He said, “I don’t like it.” He would say, partying all night in Las Vegas, got home it’s not intention. If you don’t take that first “Do you think as you’re working on me, if late, and had a headache and was miserable. step that I was talking about, change the I’m thinking to myself ‘I don’t like this, this I thought, “God, I can’t turn her loose on way you’re oriented toward reality, then no doesn’t work, it’s a bunch of crap’, that it’s my hair.” So I said, “How about if I work intention will be effective. The intentions going to affect what you’re doing?” I said, on your headache while you’re cutting my for change become effective the minute you “Oh absolutely,” and it did, so I decided hair?”, and she said, “Okay.” So I did some step into the openness. he had to go. non-local stuff, and her headache went AH: Then things would happen for AH: Yeah, it’s interesting. There was some away, and she felt much better. She said, the client in his body like happen in a sort of openness that had him coming to “Wow, did you do that?” I said, “Well, I Rolfing session? you, but he didn’t want the openness, and

42 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org ENERGY he didn’t want to support the openness in JM: It’s kind of interesting. The way JM: Nietzsche also said “the body is being there, and even when he would feel you defend yourself against energy is inspired,” talking about his inspired the benefit or the effect, he was trying to very different than the way you defend writings: “The body is inspired. Let’s keep close it down. yourself if somebody’s trying to punch the soul out of it.” you. If someone much stronger than you JM: Yeah, yeah. AH: Thank you, Jeff, for your time today. is about to punch you, you will probably AH: In my experience, Rolfing SI will have curl up in order to avoid getting hurt – as Hokaku Jeffrey Maitland, PhD, is internationally a varied affect on different clients. much as you can. When you curl up you known as an author, instructor, innovator, and contract and become less. But if somebody expert in soft-tissue manipulation. He has spent JM: Yup. is broadcasting or putting forth a lot of most of his adult life deeply investigating Zen AH: Do you think that has to do with the negativity at you, if you can stay open and practice, philosophy, and the nature of healing. ground that they’re coming from, their expand to the horizon, so that you can He has practiced Zen over forty years and is orientation? include the negativity, the effect is minimal. a Zen monk. He is also a Certified Advanced I never could get white light around myself. Rolfer, an Advanced Rolfing Instructor, JM: Yeah, and what their conflicts and a former tenured professor of philosophy fixations are. Perception is so essential to Now when someone tells me he has that at Purdue University, and a philosophical Rolfing SI. You have to see where they’re problem [with someone’s energy], I just sit counselor. In addition to teaching Rolfers, coming from. In some people there’ll be at his head and hold his head and have him Maitland also teaches workshops and classes in a pushing out at some place in the body, expand and contract and feel what that feels myofascial manipulation to physical therapists, and other places sinking, and you have to like. And then I have him think of an odious chiropractors, and other healthcare professionals, decide what those things are about. You situation, and he contracts automatically. as well as workshops in perception and energy. discover that if you get rid of them in one And then I say, “Okay, now, we’re going Maitland has published and presented many person, he has a marvelous experience. In to do that again,” and I have him expand papers on the theory of somatic manual another person, he goes through a healing again. Then I tell him to, this time, not therapy, Zen, philosophy, and Rolfing SI. crisis. It changes from person to person, and contract around the place that he’s having His research, articles, and book reviews are you have to be able to meet reality with the the trouble with that person. Just let it be published in numerous professional journals. power that reality comes to meet you. there. Just hold it, and give it a place to be, He is the author of four books: Spacious Body: but don’t directly do anything to it. It just Explorations in Somatic Ontology; Spinal AH: How do you perceive, Jeff? When you dissipates when you do that. It’s counter- Manipulation Made Simple; Mind Body say this “pushing out,” this “sinking,” is intuitive, because instead of curling up Zen (written at the request of his Zen teacher); that visual, is it felt, you feel it in the client’s and contracting to defend yourself, you’re and Embodied Being. He lives and practices in body, you feel it in your own body? expanding and opening up, and not giving Scottsdale, Arizona. JM: I used to wonder about that too. Now it a place to live. I think it’s your whole body and its energy Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer in AH: Curling up and contracting is Seattle, Washington, a teacher of the Diamond field that is your sensorium. You can feel, reinforcing the idea that I am a separate Approach® to inner work, and the Editor-in- perceive what’s going on, at any level – with self that can be attacked, that can be Chief of this Journal. your knee if you had to. You often feel what contaminated, and the opening up is the people are feeling by feeling it in yourself. I recognition of a certain ground that we all Bibliography feel it in myself. I can feel a pressure where are and participate in, and how can that be the person is complaining of something. attacked? How can that be contaminated? Maitland, J. 2016. Embodied Being: The Sometimes I see exactly what it is. Philosophical Roots of Manual Therapy. JM: Yeah, there’s a great quote from Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books. The more you do it, the more you become Nietzsche. He authored some of the aware of the fact that you’ve always known greatest aphorisms. In part, this one Maitland, J. 2010. Mind Body Zen: Waking these things, you just haven’t believed it, bears on your question: “When a worm is Up to Your Life. Berkeley, California: North you haven’t had the words for it, or the stepped on, it curls up. In the language of Atlantic Books. experience to know what to do with it. I’ve morality, prudence.” always felt this way. But it’s the whole body, and the whole of what we are is capable AH: You’re going to have to give me DIAMOND APPROACH is a registered trademark of providing us with information about some commentary on that. It’s not of The Ridhwan Foundation in the U.S., Europe, and ourselves and other people in the world. landing immediately. various other countries. AH: I completely agree with you there. JM: All right. When a worm is stepped on, Some people who do energy work are very it defensively curls up to lessen the impact concerned about picking up other people’s of any future being stepped on. The worm energy, and they feel they have to cleanse goes into a defensive posture of being themselves after they have been in tune contracted – in the language of morality, with someone else’s energy. But we are we call this ‘prudence’. He’s really scared always in tune with other people’s energy, to death. This insight predated, and seems and we are always picking up the whole to have anticipated, Reich’s ‘body armor’. field because we are the whole field. I’m AH: Right. curious what you have to say about that.

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surgery and recovery went well and I figured Explorations of Earth and Sky I was ‘as good as new’. But during the course of our work together, the Alexander An Interview with Sally Klemm practitioner pointed out that compensation and adaptation from that injury was limiting By Anne Hoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Sally Klemm, Basic and optimal functioning and suggested I look ® ® Advanced Rolfing Instructor and Rolf Movement Practitioner into Rolfing SI. The theory I read about made sense to me, so I scheduled what I thought Anne Hoff: First some general questions, was a consultation session with a Rolfing how long have you been practicing Rolfing practitioner, but he included ‘application’ Structural Integration (SI)? in his consultations. That initial experience was less than inspirational and did not bode Sally Klemm: Thirty plus years now. well for my road to Rolfing SI. AH: What inspired you to become a Rolfer This was back in the day when Rolfing SI in the first place? was earning its reputation for being rough SK: In my case, it was more a matter ofwho and painful. I left the ‘consultation’ session inspired me, rather than what; that “who” with my ribs bruised so black and blue that I being in the person of the now departed put a good decade and a half plus the entire Stacey Mills, Rolfing practitioner and Pacific Ocean between my first experience instructor who steered me toward training in Berkeley and meeting Stacey in Hawaii. at the Rolf Institute® during the course of my AH: Wow. You got out in the world pretty series with her. I met Stacey fifteen or more young. Besides living in Istanbul, I know years after my first encounter with Rolfing SI. Sally Klemm you crewed on a sailboat. Tell us a bit So ultimately perhaps it’s been my own about that and where you were headed. body dealing with the various bumps and Did you have a plan or was it pretty scrapes that I have experienced that led me open-ended exploration? eventually to Rolfing SI; more of a ‘long and winding road’ than the direct route. SK: I was very much exploring the world. Let’s see, I paid for my undergraduate AH: You grew up in California, right? degree by working as a legal secretary Where? in law offices in the Bay Area. I took off SK: Right. Northern California: I was born traveling and working various and sundry in Berkeley. odd jobs: dive shops, newspapers, teaching school in Micronesia, working for the AH: So you were at ground zero of the publisher of a newspaper, teaching English whole ‘60s movement? in Japan, etc., etc. SK: That’s right; there were lots of very AH: You weren’t fixed on any career path? dynamic things going on in the San Francisco Bay Area back in those days. SK: Not in my twenties, no. Rather than Anne Hoff And because I lived within a ten-mile some conviction or sense of what I wanted radius of the university; I was able to begin to be when I grew up, I had strong sense of flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul on attending classes during my senior year in what I wanted to do. From the time I was a the way over. Because the ship was out high school. kid I was taken by a yearning to go around of commission for our return, we were the world, preferably by sail, and live on AH: So you had not only the West Coast rerouted with an unanticipated five- the water. So when the opportunity arose awareness of the Pacific Ocean and the day layover in Paris on our way back. A to do just that, I jumped on it. world out that direction, there was the nightmare for the chaperones but a dream whole California influence of that time. come true for the seventeen year olds! AH: I’m sure you’ve had many impactful experiences, tell us about one of them. SK: Yes. Do you remember American Field AH: When did you first hear about Service or AFS? Rolfing SI? SK: In third grade, world geography was my favorite subject. I chose Myanmar (then AH: Yes. SK: My first exposure to Rolfing SI Burma) for my report with the conviction emerged from doing movement work with SK: Between my junior and senior year in of an eight year old that I would get there a university classmate of mine who was high school I spent the summer in Istanbul, one day. And eventually it turned out that training in the Alexander Technique. During as an AFS exchange student. What a thrill! a friend and I were able to make the trip high school I had a run in with (or halfway I was the first person in my family to have around my thirtieth birthday. In those days through) a plate-glass window where the a passport. My first plane ride was from tourist visas were limited to a one-week stay, window won. This was before shatter-proof San Francisco to New York City. Then by no exceptions. As the days ticked by a part of glass (yeah, that long ago). The broken glass ship across the Atlantic aboard Chapman’s me was anticipating some big illumination, sliced through my hamstrings and severed floating campus to Rotterdam. Another “Okay, I made it; what’s the story?” But the tendons crossing my right ankle. The

44 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES of course, it doesn’t happen like that. On and heard about Stacey Mills, the Grand SK: That pretty much came about at day five or six when it became obvious Dame of Rolfing SI in Hawaii, who not Stacey’s bidding. Early on during my no message was going to appear written only taught Rolfing SI but was reported to sessions with her she took one look at the across the sky, I headed up one of the four be gentle as well. Still, I’d wised up by this size of my hands and more or less said “If stairways up Mandalay Hill for a view of time, and wasn’t about to take any chances you don’t play piano, I’ve got a job for you.” the sunset from the Sutaungpyei (literally before I got my ass on the table again, so I I thought she was joking, but next session ‘wish-fulfulling’) pagoda at the top. invited her out for coffee to check her out she asked if I ever thought of becoming before scheduling with her. She agreed and a Rolfer. My honest reply was that it had Along the way I was beckoned with gestures suggested the Waioli Tea Room. I remember never entered my mind. Maybe she was and arm signals (no English spoken) over thinking to myself, “if she orders Sanka all recruiting for more women in the trainings, to a platform off to the side of the stairway. bets are off.” encouraging and empowering those of us of I joined quite a few local people gathered the female persuasion at a time when male around the edges of the platform watching Over coffee (which she drank black, much practitioners far outnumbered the women. the most amazing spectacle. There was a to my relief) she told me of her involvement Next session, she’d be on me again, saying middle-aged woman laying in the middle with Subud (a spiritual teaching from “Well dear, I want you to think about it . . .” of the wooden floor who looked like she Indonesia that used a practice called It got so I began to wonder whether I was having a seizure. Surrounding her were latihan), and that she’d been a psychologist needed to follow up on her suggestion or several men dressed in drag, conducting prior to training with Ida. In my book she she might not schedule my next session! some kind of ceremony/ritual – a healing?, seemed to model the Wise Old Woman an exorcism? archetype, who not only aged well but Whatever it was, she did get me thinking retained her zest for life. Did you ever about the training. Because my liberal arts It was very shamanic. I can’t remember now met Stacey? Tall, and statuesque, she had education lacked life sciences, I dutifully if there were drums or not. I do remember it hennaed hair, wore bright red nail polish, went to the University of Hawaii to see was very slow motion initially; the figures and enjoyed attending afternoon tea dances about satisfying the Rolf Institute® entry slowly approaching her and then backing with her daughter and granddaughter. We requirements. Daunted by the thought of off. Gradually the pace picked up more and hit it off that first meeting; I felt comfortable taking nursing or pre-med courses after more, building toward a crescendo that enough with her to schedule a session; the going around the world, I told Stacey, “I culminated in them running and yelling notion of receiving work from another don’t think I’m ready to go back to school toward the woman writhing in the center of woman appealed to me greatly. at this point in my life.” She then told me the floor. Whereupon she sat up, powered the Rolf Institute was starting an in-house her nose with a compact she pulled out of AH: What was your experience of getting program to satisfy those requirements. (The her pocketbook, and nonchalantly stood Rolfing sessions from her compared to that first pilot project organized by Jason Mixter up as the men changed out of their dress first person? was to eventually morph and evolve into into street wear. They were so very casual. SK: With Stacey I experienced that it was what is now Phase I: Foundations of Rolfing Their manner indicated, “Oh yeah, good, possible to evoke profound change in the Structural Integration.) So, I traveled to it was a successful ceremony,” whereas I’m body without bruising. During the very Boulder and did the foundations class in the saying to myself, “What was that?” By this first session I experienced her touch as so annex of the old Institute on Pearl Street. It time it was totally dark, and by the time I deliciously appropriate – I felt for the first was a great experience for me. Jim Oschman reached the bottom of the hill my friend time profound change being evoked rather taught the physiology portion, Therapeutic was circling the base looking for me, very than forced from the tissue. I was hooked Relations was co-taught by two Rolfer/ worried and concerned. When she asked, and booked for the entire series. psychologists, etc. “Did you get lost? What happened?,” I couldn’t even begin to know what to say. AH: What was your embodied experience That first year ‘off the boat’ was a time of That was quite a healing and definitely of the work? How did you sense the tremendous change for me. The same year outside any energetic frame of reference change? I attended a transpersonal psychology that I had operating within my worldview. conference in Davos, Switzerland and a SK: With enough change in my body, I could A while later I realized how seeing that week-long vision quest trek through the begin to feel how scar tissue was exerting exposed me to some other very different Alps afterward. This came about through certain pulls that extended from the ankle up ways of knowing and perceiving. another case of synchronicity. I chanced to the sacrum. What was most dramatic to upon the flyer in California. The theme of the AH: Let’s go now to how you arrived in me was the change in respiration. Swimming conference, “Individual Transformation and Honolulu and re-engaged with Rolfing SI. and diving were a part of my lifestyle. I grew Universal Responsibility,” gave me ‘chicken up on the West Coast swimming and diving SK: I arrived in Honolulu via sailboat skin’ (the Hawaiian term for goose bumps), for abalone. In my twenties it was the scuba in 1983 after a four-year journey around but the deadline had already passed for training and diving experience that helped the world working as diver, bo’sun, and the vision quest application and I couldn’t land me crew jobs on charter yachts, so crew aboard various sailing yachts, and – see going there for just the conference. I respiration was a good gauge for me. The inevitably – sustaining more injury in the chanced a call to inquire and it turned out increase in respiration and range of motion process. When the boat got hauled out for there was one spot left for each. Off I went to in swim strokes were most dramatic. a bottom job I moved out of the harbor and hear an amazing compendium of speakers: into the rain forest, figuring four years [on AH: And becoming a Rolfer, how did that Jungian analysts Marie-Louise von Franz the water] was long enough, and revisited come about? and Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, Stan Grof of the idea of Rolfing SI. I started asking around Holotropic Breathwork, Michael Harner,

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 45 PERSPECTIVES

Sandplay therapist Dora Kalff, tai chi master beating the heck out of this drum asking AH: So this is all before the ‘split’ [leading Al Chung-Liang Huang, to name a few. And for a vision, still thinking in the back of my to some faculty leaving the Rolf Institute to top it off, the closing address was given by mind that some animated message will and forming the Guild for Structural the Dalai Lama! I came away from that very appear in the sky (you’d think I’d learned Integration]. pivotal life moment with the idea of doing my lesson in Burma, but expectation dies SK: Right. It was brewing, but hadn’t the Jungian analytical training. Of course I hard), when movement on the ground happened yet. I remember it was definitely would need a vocation to finance my way caught my eye. My rational mind freaked in the field in my class. I did my training in through the process and voila! – why not out saying “No, that can’t be real, I must be ‘85 and ‘86; I think the split happened in ‘89. pay for it with Rolfing dollars? hallucinating after two and half days of no I had auditing with Jan and Jeff and then food, no water.” But looking down I picked Toward that end, my plan was to take Stacey’s practitioning with Neal and Jimmer. After up the corner of my mat and there was very class in Hawaii, but you’ve heard that joke the split, Neal decided to go with Emmett much a snake. It came in and hung out in about making God laugh by telling her your Hutchins and Peter Melchior and was gone the circle for a while, and then it crossed plans? The selection committee had other with the Guild. So Jan Sultan turned out over out the other side. Then [after the solo] plans. Disappointment! Instead of doing to be the instructor who had the stronger we went back and had a debriefing with the the auditing phase in Honolulu, I began influence on my Basic Training. medicine man. I don’t know what it was taking craniosacral classes with Jim Asher supposed to be, but here’s what happened. AH: After you completed training, you and Jane Harrington and found myself at He said that the snake was a healing image, went back to Hawaii to go to work. Have Esalen Institute in Big Sur for Gestalt work an image for inspiration and then change you always worked in Hawaii? with co-founder Dick Price. (Another and healing. pivotal moment.) As luck would have it SK: Yes, Honolulu has been home base for there were an odd number of participants AH: So you were given some signs along my private practice since 1986. in the workshop Dick was leading. I was the way. AH: And at what point did you become the odd man out, so Dick partnered with SK: That’s how I took it, and proceeded interested in being a teacher and start that me. During our hikes together in the Santa to Boulder with less doubt and a more process? Lucia Range he assuaged my gripe over favorable outcome than the first round. not being accepted into Stacey’s training SK: Well, it was perhaps more a slow with his personal story of how Ida’s work AH: Who did you do your Rolfing training germination than specific point. I continued (during her tenure at Esalen Institute with with? And how was it going in with quite my interest in the cranial work, taking Fritz Perls) relieved him of residual pain he a spectrum of touch already from having classes with various teachers when they suffered from electroshock treatments. His studied craniosacral work? would come to Hawaii – John Upledger, regard for her was immense. As we parted, Michael Shea, Bruno Chikly, etc. – and I SK: The very next training after selection he told me he would consider it as a favor was studying the movement work. You was in Santa Fe with Jan Sultan. It was like to him that I return to the Rolf Institute and may recall Rolf Movement evolved from it was meant to be. There I was in the high reapply for the training. Judith Aston’s initial collaboration with desert, instead of Waikiki, looking down at Ida. Initially certification in Rolf Movement Within six weeks of my leaving Esalen, fossilized shells and realizing I was still at was a training separate from Rolfing Dick was killed in a hiking accident very the beach even though the tide had gone certification. When Neal Powers was near where we had been hiking together. out a million or so years ago. It was really president of the Rolf Institute, the separate Yikes!!!! What could I do but sign up for a good fit for me. Jan was introducing the training was suspended. But there were still the very next scheduled selection process internal/external model and Jeff Maitland workshops being offered in various places held in Boulder? was doing his first assist. Together they by various people. I worked with Megan were already starting to introduce this idea To be honest, I had trepidation around facing James in San Francisco. I met up with Mario of the auditors getting more involved than another selection committee. In order to Finato and Hubert Godard in Avignon to sitting on their hands or changing sheets address it I decided to go on another vision drive down to Barcelona in order to attend for the practitioners: we were working, quest. This one was held on Iroquois land a six-day taught by Annie Duggan and Janie either with the practitioners or with each in eastern Canada and more true to the French in 1988, etc. other. A friend from the foundations class Lakota tradition where the vision quest was who was practitioning wasn’t familiar with Back in Boulder, Vivian Jaye and Jane preceded by a sweat lodge. (I had never inherent motion and had trouble dialing Harrington got the ball rolling by developing been to a sweat lodge, and I imagined that into what Jan was talking about. Because I a certification training for cross-training between ‘rounds’ there would be something had done those cranial classes with Jim, I Rolfers in movement work. I was fortunate along the lines of what happens at a prize could connect the dots and feel “Yeah, I got enough to be in that first cross-training fight, where you retreat to your corner for it.” So sometimes, he’d have me come over group with them. It’s interesting to reflect on ice water and fresh towels. Was I mistaken!) to his client and balance the sacrum or do this absorption with the movement work, as Two powerful totems came to me during that a CV4 or something. That was pretty fun. my first movement experience went south in time: an owl during the sweat lodge and a much the same as my initial Rolfing session; snake during the three-day solo vision quest. AH: Who did you do your practitioning not a good client/practitioner match. I guess with? AH: A real snake? I felt I needed to take a class or so to get SK: Neal Powers and Helen James (aka the gist of what was underlying it. I found SK: Yeah, it was an actual snake. There Jimmer) in San Francisco familiarity with inherent motion from the I was within my circle during the solo,

46 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES cranial work lent itself well to consideration split and its attendant disruption, a certain and when a growing emphasis was placed of functional movement; plus I enjoyed the reordering occurred, changes were made on body use. classes very much! As it turned out, I became in the curriculum and course offerings, and AH: Before you joined, who was on faculty certified in Rolf Movement before I did my the faculty looked into how to streamline who was a woman, besides the movement Advanced Training. the certification and train new faculty, etc. people . . . ? Interested candidates were invited to attend Once certified in Movement, I proceeded the 1994 Faculty Meeting and the ‘Teacher- SK: Before the split, Stacey was on the to assist Combined Studies and movement In-Training’ (TIT) process was designed to faculty, and then after the split, Gael was trainings, which I enjoyed very much. build a conduit or ‘pipeline’ for Certified on the faculty. And that was it in terms of While assisting Jane Harrignton and Vivian Advanced Rolfers to train toward joining structural work. Then four of us women Jaye, Jane mentioned that Tom Wing was the faculty. Quite the amusing acronym came on to teach basic Rolfing trainings at looking for an assistant for a Basic Rolfing considering the membership as well as the same time – Lael Keen, Tessy Brungardt, class that he was doing in Boulder and faculty was predominately male back in Carol Agneessens, and myself. suggested I might look into it. At that time I those days. Ironically Lael Keen, Carol knew of Tom, but I hadn’t actually met him, AH: You still teach both Basic and Advanced Agnessens, Tessy Brungaart, and myself and felt it was time I did. I accomplished Trainings, what are the different challenges were all granted TIT status that year. this by enrolling in his Review of the Basic in teaching each of them, and what are the Series, a continuing education class and At that same meeting, when it became clear different rewards? residential workshop held in the Boundary Vivian Jaye couldn’t make the Movement SK: Good question, and difficult for me to Canoe Waters. Yum, just my style! We hit Training she was scheduled to teach with answer as each class is unique unto itself. it off during the workshop, I asked him Monica Caspari in Brazil later that year, I I frankly never know what to expect, the about assisting, and much to my surprise was eligible to go in her stead. By chance locations and circumstances seem to vary so and delight, he agreed. And truth be told, my first teaching assignment happened in widely. I’ve probably taught more classes to Tom was stepping out on a limb, as I hadn’t Brazil in movement! fill in that I wasn’t originally scheduled for done my Advanced Training yet. It had been suggested that candidates than ones that I scheduled ahead of time. It was kind of a whim on my part, but wanting to teach Basic Rolfing courses I mentioned the Movement Training in I was curious, and really treasured the should audit the Advanced Training with the Brazil earlier. About seventeen years ago I opportunity to work with him. During Advanced Faculty. This I did the following went over to Europe to cover a Basic Rolfing the training a student challenged my year by returning to Brazil for an Advanced class for Robert Schleip when his schedule intention to return to my private practice Training co-taught by Pedro Prado and Jan didn’t allow. That was in addition to a Basic by suggesting I “do the math.” Her point Sultan. My first ‘official’ assist as Teacher Training in Australia, a Combined Studies was that Rolfing practitioners do good in Training with Michael Salveson was a Class in Boulder, and Advanced Training! work in the world but there were too few rough one. It was held in Berkeley, where my A very busy time, when we didn’t have practitioners doing it. Teaching groups of mother, who was terminally ill at the time, quite enough faculty to cover the Basic practitioners would support the growth passed away during teaching of the middle Training. When that changed I thought of Rolfing SI a lot more effectively than hours of the Ten Series! I somehow made it to myself maybe I should move on from working one on one with individual clients. through that trial by fire and joined the Basic teaching beginners. I heard what she said and took it to heart. Training faculty in 1995. After 2012 I needed to take a health hiatus So Advanced Training with Jim Asher and AH: This is interesting history about the and stopped teaching trainings entirely. Jan Sultan was the next thing in line. predominance of men and how that started By the end of 2015, however, I decided AH: Was that the old advanced series? to shift. I’ve heard that Ida Rolf herself at to jump back in the game in order to co- one point had put the kibosh on women teach an Advanced Training with Pedro SK: Essentially yes; the five-session template training as Rolfers. in Boulder the following year. When that of the old advanced series was presented, training didn’t pan out, I got recruited to along with new emphasis on alternative SK: Well, Ida did train Stacey, Gladys Man, teach a Phase II Basic Training instead. Once interventions where say the ‘Z position’ Gael Ohlgren [now Rosewood], and her again, not quite what I had anticipated or may not have been the most user-friendly or daughter-in-law, the petite Joy Belluzi. I’m planned for myself, yet it turned out to be appropriate for the client. (I’m getting a little not sure when Joy trained, but when I went a momentous return in many ways. It was nostalgic reminiscing: what a wonderful cast to that first foundations class, the women a small class, for one thing. (I think I do of characters in that training – Rebecca Carli, were all eating like mad to bulk up because better with small classes, because I can give Jane Harrington, Eric Dalton, and Don Van applicants were supposed to weigh at least more individual instruction.) I celebrated Fleet. Amazing to share the depth of those 150 pounds. You also had to submit a photo the thirtieth anniversary of my certification experiences with friends and colleagues for with a quarter in your palm to show how that fall. My assistant, Keith Economidis, a lifetime!) big your hands were. There’s no way Joy had been a student in a class I’d taught weighed 150 pounds. Before the split, the process for moving twenty years earlier, so another anniversary from member to assistant onto faculty The shift from a preponderance of male of sorts. And the class was highly motivated was more amorphous. My impression is practitioners began in earnest during the to train sooner rather than later. Feeing at there were many folks who had assisted ‘80s, when the notion that you had to be a risk of getting ‘caught out’ and having to several times waiting in the wings with big guy and push really hard to do the work wait a year during the transition at the Rolf no real set progression in place. After the gave way to more specific interventions, Institute to shorter intervals between phases

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 47 PERSPECTIVES for compliance with COMPTA and federal the whole person. Fundamentally I do that. I AH: How do you recognize, with clients on regulations, they asked for another Phase II jokingly say I consider myself a fascia-ist and the table, what to draw their attention to, to be added to the schedule. It was rewarding fascially oriented. But I can’t possibly limit and how to language it? to work with a younger group of eager myself to that. Inherent motion doesn’t parse SK: Very often I begin and end my sessions beginners, and I finally felt the advantage of out well. (When Emmett Hutchins heard I’d with reference to gravity and ground. I like being older and more seasoned in the work. been studying craniosacral work, he took to bring into the conversation that the body me aside and advised me to leave that out AH: So you foresee teaching both Basic and exists within the larger context of earth of room when I was doing Rolfing SI, or to Advanced trainings in the future? and sky. We exist in time and space on a specifically state which techniques were particular planet that has this gravitational SK: Oh yes, Basic, Advanced, and continuing cranial and which were Rolfing SI.) And I phenomenon that keeps us from spinning ed. Of course Advanced Faculty are eligible have taken tutorials in visceral manipulation off into orbit. We habitually go about our to teach the basic classes. It was valuable and a semester of acupuncture study in the days so preoccupied with various thoughts experience for me as Advanced Faculty to past. All of it has informed my touch. In that we rarely bring this basic connection cycle through the Basic Training. I got to see terms of evoking change, I include motility into our awareness. Making specific how people are entering into the training as well as mobility and work across that reference to this has been a very rich tool at the ground level from the vantage point broad spectrum. I use direct and indirect for my sessions. Together we can enter into of their track toward eventual Advanced techniques. It’s so interwoven in me . . . an exploration and mutual participation in Training. It lent a fresh perspective too on AH: . . . that you really can’t tease them the human embodiment experience. how the Intermediate Training workshops apart? might better prepare people for all the These gravitational forces are present and Advanced Training has to offer. With the SK: Yeah. I try to be aware of the inherent there’s a supportive quality to our world hope, too, that our more senior instructors motion even if I’m working on some . . . whether we’re aware of it, or relate to it, or will eventually be freed up to offer post- not. If we can begin to awaken and sense into AH: . . . gnarly tissue? advanced instruction. that relationship a little more, not feel like SK: Yeah. we have to hold up the whole show, there’s AH: Changing direction a bit, as a teacher, often a lot of relief and relaxation that enters how closely do you feel linked to Ida Rolf’s AH: What can you say about your own into our experience. At least that’s what’s true teachings? And has that changed over unique style of Rolfing SI? for me. Ida’s saying ‘Gravity is the therapist’ the years? SK: I may be too close to it to say. What is right up there at the top of my list of all- SK: I feel very closely linked to Ida would you say about it? time-favorite Ida Rolf quotes. Rolf’s teachings. I wasn’t trained by her. AH: I’ve experienced you as a mentor, an I’m fascinated by what quantum physics My instructors all trained with her, so I Advanced Instructor, and as a practitioner. says about gravity, and the Newtonian am one generation removed. During her Based on how you interacted with my clients definition of gravity as determined by lifetime she changed and developed the in mentoring – and I’ve seen it as a client planetary mass still holds some weight in work continuously. She died in 1979 but with you giving me work – I think you have my day to day. The principle of support is a her pioneering spirit lives on over the a particular gift for engaging the individual, good analogy for, or synonymous with, the years as Rolfing SI continues to morph and meeting the person holistically and uniquely planetary mass that actually does support change with the times. In 2017 Rolfing SI is where he or she is at. It’s a dimension that and nourish us. And we don’t exist in a more than a one-woman band, it’s a whole gets added to the hands-on work. You have vacuum. We are, each of us individually, body of work with a history, science, and a way of finding and articulating someone’s connected to gravity and ground via the philosophy that I’m glad to be a part of. A leading edge, where that individual needs breath. Not our physical body so much, lot more is known about the nature of fascia to grow from, whether it’s the client on because that’s always changing; it’s the now than in her time. Not just the fascial your table and what that leading edge is breath, the dynamic aspect of the breath, system, but the body system of the whole; to become more embodied, or whether it’s the vitality in that, that is actually bridging which I find very exciting. Attending the the student working at a table in a training gravity and ground within us. first Fascia Research Congress at Harvard and you’re coming over to observe and Medical School in 2007 was a tremendous AH: So with gravity and ground, are you facilitate the development of that person’s thrill for me, just wonderful. using ‘gravity’ to mean more the experience work. You’re not somebody who just leaves of the body in space? AH: And when there is a new piece that’s the client on the table to silently experience, brought in, either through fascia research you’re very engaged. And the dialogue SK: Yeah. But it’s also a bit ambiguous or other studies you do, like your cranial informs the person in a similar way that your because in what we refer to as ‘outer space’, studies, is there a way that it still fits to you hands are informing and bringing something there is no gravity. under a certain model of Rolfing SI, or do together. Does that make sense? AH: It gets very closely interrelated on the you feel more like you’re doing different SK: Yes, particularly the part about ground. things? Like when you’re doing cranial, are being engaged. When I notice clients you doing something different, or do you SK: Yeah, and in our lived experience, zoning out, I tend call them back. There’s see it as part of the Rolfing process? unless we somehow go outside the a difference between going deep inside gravitational field, we have this force, this SK: It fits into Rolfing SI via the principle versus dissociating or simply falling asleep. gravitational force, that is the space that our of holism. Structural integration works with There are less expensive places to nap! life form exists within.

48 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org REVIEWS

AH: And for you, the breath is the bridge often met with resistance. “How does this AH: Thank you, Sally, for this rich to hold both in awareness? relate to where I put my elbow?”, “What discussion. does this have to do with technique?”, etc. SK: Right, it relates us to each. It’s the Sally Klemm is an internationally recognized Throughout the Phase Two, Embodiment connection. Rolf Institute instructor who teaches worldwide training I taught most recently, we did daily while maintaining a private practice in AH: Do you bring this deepening into experiential activities around respiration, Honolulu, Hawaii. A native of Berkeley, gravity and ground into the classroom chi gung, movement, even meditation. California, Sally is a graduate of University when you teach? Understandably I had some apprehension of California, Berkeley’s College of Letters and about once again placing this emphasis SK: I have been, yes. Science. After a four-year sailing voyage around on breath and presence, but I went for it the world, Sally was introduced to Rolfing SI AH: Especially in the Basic Trainings, anyway as I feel it very strongly influences by Stacey Mills, who convinced her to stop students can get very caught up in their and informs how technique is delivered. trimming sails and start aligning bodies. She heads trying to ‘figure it out’. How do you In sharp contrast to previous years, the has called Honolulu home since 1983. Sally’s bring them more into ease and the personal feedback from the group indicated it was private practice includes Visionary Craniosacral relationship of gravity and ground as a very well received and most appreciated. Work© as well as Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement place to learn? Being on the other side of sixty-five, Integration. Her extraordinary ability to I’m enjoying an elder role with younger blend an organized cognitive style with deeply SK: Oh that’s a good question! Well, students. This lends some credibility to intuitive understanding reflects her fascination I’ve become more bold, I think, about the notion that we might thrive in our with the unity of the psyche and the soma. Sally introducing and including more experiential embodiment as we age and mature as joined the Rolf Institute faculty in 1995. activities with movement, sitting, and practitioners; that it is possible to be at ease stillness, that hopefully serve as an avenue in gravity and ground on an ongoing basis Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer toward this. My first ventures years ago throughout life. practicing in Seattle, Washington and the with bringing this into the classroom Editor-in-Chief of this Journal.

is this that I find the strongest appeal of these information presented on the thorax Reviews and all the DVDs that Munich Group Media was quite cursory, and limited mostly to has produced. As I’ve said in other reviews, a collection of mobility tests and recoil Advanced Visceral Manipulation the Munich Group Media DVDs are really techniques. Now, a dedicated DVD [DVD series]: Abdomen I, Abdomen II, the next-best thing to actually being in a class encompasses detailed anatomy lectures, The Thorax by Jean-Pierre Barral (Munich with Barral himself. In person, I find him a evaluation, and treatment of the first rib and Group Media, 2016) ) very inspirational teacher with a genuine clavicle, pleurae, lungs, heart/pericardium, Reviewed by Allan Kaplan, Certified charisma, and the DVDs capture this well, and an assortment of associated structures. Advanced Rolfer™ beginning with his sincere introduction to The thing that also stands out with the the material, and continuing throughout the At long last, Munich Group Media has three DVDs is that Barral has shifted to a lectures and demonstrations. released Advanced Visceral Manipulation, new paradigm in his work over the years, new DVDs of Jean-Pierre Barral, DO’s The new discs are extremely thorough, with and I think that this is what “Advanced” is visceral manipulation. These are the first a section of “Generalities” – a review of referring to in the series title. He uses much releases since his original disc of about diagnostic techniques such as general and more subtlety, sophistication, and finesse fifteen years ago, which was actually a local listening, fascial tension diagnostics, in his approach, with greater emphasis on reissue of an earlier VHS tape set. Now and thermal assessment – at the beginning listening, induction, viscoelasticity, and we have three new discs – Abdomen I, of each one. Following that are sections global system and body relationships. This Abdomen II, and The Thorax – and a real covering each specific organ system, in evolution of his technique places much wealth of fresh information. which Barral proceeds with a detailed more emphasis on listening and induction, review of clinical anatomy, function, and and stimulation of mechanoreceptors Needless to say, technology has evolved techniques for the relative structures. He – versus the focus on the mobility- and since the first DVD was produced, and the supplies his own concise, detailed drawings motility-oriented approach presented in new discs are well-filmed, clear, and crisp. that show precisely what he wants to relate. his earlier material. This new emphasis Besides being well-presented, another big He also elaborates on relationships to the is more powerful, and relies more on the difference is that, in these discs, Barral nervous, venous, arterial, and muscular internal relationships of the body. Thus, speaks for himself, as he has in the Manual systems, and he also covers related this three-DVD offering gives a much more Articular Technique series, while the original plexi and clinical situations he considers comprehensive insight into the essence of disc was dubbed by a native English speaker. significant. There is a downloadable mastery of visceral manipulation than we While the substance was there in that earlier table of contents available online for each have seen before. DVD, I found the disconnect between Barral DVD, which provides a cross-reference of and the narrator a distraction. Now, the In Europe, the DVDs are available from anatomical illustrations. presentations are inviting and engaging. www.munich-group-media.com; in the In particular, The Thorax is really quite U.S. they can be purchased through Barral’s lectures are, as usual, presented in a an addition to the series. Before, the http://barralinstitute.com. succinct, precise, conversational way, and it www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2017 49 CONTACTS

OFFICERS & THE ROLF INSTITUTE® AUSTRALIAN GROUP BOARD OF DIRECTORS 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 The Rolf Institute Boulder, CO 80301 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Richard Ennis (At-large/Chairperson) (303) 449-5903 Boulder, CO 80301 [email protected] (303) 449-5978 fax USA www.rolf.org (303) 449-5903 Amy Iadarola (Western USA/Secretary) [email protected] (303) 449-5978 fax [email protected] www.rolfing.org.au Hubert Ritter (Europe/Treasurer) [email protected] [email protected] ROLF INSTITUTE STAFF [email protected] Christina Howe, Executive Director/ Ellen Freed (Faculty) Chief Academic Officer [email protected] Jessica Bystricky, Office Manager BRAZILIAN ROLFING® Linda Grace (At-large) Fahta Carter, Community Outreash ASSOCIATION [email protected] Coordinator Dayane Paschoal, Administrator Colette Cole, Director of Membership R. Cel. Arthur de Godoy, 83 Les Kertay (Central USA) & Placement Services Vila Mariana [email protected] Mary Contreras, Director of Admissions 04018-050-São Paulo-SP & Recruitment Larry Koliha (Faculty) Brazil Pat Heckmann, Director of Education Services [email protected] +55-11-5574-5827 Samantha Sherwin, Director of Financial Aid +55-11-5539-8075 fax Ron McComb (Eastern USA) Susan Winter, Director of Communications www.rolfing.com.br [email protected] & Education Systems [email protected] Keiji Takada (International/CID) [email protected] EUROPEAN ROLFING® ASSOCIATION E.V. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Laura Schecker, Executive Director Richard Ennis Saarstrasse 5 Amy Iadarola 80797 Munchen Hubert Ritter Germany +49-89 54 37 09 40 +49-89 54 37 09 42 fax EDUCATION EXECUTIVE www.rolfing.org [email protected] COMMITTEE Russell Stolzoff, Chair Carol Agneessens ® Tessy Brungardt JAPANESE ROLFING Larry Koliha ASSOCIATION Meg Mauer Yukiko Koakutsu, Foreign Liaison Kevin McCoy Omotesando Plaza 5th Floor 5-17-2 Minami Aoyama Minato-ku Tokyo, 107-0062 Japan www.rolfing.or.jp [email protected]

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50 Structural Integration / June 2017 www.rolf.org

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