Structural Integration / June 2007 www.rolf.org 51 table of contents

Structural Integration: Columns The Journal of Ask the Movement Faculty 2 The Rolf Institute® In My Practice 4 June 2008 Rolfing and Perception Vol. 36, No. 2 The Disclosive Power of Feeling 8 Publisher Jeffrey Maitland, Ph.D. The Rolf Institute of Body as a Movement System 14 ® Structural Integration Kevin Frank 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 The Evocation of Unique States of Consciousness Boulder, CO 80301 USA as a Consequence of Somatic Practices 24 (303) 449-5903 Michael Salveson (303) 449-5978 Fax (800) 530-8875 Thoughts on “Core” The Core as a Coordination 27 Editorial Board John Smith Eva Bucher Craig Ellis On Core (and Sleeve) 32 Stephen Paré Szaja Gottlieb Anne F. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief Research Linda Loggins Heidi Massa Interview with Serge Gracovetsky, Ph.D. 40 Rob McWilliams Kevin McCoy and Kevin Frank Deanna Melchynuk Susan Seecof, Managing Editor Perception and Reality Changes Following the Fascia Congress 43 Dave Sheldon Kim LeMoon Reviews Layout and Graphic Design Everyday Stretches 46 Mercedes Hernández Reviewed by Christoph Sommer Movement, Stability & Lumbopelvic Pain 47 Articles in Structural Integration: The Reviewed by Robert McWilliams Journal of The Rolf Institute® represent the Anatomy of Breathing and The Female Pelvis 49 views and opinions of the authors and Reviewed by Susanna Baxter do not necessarily represent the official positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute The Body Has a Mind of Its Own 50 of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute Reviewed by Kevin Frank reserves the right, in its sole and absolute Three Books on the Cranium 52 discretion, to accept or reject any article for Reviewed by Russell Stolzoff publication in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute. How to Calm and Center Yourself When You’re Stressed or Anxious 55 Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Reviewed by Anne F. Hoff Institute® (USPS 0005-122, ISSN 1538-3784) is published quarterly by the Rolf Institute, Robert Fulford, D.O. and the Philosopher Physician 56 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, Reviewed by Anne F. Hoff CO 80301. Periodicals Postage Paid at Memorial Boulder, Colorado. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Structural Integration: John Garbutt Lodge 57 The Journal of The Rolf Institute®, 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, CO 80301. Institute News Copyright ©2008 Rolf Institute. All rights Graduates 60 reserved. Duplication in whole or in part in any form is prohibited without written 2008-2009 Schedule 61 permission from the publisher. Contacts 62 Rolfing® is a service mark of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. Cover: Photo of John Lodge and some of his illustrations. ColumnS

of the support that we get from adequate connection to space. Contact with the world opens as we become aware of the unique ways we use our senses, which in turn organizes our movements even before we move. Through awareness of how we Ask the Movement Faculty connect to our environment, objects and “the other,” the Line becomes something fluid and adaptable, a presence that is Integration of Structure and Function in relevant to our daily lives. 3. To work with Rolf Movement techniques does the Training of Certified Rolfers not mean to fix, to correct, to change the client, By Rebecca Carli-Mills, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, but rather to create possibilities for the client to Rolf Movement Faculty be in the world with greater stability, flexibility, fluidity, vitality and unity.3 Life is relational in that we must adapt to What are some ideas in Rolf Movement Integration that make the constant flow of demands from the ® environment and situations we encounter it essential to the study of Rolfing ? along the way. Some of our responses are hard-wired and our survival depends on o begin, this question should be set in tissues need them. But when survival isn’t at stake, Tthe context of the evolution of basic t o b e c o m e we can respond more adaptively instead Rolfing training, which now integrates free to have of reacting in fixed patterns, and better structural and functional work. In the the necessary absorb the richness of our individual life training, the understanding of movement adaptability experience and have a positive impact on work and its connection to the Ten Series is f o r n e w our world. foundational. Students exchange movement coordination sessions during Unit Two and teach in movement. “Integration” has frequently been a word movement sessions to clients in Unit Three. N e w c o - ascribed to the goals of Rolf Movement. They also learn to address the functional o rd i n a t i o n Several movement theory ideas foster the aspects of each Rolfing session. Because may reveal client’s ability to organically assimilate of this focus, it is essential that a student t h a t w h a t information and experiences pertaining enters the training with a basic grasp of appears to be to structural work. Skills for working with the interwoven nature of the structural and in the tissue coordination and perception are taught functional aspects of our work. a c t u a l l y throughout the entire training, but are derives from habits of conflicted motor most refined during the Rolf Movement To answer this question, I will draw from control. Core stabilization illustrates Certification. These skills provide a Certified ideas and concepts articulated by various this concept. Many spinal fixations are Rolfer™ with techniques that enhance the movement faculty members, in order to chronic because of faulty patterns in integrative aspects of a Rolfing® series. In offer an answer that is comprehensive coordination. Core stability is an expression what follows, I will describe three types and reflects the current evolution of of coordinative integrity. When stability fails, of movement interventions along with Rolf Movement work. I will give only a as in chronic low back pain, Rolfing offers a some theoretical background relevant to broad overview, as the details are better way to recover it through movement. It is movement work in the training of Rolfers. conveyed through training and mentorship not enough to free fixations in the tissues avenues. because if we do not also free the fixations Pre-Movement in movement patterns, the tissue releases The first exposure that many students have First there is the art of making an intervention will either be ineffective or the patterns will to Rolf Movement is during their five-session at the level of “pre-movement.” Pre- re-create themselves over time. movement series that is required for entry movement is how our body orients in into the training. Through experiencing 2. While structural Rolfing provides the preparation for movement. It happens this series, the Rolf Movement faculty necessary conditions for the Line to emerge, the beneath our conscious awareness and would like a prospective student to gain a movement work gives life to the Line.2 precedes the actual action. Adaptable pre- basic understanding of the following three movements orient us skillfully in gravity fundamental concepts: The Rolfing “Line” is an aliveness to context and are harmonious with the demands of expressed through the attitude of posture. 1. The movement work frees fixations in patterns the movement. For example, a good batter Awakening this aliveness is the enduring of movement while the structural work frees grounds for appropriate stability while at goal of Rolfing and Rolf Movement. fixations in the tissues.1 the same time orients skillfully in space for a Aliveness to context is rekindled over and powerful swing. The degree to which all of Rolf Movement work and structural Rolfing over when we understand and develop a this happens occurs in a split second based have a reciprocal effect on each other. The kinesthetic sense of gravity and support on the batter’s assessment of the direction, from the ground, along with a felt sense

 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 ColumnS timing and velocity of the pitcher’s pitched more fundamental than our relationship person is different and as practitioners we ball. with mother. Deep aspects of our psychic, adapt and respond, so that we may offer physical, and experiential memory are the widest range and depth in experience. Our pre-movements become entrenched, based upon our perceived relationship with What works for one person may or may not just like tissue fixations, and are constantly gravity, so we are not working in superficial have any relevance to another. As Jim Asher repeated in many circumstances. Once the waters when we intervene at the level of the says, “you just have to have lots of tools in pre-movement is set up, the actions that pre-movement. your toolbox.” follow will be organized around that set of conditions. For example, a walk across the room may be preceded by contraction Comparison Bridge-Building in part of the diaphragm. In order to find A second key point in Rolf Movement Once we have assisted the client in finding an organic option for a shift in gait, the theory is the technique of comparison. It an effective cue or awareness, he/she needs practitioner must first address the pre- is not enough for the Rolfer to simply say to anchor it for himself/herself. Practicing movement, the tiny clutch in the breathing “...now you are walking differently.” For a the sensations of a new movement pattern muscle. Any movement cues that do not client to fully own the change, he/she needs in “real time” situations will enable the first address this primary issue will lay to arrive at the conclusion himself/herself. client to find support in the midst of daily on top of it, causing the gait changes to This is fundamental in order for the client life. Some changes happen magically. seem awkward or artificial. Unless the to integrate the new coordinative option Others take time to integrate. For the habitual pre-movement is addressed, a into daily life: the shift in perception must latter situations, we encourage the client true responsive contralateral gait will not include ownership. One way to foster this in taking responsibility for the process emerge. awareness is through comparison of the between sessions. This is a vital aspect of In order to address this issue, the Rolfer can “old pattern” with the new one. Frequently bridge-building. when we ask clients to go back into the old contribute an image, a sensory experience, It is important to remember that we don’t pattern of moving, they don’t want to do or an exercise that more fully connects wish to “fix” or take away any of the client’s it. We may not want them to do it, either. the client to the ground and space. As the options for movement, no matter how We both may be afraid that the new option client finds appropriate stability through ineffective they may seem to us. We are will get lost, but exactly the opposite is true. better gravity orientation, the body chooses self-regulating systems with an affinity for When we revisit the old pattern we have a different support strategy in its pre- health, so when we facilitate an experience the opportunity to gain the tools to find movement. Diaphragmatic tension, an that allows a client to become acquainted and maintain the new option. We improve inefficient form of preparation for weight with the potential for increased ease and the chances for the new option to survive. shift, is replaced by better support in vitality, along with the freedom and tools When we ask a client to “notice what is the preparation to walk. The client’s restriction to find it for himself/herself, we provide a very first thing that happens in your body may just be a habit, may be part of a belief session that is as rich in education as it is when you just think about going back to system, or may originate from an old in therapeutics. injury. Whatever the cause, the practitioner the old pattern?,” he/she gains awareness needs to work with the client to discover a of his/her pre-movement. In this moment The inclusion of coordination and perception different option for initiating movement, the option for change can emerge through is essential to the study of structural Rolfing® because the current one influences the the client’s own awareness. because it increases the effectiveness of the work. Structural Integration is “structural” person’s relationship with gravity by As practitioners, we assist the client in to the degree to which the underlying impeding ease in flow. Intervening at the anchoring the new movement pattern structure of our movement in relation to level of the pre-movement can remove a by offering various options for images, gravity is meaningfully addressed. Rolf major inhibition to contralateral gait. information, and awareness that have the Movement Integration is a complex and best potential to inspire change. As we have It is essential to find the image, experience multi-dimensional process, which helps mentioned, the pivotal opportunity to do so or information that precisely addresses the foster a broader vision of the far-reaching is at the time of pre-movement. Interventions individual client’s pre-movement pattern. To potential of our work. this end, the practitioner must find avenues that affect a client’s relationship with gravity help to foster change that not of communication that connect well to each End Notes individual. For lasting and effective change, only transforms the actual movement, the client must understand, embrace and but also facilitates different conditions for 1. Caspari, Monica, “The Functional desire the new movement option. This movement. If I sense the floor easily coming Rationale of the Recipe,” Structural type of intervention doesn’t follow a up to meet me, instead of having to “do” Integration, March, 2005, pp. 4-24. something in order to meet the floor, my formula. Rather it is more of an art that 2. Ibid. takes its cue from listening to how the client worldview also changes. I have allowed the describes his or her experience, how he or world to touch me, and that is a different 3. Ibid. place in which to live. Perhaps I might she builds the world. Our pre-movements Note: The author appreciates the collaboration of are organized at a pre-conscious level: need to increase my tonus by accelerating the force of my reaching, not only to the the movement faculty and consultation with and our relationship with gravity percolates edits by Mary Bond and Kevin Frank. through multiple aspects of our being. ground, but through the ground. My world Moshe Feldenkrais indicated that our now has expanded through the surfaces relationship with gravity precedes and is under and around me. The point is that each

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will know, within one or two sessions, that something real and valuable is happening. They like it when I tell them that there is very little to take on faith: they have taken too much on faith already. After getting my certification in May 1998, In My Practice I put my sign out in Halifax, expecting Editor’s Note: In this issue we feature two Rolfers in Canada, on opposite sides of the country, to set the local bodywork scene on fire. each the pioneering Rolfer in his region. The only Rolfer east of Montreal! It didn’t happen that way. When came to Halifax in 1980, there was one chiropractor and two massage therapists, then gradually a few more massage therapists, then a Rolfing in Halifax plentitude after two massage therapy By John Panter, Certified Rolfer™ schools opened between 1996 and 2002 and started churning out graduates. People around here have heard of massage. They first applied for the training at the Rolf haven’t heard of Rolfing. IInstitute of Structural Integration® in On top of that, work-based health plans 1996, at the age of fifty-two. For twenty-five will pay for massage (the biggest of them, years prior to that, I had been involved in Blue Cross, classes Rolfing as massage), but the Taoist Tai Chi Society®, an organization only accept receipts from members of one dedicated to practicing and promoting of the local associations. These associations the teachings of the Taoist monk Master require training adhering to the Canadian Moy Lin Shin, who had come to Toronto standard of 2,200 hours (recently raised to in 1970. I started with him in January 1971, 2,500). So growth of my business has been which makes me the most senior member slow. People try all of the other services first, of what is now a worldwide charitable and either get what they think they need or organization. For nine years I worked to give up. Many balk at the first mention of establish Taoist Tai Chi® in several cities money, having grown up with the idea of around Southern Ontario, then in 1980, at free basic health care. Master Moy’s request, I moved to Halifax, and for fifteen years founded clubs in the From a history study trip to Europe I’m not the only one who has had this four provinces of Atlantic Canada. During in 2006, at the Festival of the Five- problem. There have been other Rolfers and this time I supported myself by running a Petaled Rose in Krumlov in the Guild practitioners here. Some are still here small bookstore, Far East Books, dealing in Czech Republic. I am costumed as a but are not practicing. The ones who have Eastern and alternative health and spiritual magistrate from the 15th century. stayed around are doing other modalities disciplines. because their Rolfing® income was not adequate. I have been spending a lot on and biochemistry, and astounded myself by By 1995, Taoist Tai Chi was well-enough publicity, with inadequate results. I wish getting a final grade of 91% on the anatomy, established in the Atlantic region that it there were more Rolfers around here to help the highest mark I had ever scored in could keep going without me turning the get the concept of Rolfing out to the very anything academic. Two days after that I crank everyday and I started to look around deeply cautious people in the Maritimes. for a source of income. Figuring that I was was on the plane to Boulder, and five days too old to go back into the job market, I later I was doing exactly the same material Some geography is probably needed thought that a portable health practice every morning on Pearl Street. here. There are four provinces in what is known as Atlantic Canada. Three of would be the way to go. Rolfing® came to Not to review the training experiences, these; Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and mind through two sources. One was that a which everyone reading this will have in Prince Edward Island, constitute what are friend of mine from the early Tai Chi days common, but one feature of the work that known as the Maritime Provinces. They in Toronto had received Rolfing and the impressed me was that it does get results were original members at Confederation differences in his structure and movement right away. This is a strong selling point in 1867. Newfoundland, now officially were apparent. The other was that I had when I am interviewing first-time clients, “Newfoundland and Labrador” was a carried some Rolfing books in the store, and or even just answering inquiries. Many of separate British colony until 1949. At the was intrigued that some of the ideas were the people who inquire about Rolfing have time of Confederation, Halifax, the capital close to ones I had been groping towards as been through the mill of orthodox and of Nova Scotia, and Saint John, the largest I tried to find solutions to teaching problems “alternate” practitioners, and, to extend city in New Brunswick, were the largest and in Tai Chi. the metaphor, are feeling somewhat ground most prosperous cities in what was then down. I usually tell them that it going to In preparation for the training in Boulder, called British North America. Ever since take the complete Ten Series or more to get I spent two academic terms (Halifax has then, they have been in decline relative to six universities) taking courses in anatomy them where they want to go, but that they

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“the West” (i.e., the rest of Canada). There One client I had was a horse-farmer whose This triumph, however, was short-lived. are about a million people in Nova Scotia horse kept beating her up. Her right leg was Before the training was over, whether from and approximately another million in the so bad that I took four times on her fourth receiving Rolfing sessions or the in-class other three, all spread over one and a half hour. One time she could hardly walk and I work or something else, my legs degraded time zones and a north-south extent from had to carry her up the clinic stairs. After we to a degree that I could hardly do any Tai Chi below the forty-fifth parallel to above the were done, she thanked me for giving her at all. I could not bear weight on a bent leg. I Arctic circle. life back to her. In a way it’s too bad I’m not had difficulty walking down stairs – instead a horsey type; there would be lots of call for of just stepping down, I had to hop down. Halifax has about 250,000 people since the Rolfing of equines in Nova Scotia. Going up stairs was almost as difficult. amalgamation a few years ago. Until then My emotional reactions changed. I became the main centers, Halifax, Dartmouth and Another client was recommended to me by cautious and picky in my movements. Bedford-Sackville, contained about 120,000. her doctor, a personal friend of mine who No one – whether at the Institute, or my The difference is partly accounted for by practices near Saint John. She was out of Rolfer for advanced sessions – was able growth, partly by incorporating previously work because she was incapable of standing to help, or even understand the problem. rural areas into the city. The city has an for very long. She would drive in once a Finally I fumbled my way into a few artistic and academic layer overlaying older month or so, when her old car could make techniques that allowed me to solve most fishing, farming, shipping and military it through the winter weather – it takes of the problem. I think now that there were strata. about five hours to drive in good weather. two things happening at the same time: We did ten sessions, but not a straight series. Having more time on my hands than I the retinaculae at the knees (particularly I doubled #3 and #6, and twice when she really wanted, and having gotten the idea the lateral ones) were trapping the vastus was in such great pain that she would not that it was possible for me to do well in tendons, and nerves were trapped along the have been able to stand Rolfing, at least the academic pursuits, I kept on taking courses, line of the IT band. (I thank Rolfer Michael way I do it, we just did some craniosacral. at first in directly related material like Vilain for the clue on this second issue. His My craniosacral is pretty poor, I just took physiology and biochemistry, and then in forum postings have been illuminating.) one class of the Upledger program, but it psychology and history. In 2005, at the age These things have mostly resolved now, seemed to help. She stopped coming, and of sixty, I completed a B.Sc. in Psychology but they were damnably inconvenient and I later heard from the doctor friend that at Dalhousie, the biggest of the universities frustrating for several years. she had gotten back to work. That’s alright here, and as I type (April 20) I have just with me. The second issue is that I developed finished my last final for a B.A. in History. I Dupuytren’s contractures, with nodules have been accepted for M.A. work in history A big issue, that often gets raised, is the in the palms appearing about six years next year. I regret that I have never been able question of pain. Even people who are ago. Not liking the option of surgery that to get ahead of expenses enough to take the unclear about what Rolfing is have heard could take six weeks to heal, I started Advanced Rolfing® training. It is not the cost that “it hurts.” The line I use is that there working my hands myself, mostly through of the courses so much as the transportation are painless Rolfers. I have had clients who stretching, done slowly with the idea of and accommodation expenses. I have been had previous work from some of them (no stimulating lengthwise growth in the able to afford university courses by dint of names!) and I couldn’t tell they had received structures involved. I think this has worked provincial and federal student loans. They Rolfing. I tell them I can work painlessly, but out to my advantage. I still have complete will fund you to two bachelor’s degrees, it will take four times as long to get results, extension of my fingers, for one thing. For one trade school certificate (guess which and cost them four times as much. Then I another, Dupuytren’s is actually a genetic one), and one master’s, coming up. I think invoke an old Canadian joke and say, “Pain leftover from our anthropoid ancestors. I am going to die owing a pile of money. if necessary, but not necessarily pain.” Most In the great and lesser apes, the Palmaris understand this and are cool with it. As far as my Rolfing work is concerned, I longus muscles, which originate above the find it very gratifying that I can help people, Although my health is excellent, I’ve elbow, insert in the palmar fascia and are some of whom had given up hope. As I had a few challenges over the years that too short to allow both elbow and wrist to mentioned above, I try to work through have forced me to work with my own be extended simultaneously, providing a the Ten Series. Many people come to me body, sometimes thrown to my own set of swinging hooks. with very serious deficits that the strict resourcefulness to find solutions. The For Dupuytren’s subjects who, like myself, series does not adequately address. Many first issue was my legs, which had done also have the Palmaris longus, there is the have been seriously injured, either in single literally millions of repetitions of exercises potential for very strong hands, a great incidents or cumulatively. I often find from Taoist Tai Chi (which as a discipline advantage to a Rolfer. Many people have that a single session is inadequate to gain emphasizes leg-strength) over twenty-five remarked not only on the strength but the the results needed in a particular “hour.” years before I began Rolfing training. I heat of my hands. When you have surplus Especially, in the “third hour,” many clients remember clearly the shock when, walking strength to work with, you can relax more, have so much stuff built up along the IT home after receiving my third hour of and your touch becomes less strenuous and band and abductors that it will not clear out Rolfing, I realized that my leg strength had more effective. Taoist Tai Chi also helps a lot in one go. Then I double the session, that is doubled. Disassociating the hamstrings with this. The sophisticated body mechanics work up to the iliac crests on both sides in from the quads had taken out a major allow you to develop remarkable amounts the first session, then repeat that and finish power-wasting conflict between large of force with little intended effort. the sidelines in the second. In a few extreme muscle groups. cases, the third hour has needed more. The third body issue was that I developed

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org  ColumnS cataracts a few years ago. Here I opted for otherwise theoretical knowledge that body therapeutic relationship. (See, I remember surgery, which was smooth and quick, with and mind form a mutually dependent that piece of jargon.) plastic lenses that go in folded up through couple. What affects one affects the other. Taken all in all, it has been a good ten years a tiny incision that heals fast. I now have I have to say that the effect of this on my as a Rolfer. Being used to living frugally, the 40/20 vision. practice has been to increase the level of lack of enormous income does not bother empathy I can project. It is one thing to be These three episodes – particularly the me. Intellectually and occupationally it sympathetic, but when clients comes in leg and eye issues – have allowed me to has all been very gratifying. I am glad and limping and I say I know how they feel, they experience firsthand the emotional and proud to be able to identify myself as a can tell that it really is true. This helps build cognitive changes that arise from very Rolfer. the kind of bonding that make a successful basic physical deficits. This reinforces my

A “North of 60” Rolfer By Norman Holler, Certified Advanced Rolfer™

Wherever you go there you are. that all humans possess. I went to check my Kermit the Frog, uttered somewhere on “edge,” and because I believe we all need to Sesame Street circa 1971 step out of the comfort of familiarity, take Well, in 2008, here I are, a Rolfer in risks, integrate our successes, and embrace Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. After thirty- our failures, lest we turn into, or forever four years of, for the most part, experiencing remain, spiritual pudding, Vini, vidi, vici myself and collecting my mail here, I am – I did. still slightly surprised, amused, grateful, I feel blessed to find myself doing the work and most definitely pleased about my that I do, and living here. Really, the best circumstances. aspect of this work is that many really fine We all have to start somewhere in order to and beautiful beings come to see me. I teach get to where we are. Sometimes we spin them. They teach me. We teach what we our tires along the way, or bump ourselves need to learn. I make a comfortable enough into walls (often of our own making), and living working three to four days a week. seem to be going nowhere. But I accept that I brought cross country skiing into my life those bumps and spins are often integral to about fourteen years ago, and it has been our process. Sometimes we find a channel, one of the most significant life-changing or Tao, that carries us along, almost in features in my life. Skiing has allowed me spite of ourselves. And sometimes we just to experience joy in ways that I could not need to get out of our own way in order have imagined. Skiing, then road and trail to move along our path. I’ll need a few workshop entitled “Emotional Sobriety for cycling in the summer, has brought me into more years to sense whether I am sinking, Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional a relationship with the seasons, the stars, floating, or being swept along for a ride. It Parents” (I guess that includes all of us), the skies, the weather, and myself, in ways seems pretty good though. But illusion and with Dr. Alan Hunt, was a major factor in that I might have easily missed. Those times delusion play strong suits, and the mind is helping me find a way of honestly meeting out of doors in all sorts of weather have so gullible. Whatever the story, my working myself so that I could honestly meet others. served me well with many good thoughts, background had something to do with my I will be forever grateful to the spirit of a seemingly more enlivened spirit, and a getting here. Optician, smelter worker, Esalen, and Dr. Hunt. body that has more vitality than it might Chrysler assembly-line worker, stevedore, otherwise have found. That is good. I also took a leave form The Yukon to live road builder, bridge builder, industrial first and practice Rolfing® in Rome, Italy for a Whitehorse is the capital city of Yukon, or aid, ambulance service EMT, whole foods year and a half. I had done my Advanced The Yukon, as many of us still like to say. store operator, masseur, thespian, Rolfer. All Rolfing training there in 1996, and felt The population is now around 24,500, with woven into a life with loves, two children, confident at the time that I could “make the total Yukon population being around drama, chaos, bliss, angst, and many magic myself happen” in the “Eternal City,” if 33,000, with a territorial landmass 50,000 moments. I were to return. Lyn, my mate of twenty square miles larger than California’s. This Some time out at Esalen served me well. years, and I went back in 1998. I set up my last season we had 1,056 paid members in Three, then nine months of washing dishes, practice there, albeit skating on an “edge” the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club. The and doing “personal work” while there, of being legal, and drew from the common club has over sixty kilometers of groomed were big in my life. A particular month-long well of resourcefulness and adaptability trails, and the system is considered to be in the top five across Canada. I’ll sometimes go

 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 ColumnS for a ski at 2:00 in the morning if I happen to pretty okay about most things in my life. wake up, the temperature is about – 5 C, and Do I have regrets? Of course. Have I made I know that the trail groomers have been mistakes? Often. Do I carry optimism? out (I’ve been a groomer for six years). It’s Always! And through it all I feel that I offer such joy to be out at that time on perfectly a good service to my community through groomed trails. I feel blessed. I go to many the work that I do, and add something good thoughts on those trails. positive to the collective spirit. It’s the least I can do for a place that has served me well. The word Yukon means Great River in Life is good. Here I are. I am pleased. the Gwich’in language. Whitehorse is near the headwaters of the Yukon River, which is 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) long, emptying into the Bering Sea. Salmon swim those long miles, basically without eating, to come here, spawn, then die. Whitehorse is a very good place to live. Yukon is a spectacular place to live. The three northern territories, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, have “Strong Man” art piece, by Isaac Iqouluq, their southern boundaries at the 60th an Eastern Arctic artist (photographed by parallel. So “up here” we often say that we John Davis), at Norman’s session room live “North of 60.” And while it doesn’t entrance. happen as much as it did when I moved here, occasionally you might hear someone say “I’ve been ‘Outside,’” meaning that they said “I will.” May I serve them well. had been out of the territory. I’m grateful to all of my “life teachers” On the third Saturday in June there is a who have helped me to find my way to 270-kilometer international bicycle relay this place in my life. One of them was Bill race from Haines Junction, Yukon (located Smythe, who was the instructor in my just outside Kluane National Park) to auditing phase in Boulder. Two things that Haines, Alaska, on the coast. The course he said have stuck with me, and I revisit goes through glacier-scraped mountain them often. One of the stories, (or myths), passes, vast stretches above treeline, and was about how Mr. Takahashi, the man river valleys. Last year there were 1,237 behind modern Aikido, would be attacked riders. I’ve done the event (I try not to call by five or six of his students in hisdojo , and it a “race” lest my inner race-demon take he would dispatch them all to the floor in over my soul) ten or eleven times in the a few seconds. His students would say four-person category. It’s such a blast, in “Sensei Takahashi, how is that you never spite of sometimes having to fight through lose your center?” To which he would reply, snow and winds on the summit, and the “Oh no, I lose my center very often, but I occasional grizzly bear sighting. Most come back very quickly.” That “landed” often though, the weather is brilliant, and somewhere in that deep place that wants the bears keep their distance. Last year our to put me on track. And the other gem was team name was Live Now Die Happy. This his comment about acupuncture: “It is not year it will be Live Now Die Later. Two so much about where you put the needle, years ago I named it, Carpe Diem Memento but more about where you are when you put Mori. Do you see a theme? the needle in”. Lyn and I bought our first house together Another “life teacher” was my friend and six years ago, and I created a space for my colleague, Tara Detwiler, who emphasized studio in it a short while later. It’s a very the importance of meeting clients without a good downtown house. It works really fixed agenda. In other words, meeting them well for both of us. My studio is great. Our where they’re at. That jived with my psyche. kitchen is great. Our yard is a treat. I could I check into that place often. Yet sometimes die happy here. But I’m in no hurry. I have I miss that meeting place when I get lazy, or jokingly quipped to some of my clients, clumsy. Hopefully less than I used to. “I wonder how many people are going to come and see me as a ninety-three-year old Life teachers, experience, bumps, spins, Rolfer™, so that I can pay the mortgage.” pragmatism, “free rides”, lots of work, and Heart-touchingly, some of my clients have a willingness to step out of my comfort zone, have brought me to a place where I’m

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org  Rolfing® and PERCEPTION

foreground and background, we also see these objects as something. We see this thing as a chair, or that thing as a tree, and that as a mountain, etc. Perhaps you remember reading the comic section of the newspaper as a child and The Disclosive enjoying the various word and visual puzzles. Often there were drawings that, on first inspection, looked like a random bunch of squiggles and lines. But the caption Power of Feeling directed you to find a figure, perhaps By Jeffrey Maitland, Ph.D., Certified Advanced Rolfer™ a cat, in the drawing. As you looked more carefully, suddenly the apparently meaningless squiggles congealed into hilosophy and science begin with order than perceiving the redness of an the figure of a cat. Finding the cat in the Pthe enigma we are to ourselves. One apple or the chirping of a bird. Although it squiggles is coming to see something as mystery that continues to fascinate us is our is not usually recognized for what it is, this something – something that was not purely own perceptual prowess. Its relevance to the different order of perception is part of our available to the senses alone. practice of holistic somatic therapy cannot everyday experience. To pick an extreme be overestimated. Indeed, it is not much of example: have you ever experienced a When you saw the cat, you didn’t add the an exaggeration to say that perception is sense of dread before the occurrence of cat to the drawing or see something that was everything. As any experienced practitioner an unpredictable but impending disaster? hidden behind the drawing. No new lines will attest, the better your perceptual skills We don’t know how we perceived it, but were added to the drawing. By means of become the better practitioner you become. we perceived it nonetheless. The best we an integration of the sensory and cognitive, Unfortunately, the kind of perceptual vitality seem to be able to say is that we felt it. you suddenly saw what was there all along. and acumen required to master a holistic The ability to perceive such occurrences Your intentionality shifted and you saw the practice such as Rolfing®, biodynamic seems to rely on some mysterious faculty cat by means of the concept cat. You didn’t craniosacral therapy, or energy healing is of sensing other than our five senses. The see and then formulate the concept. Having a highly refined art that is neither easy to same mysterious faculty of sensing seems the concept is what rendered the cat visible. articulate nor teach. to be at work when we perceive qualities It brought forth your perception. In a sense, such as integration, wholeness, thwarts to The practice of holistic somatic therapy you had to focus not only your eyes but also wholeness, organic unity, and the body’s requires holistic eyes. It is not enough your understanding to perceive the cat. At morphological imperative. But if we don’t to be able to determine and list somatic the same time, it is important to understand perceive these qualities with our senses dysfunctions. In order to facilitate that when you first saw the drawing as a alone, how do we perceive them? What is appropriate global change, you also must bunch of squiggles you were also seeing it the nature of this kind of perception? be able to perceive how individual somatic as something – as a bunch of squiggles. dysfunctions relate to the whole and This simple example of seeing the cat in A Short Phenomenology are expressions of the morphological the drawing contains an important insight: imperative of the whole person. There is a of Perception every act of perception, whether looking, profoundly important difference between The first step toward answering these listening, smelling, tasting, or touching, is the perceptual skills required to determine important questions requires an elucidation also already an act of understanding. Just as that a muscle is short or that a femur is of the nature of perception in general. To light illuminates the darkness by showing externally rotated and the perceptual this end, we will draw on the insights us aspects of what is already there, our skills required to perceive wholeness or of phenomenology and its discovery of very act of looking or hearing or smelling a client’s morphological imperative. It is intentionality to illuminate the dimensions makes the world appear. By actively easy enough to see that one shoulder is of perception that are relevant to our seeking meaning, as if it were a searchlight lower than another, but how do you see its discussion. extending out beyond itself, our perceptual- significance in relationship to the whole understanding highlights aspects of reality, person? How do you perceive thwarts One of the more amazing feats of our thereby making it possible for these to wholeness? How do you perceive consciousness is found in the remarkable aspects to be perceived as something. By integration? In the midst of the many way we perceive the world. We humans bringing forth particular aspects of our problems, structural and otherwise, that a do not perceive with our senses alone. In autochthonous reality, this interpretive client can manifest, how do you perceive a very real way, our mind is also an organ activity of perceptual-highlighting renders the morphological imperative that is living of perception. We perceive by means of an the human world perceivable. to express itself? Central to the practice integration of mind and senses. As a result, of holistic somatic therapy is the ability our perception of the objects of our world is There is more to seeing than meets the to perceive such qualities as integration, cognitive and interpretive. Because of our eye, as a clever philosopher once said. But, wholeness, and thwarts to wholeness. But great conceptual abilities, we are capable aspect-seeing is not limited to the eyes perceiving these qualities is of a different of what has come to be called aspect-seeing. alone. All of our senses are dominated by We not only see objects in the context of a it. We hear that sound as a train whistle,

 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION feel that sensation as the edge of a knife, the flower, but not of your attending to bell, so too our feeling-perception reveals taste that morsel as a steamed carrot, smell it. Nor do we often attended to the fact certain qualities of our situation that would that odor as gasoline fumes, and so forth. that we are attending to something. But, not otherwise be available to us. Our feeling Furthermore, aspect-seeing should not intentionality can be easily discovered in nature perceives actual qualities inherent to be considered as some sort of an illusion experience. Our example of finding the cat our situation. The threatening or dangerous contributed by our mind and arbitrarily in the drawing demonstrates the workings quality is there in the room and we perceive imposed on reality. Aspect-seeing reveals of intentionality. All that was required to it by means of our feeling. Unlike the fear aspects of reality that would go unperceived see the cat was the simple act of intending that this quality might arouse in us, it is were we dependent on our senses alone. At to see a cat. not a subjective state that we project onto the same time, we should not lose sight the situation. It is an objective quality of of the fact that our perception of aspects Perceiving with Feeling the situation that we perceive by means are largely conventional. What aspects we of feeling. perceive depend on what our senses permit With this discussion of intentionality and If the claim that we can perceive objective us to actually see, the contexts in which they aspect-seeing behind us, let’s begin our qualities of a situation by means of feeling appear, our needs, our linguistic habits, and investigation into feeling-perception with seems somewhat bizarre, it is probably due what we and our culture deem important an example. Have you ever experienced to embracing the unexamined assumption and significant at the time, as well as the entering a room full of people and suddenly that feelings by their very nature are nascent forms, figures, and regularities knowing something is not quite right? subjective and nothing as subjective as that arise from the autochthonous reality You clearly know something is amiss, but feelings can make any claim to objectivity. of which we are a part and in which we how you know is something of a puzzle. In order to see through the limitations of participate. You don’t know it because you deduced it from any behavioral cues. You don’t know this assumption, we need to look at some As the explication of aspect-seeing clearly it because you saw it, heard it, smelled it, examples of feelings that are truly subjective demonstrates, we are much less passive tasted it, or touched it. Somehow you just to see how they differ from feelings that receivers of incoming data and much more know. When most people are asked how reveal objective qualities of a situation. active interrogators reaching out, and they know such things, they usually don’t Let’s begin by noticing that we use the groping for variegated contours of meaning what to say. They don’t know how they word feeling to cover a wide variety of or sense. True, we first have to receive the know. Perceiving the things of the world by experiences. Of our emotions we say we feel object of perception. But also embedded means of our senses seems straightforward sad or angry. We feel bodily sensations such in every act of perception is an unspoken and commonplace. But perceiving that as pains, tickles, and itches. When we are question, “What is that?” If an object is something is amiss, while commonplace, is moody, we say we feel bored or blasé. When familiar, you typically do not notice your hardly straightforward. Part of the reason we have a premonition or intuition, we say interrogating orientation. But if it is an we have trouble understanding this kind we feel certain the time is right or feel that unfamiliar object, you easily recognize your of perception is because it doesn’t seem the solution to a problem is to be found in attempt to figure out what you are looking to involve any of our five senses in the a particular this direction. We feel justified at. Recall the above example of finding the way ordinary perception does. Keeping in making a demand. We feel tired or out of cat. Once you understood there was a cat in mind that perception is the integration sorts. We feel hungry or full. We feel danger to be found, you were able to shift your of the cognitive and sensory, we can say in a situation or have a good feeling about intention/understanding to see it. that we perceive a flower with our eyes, what is happening. All of these examples hear a sound with our ears, smell an odor This never-ending activity of looking are part of our feeling nature and examples with our nose, relish a strawberry with our for meaning and sense, of perceiving of what we mean by subjective states. aspects, of being solicited by a world and sense of taste, and feel a rough cloth with Our feelings are merely subjective when directing ourselves toward a world, is our sense of touch. But with what sense or they express something about us and do not known in the practice of phenomenology senses do we perceive that something is make any claim to be true for others. The as intentionality. As a way to characterize amiss? It is tempting to say that we know merely subjective cannot be universalized. the meaning-bearing intentional capacity of such things by means of intuition. But while If I am feeling tired and upset while consciousness, phenomenologists say that this answer is not entirely off the mark, it listening to a piece of music you are finding consciousness is always the consciousness is not very illuminating because we don’t thrilling, you would rightly dismiss my of something. Intentionality is an essential really understand what intuition is. As a dislike of the music as subjective. Suppose structure of every form of consciousness. result, the answer ends up explaining one someone close to you died while you Intention, therefore, is just one example of baffling phenomenon in terms of another. were listening to the fourth movement of intentionality. Daydreaming, anger, fear, A related, more satisfying answer is that Beethoven’s Ninth symphony, The Ode to sadness, lust, problem-solving, hope, faith, we just feel it. Although it does not sound Joy. You probably would not be able to charity, forgiveness, feelings, negotiation, like much of an advance over the appeal listen to it again without feeling sad. In abstract thinking (indeed, all forms of to intuition, when we look more closely such a case, the sadness belongs to you not thinking), gardening, perception, and so at our feeling nature, it turns out that it is to the music and your response is entirely on are all forms of intentionality. actually a form of perception just as capable of disclosing aspects of reality as any of our subjective. The fact that the music makes Ordinarily, we take no notice of the five senses. Loosely speaking, just as our you sad does not mean the music is actually intentional capacity of consciousness. eyes reveal to us the redness of an apple sad. It means the music seems sad to you When you see a flower you are aware of or our ears reveal the piercing sound of a because you are projecting your personal

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org  Rolfing® and PERCEPTION feelings onto it. Or imagine a situation in this critical distinction becomes easier the origin. True, we need our senses to perceive which you like chocolate ice cream and I freer you become of your own conflicts art. But unless we are moved by what we like vanilla. There can be no real dispute as and fixations. If you were already in a tizzy perceive, we are not truly appreciating it. to which flavor is the best, because we are before beginning the conversation, it will be When we are moved by a piece of music, only expressing our subjective preferences. more difficult to sort out which feelings are we do not project our feelings onto the These examples of the merely subjective disclosive and which are merely subjective. music; we feel-perceive actual qualities are quite different from perceiving that But with practice, the distinction eventually in the music. Without our ability to feel- something is amiss by means of feeling. becomes much clearer in your experience perceive these qualities, we could never When your feelings are merely subjective, and you easily recognize whether you are fully appreciate music. The ears alone are they say something about you. When projecting your subjective state onto the not capable of revealing these qualities. you perceive with your feelings, they situation or perceiving objective qualities And the mind alone is not capable of say something about your surroundings, with your feeling nature. perceiving these qualities. It is only when what is not you. Since we experience the our mind, senses, and feeling nature work Consider some other examples of how disclosive power of feeling differently from together that we truly appreciate art. As we we perceive with our feeling nature. Can how we experience the disclosive power shall see, the ability to perceive wholeness you recall some particularly memorable of sight, this point is not always easy to and integration is very similar to aesthetic experiences with nature? Perhaps you went grasp at first. When you see a flower in the appreciation in that both require the on a hike with friends on a beautiful spring garden, most of the time you see it as other integration of our cognitive, sensory, and day. Against a spacious blue sky, do you than yourself and “over there.” When you feeling nature. Since poetry can exemplify remember how the world was bursting with perceive that something is amiss, you feel that of which it speaks, it is often the best light and color and how you felt as you and it “over here” and in yourself. There is no way to capture what it is like to feel-perceive your friends gave yourselves completely distance between you and it. You feel it the actual quality of our surroundings. For to the surroundings? Everyone perceived as if it were your own feeling. One of the example, feel the simple beauty captured this day in the same way. All agreed that it critical differences between perceiving with in the following line from a sonnet by L. was wondrous. This agreement as to what feeling and, say, perceiving with your eyes Hunt (1832): “Catching your heart up with everyone’s feeling nature revealed is no is that feeling-perception is always non- the feel of June.”1 Or contemplate Winter’s different, in principle, than the agreement dualistic and participatory. As a result, cold bouquet of absence in Wallace Stevens’ that the car you were driving was a black since we experience the quality of the famous poem, “The Snow Man.”2 SUV. room in ourselves, we often misconstrue it One must have a mind of winter as nothing more than our own subjective Try another feeling experiment. Recall some To regard the frost and the boughs response and dismiss it as having no memorable moments from your past and Of the pine trees crusted with snow; objective validity. notice how each memory is often saturated with different subtle feelings, which you And have been cold a long time It takes a little practice to learn how to are now feeling. Although these feelings To behold the junipers shagged with distinguish between feelings that are are almost impossible to put into words, ice, merely subjective and feelings that reveal they are good examples of how we perceive The spruces rough in the distant glitter a quality of your surroundings. Perhaps with feeling. Look carefully and you will you have experienced having a pleasant Of the January sun; and not to think see that they are not examples of merely conversation when suddenly you feel as Of any misery in the sound of the subjective feelings. They do not just happen though something went terribly wrong. wind, to accompany your memories, and you You don’t see any indications in the other In the sound of a few leaves, are not projecting them onto these times. person’s face;, you just feel something is Rather, they are the objective qualities of Which is the sound of the land off. But since the way you know it is by those times in your life which you perceived Full of the same wind feeling it in yourself, you may miss the with your feeling nature and are now That is blowing in the same bare place fact that you are actually feeling the other recalling-feeling. Just as you can remember person’s upset and misapprehend what For the listener, who listens in the the blue sweater you were wearing at the you are feeling as belonging to you alone. snow, time, thanks to your feeling nature, you also If you do not attend to your experience And, nothing himself, beholds can remember-feel these poignant qualities appropriately, you may even think that you Nothing that is not there and the nothing that characterized your situation. are the problem. But instead, if you bring that is. the feeling into reflective awareness and The appreciation of art is a wonderful If you know the mind of winter, the ask yourself, “Is this me or am I perceiving activity in which to catch feeling-perception feelings you are now recalling did not something that is not me?”, you would at work. Art is many things. Among all just belong to you. They were not just quickly realize that you are neither in the the arts perhaps music is best suited for your subjective state. If you gave yourself grips of the merely subjective nor projecting displaying the subtle ineffable ebb and away completely, then you know that the your subjective state onto the situation. flow of human feeling. But at the deepest feelings you felt at these times were the With further reflection, you would come level great art is the exploration and qualities of your surroundings. What these to see that you are actually perceiving an manifestation of human freedom. A great examples demonstrate is that by means objective quality with your feelings. work of art is about the freedom and of your feeling nature you perceive the creativity that brought the work of art into Also, it is worth pointing out that making properties of the situation or context in being. It bears upon its face in its creative

10 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION which you find yourself. You perceive how you continue to create this loving space, array of strain patterns with which she the surroundings actually feel. you often close your eyes as a way to see struggles in relation to her morphological more clearly and to encourage more and imperative. more aspects of your client’s problems to Once More with Feeling Toward the end of this first phase, you show themselves to you. In order to further also began to perceive aspects of her In order to explore more deeply how we expand and deepen your perception, you psychobiological intentionality by means perceive with our feeling nature, let’s take your hands off your client’s head and of feeling. You felt and saw the confidence engage in another feeling experiment. feel-perceive her whole body and energy in her comportment, while at the same Imagine that you are working with a field with your whole body and energy time, sensing her withdrawal, sadness, client with back pain. As a Rolfer, you field. After a time, a perspective begins anger, tiredness, as well as the effect of more than likely begin your session with a to come into focus and you finally get these aspects on her cranium. This kind visual inspection of your client in order to your first glimpse of a unified pattern of of aspect-seeing (or more precisely, aspect- evaluate how well she appropriates gravity. distortion and its relation to the whole: you feeling or feeling as) in which you perceive Your training and years of experience in perceive a cranial shutdown, the lack of a the emotional meaning of a person’s structural, functional, and other relevant clear center line, a bulging out of the energy bearing and structure requires not just the forms of aspect-seeing have given you the field around the lower left region of the integration of the sensory and the cognitive, perceptual skills necessary to make this abdomen coupled with feelings of sadness but also, the integration of your feeling kind of assessment. Since you studied Jan and anger saturating an intensely held strain nature. When you can feel aspects as well as Sultan’s discovery of the Internal/External in the peritoneal sac around the descending see them, your ability to read your client’s Typology, one of the first structural aspects colon that torsions the sacrum, rotates emotional and psychobiological orientation you notice is that her morphology generally the entire pelvis right, pulls the sigmoid is much more accurate than when you tends towards being an external type. As colon is too anterior, and also causes strain deduce them from visual patterns displayed you continue your assessment, you notice in the medial collateral ligaments of the by your client’s body. that she doesn’t have clear centerline, that right knee. As often happens, when your her pelvis is right rotated, her sacrum is eyes are closed, your mind starts to drift In the second phase of your evaluation, you posteriorly torsioned, there is strain in the as if you were in the first stages of sleep. began to rely less on your senses and more left, abdominal region. As you assess her Suddenly, a compelling image of your client on your feeling nature to perceive what psychobiological orientation, you sense being traumatized appears and with the was going on with your client. Much of that she is grounded, and that she comports image comes the conviction that she was the same information appeared, but more herself with confidence and ease. At the ten years old when the incident occurred. of it came to you through your feelings. same time, you feel a sense of withdrawal Notice how all the information you gleaned There is no question, much of what you and sadness in her chest. Then you notice finally congealed into a unified perception perceive as a holistic practitioner comes that she is tired at the same time you feel of her structural, functional, energetic, and from your senses, or to be more precise, that her cranium is in trouble. psychobiological way of being. Although from the integration of the sensory and the In order to bring the information gleaned this process of shifting your intentionality cognitive. But not all. Notice that you can from your assessment to a more full-bodied was more complicated than finding a cat see without your eyes and feel without your perception of her living form, you begin the in the drawing; it is, nevertheless, the same hands. You often closed your eyes in order next phase of your session by letting your process. In the first phase, you were actively to perceive more clearly, for example. Since client’s body show you its problems. As engaged in the process of evaluation. Much you felt what is happening in the lower she lies supine on your table, you gently of the information you gathered about abdomen and pelvis while your hands place your hands on her head using your your client was the direct result of actively were on your client’s cranium, you were favorite vault hold and just wait. Your job, engaging in aspect-seeing, which involved not feeling with your hands alone. Add at this point, is not to have a job. You wait the integration of the cognitive and sensory. to these considerations that you can feel and do nothing. You are no longer actively Recall how you saw that your client was more by not touching your client, and it is trying to assess your client’s structure, a external type, for example. Before you clear that you are not perceiving with your function, energy, or psychobiological learned the Internal/External Typology, senses only – you are also perceiving with intentionality. You don’t even think about you probably would have noticed how the your feeling nature. When you perceive trying to change her for the better. Instead, pelvis was too posterior, how the lumbar your client’s structural problems and her you shift your orientation from trying to and thoracic spines were too flat, how comportment as sad and angry, you are accomplish results and evaluating structure the legs were valgus, and so on. But you see-feeling by means of the integration of to an orientation of allowing what is to wouldn’t have grasped the significance of your cognitive, sensory, and feeling nature. show itself. You simply get out of the way what you saw for the whole structure. You Aspect-seeing and aspect-feeling both by dropping your self. In the vernacular of probably would have seen these aspects involve the cognitive. as individual structural curiosities. You Zen, you return to zero and become one Let’s look more closely at what we actually wouldn’t have understood that what you with your client. By returning to zero, you experience when we perceive with our were seeing was an expression of the simultaneously expand your perceptual feeling nature. Whether you touch your morphological type known as the external field and open a loving space. client or remove your hands from her body, type. But now when you look at your client, when you allow what is to show itself, you The clarity and safety of this clearing makes you clearly see that she is an external type. often feel in your own body where the it possible for the being of your client to As a result, you understand the complicated wordlessly reveal her troubles to you. As problems are in your client’s body. Where

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 11 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION your client has a problem in her body, of something. Central to the analysis of a client’s energy and emotional patterns, typically, you feel a kind of pressure or intentionality is the implied difference thwarts to wholeness, or that something is fullness in the same place in your body. As between the consciousness of an object amiss? Whatever this perceptual system is, you continue to attend to what is showing and the object of consciousness. But since it consists of the integration of our sensory, itself to you, the vague sense of pressure there is no distance between you and what cognitive, feeling nature, and energetic begins to come into focus and you begin you feel-perceive, it seems as though the field. While it is clear that it must involve to feel-see it as an emotional, energetic, difference between the object of your the brain and nervous system (the senses) and structural distortion in the descending feeling-perception (your client’s structural, as well as what we call mind, it is also clear colon that affects the pelvis and right knee. energetic, and emotional aspects) and that it surpasses these systems. Unlike our If you close your eyes, you may also notice your feeling-perception of the object has eyes and ears, it has no specific location. that you also see in your mind’s eye the disappeared. To say it differently, since We are driven to the conclusion that this same pattern of distortion. we perceive these aspects in ourselves, perceptual system is none other than our there is no distance between these aspects body-mind and the field around it. For The more you know, the more aspects you and our perception of them. If there is want of a better term, we can call it the perceive. Aspect-seeing and aspect-feeling no distance, then it seems as though the somatic field. are enriched by knowledge and an open difference between the consciousness of heart. The better you know anatomy and If asked where the seat of perception something and the something of which we the freer you are of emotional fixations and is or which system is responsible for are conscious simply collapses. But if you conflicts, the better you are able to perceive perception, without much hesitation, bring the whole complex of what you are the details of what is being shown to you. most people would probably answer that feeling into reflective awareness, you rather In this example, if you didn’t know the the sensorium is the brain and nervous quickly realize that the lack of distance is anatomy of the organs, the vague sense system. For humans and other vertebrates, not the same as the loss of difference, and of pressure would remain vague sense of this answer seems like reasonable one. But that there is a clear difference between you pressure indicating a problem somewhere our excursion into feeling led us to the and the object of your feeling-perception. in the left lower region of the abdomen. startling conclusion that our perceptual But since you do know the anatomy of If you continue to allow what is to show abilities are greater and more expansive this region of the body, you see-feel more itself, the whole pattern of distortion and than we suspected. They encompass not detail. its relationship to the whole comes into only our feeling nature and whole body, clearer focus and you see-visualize-feel it including the brain and nervous system, As strange as it may sound, your energy as a unified gestalt. Since your client has but extend into the field around our bodies. field is part of your feeling nature. You not emotional issues, you feel her anger or If this observation is correct, we must also only feel with your whole body, you also feel sadness in yourself and it will saturate your conclude that the human sensorium is the with your energy field. You feel in your own perception of and be a part of the unified somatic field. energy field the place where your client’s gestalt. The unified gestalt that constitutes energy is distorted. The more familiar you your perception of your client is the result of become with the energy patterns that are Conclusion integrating the cognitive with your sensory part of your clients’ problems, the more and feeling nature. At one and the same Our phenomenological excursion into clearly you feel them. time, you are one with her condition because the nature of perception has revealed that Even though both involve a cognitive you feel it and separate from her condition the human sensorium is our body-mind- dimension, you may recall that we noted because you see it. Simultaneously, you feel energy complex. It has also given us a an important difference between perceiving your client’s distortions in yourself and see way to understand how we perceive that with your eyes and perceiving with your them in her body. Your perception of your something is amiss upon entering a room feeling nature. When you perceived your client’s condition is not a matter of having and how we perceive a client’s energy client as an external morphological type, two different perceptions, one in yourself and emotional patterns, and wholeness you perceived her as other than yourself and one of her “over there”. Rather, your and thwarts to wholeness. It turns out and “over there.” When you felt your perception is one integrated unified gestalt that the answer to our question of how client’s structural, energetic, and emotional in which you are both one with your client we perceive these seemingly extrasensory difficulties, you felt all of these aspects as and separate from your client. qualities is the simple one we suggested “over here” and in yourself. There was no at the very beginning of our investigation. We perceive these qualities by feeling distance between you and these aspects of In Search of the them. As we have seen, there is more to your client. You felt them as if they were Human Sensorium your own, because your way of knowing perception than what is given to the senses. them is by feeling them in yourself and Although we have elucidated the nature of Seeing something as this or that particular because feeling-perception is non-dualistic, feeling-perception, we still don’t know what kind of thing is the contribution our mind participatory, and not based on reflective part of our anatomy or mind is responsible makes to perception. As the elucidation thinking. for this kind of perception. We perceive a of intentionality demonstrated, human rose with our eyes, hear a sound with our perception involves the integration of But this description raises an apparent ears, smell an odor with our nose, relish the sensory and the cognitive. But, it also problem. It seems to contradict the analysis an apple with our sense of taste, and feel demonstrated some important aspects of intentionality in which it is claimed that a rough edge with our sense of touch. But of perception that are often missed and consciousness is always the consciousness with what sense or senses do we perceive seldom properly appreciated. Not only does

12 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION perception involve the integration of our feeling nature, but also our feeling nature is capable of perceiving aspects of reality that would otherwise not be available to us. In addition, our feeling nature is not only deeply intertwined with and embedded in all our states of awareness, it is also what we share with all living creatures. It is how other forms of life, especially those without a brain or nervous system, perceive their world. Furthermore, what we recognize in ourselves as consciousness is a highly evolved elaboration of the same feeling nature that all life shares. Our feeling nature is a non-dualistic, participatory way of knowing that is not founded in thinking. It permeates every dimension of our being and every level of awareness and is fully integrated with our sensory and cognitive nature. Even though we regularly take no notice of it because our consciousness is dominated by our reflective “I-am-self,” it is always there bringing us into unity with our surroundings and revealing the greater ocean of sentience of which we are a part. On a beautiful autumn day, if you give yourself completely to your surroundings, you become one with everything and see-feel its wondrous quality. If you give yourself away completely, then you know that the feelings you are feeling not only reveal the qualities of the surroundings, but are also how the surroundings feel to themselves.

NOTES 1 Hunt, James Henry Leigh, “To the Grasshopper and the Cricket,” The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 577. 2 Stevens, Wallace, Poems by Wallace Stevens. New York: Vintage Books, 1959, p. 23.

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brain point of view steers our attention to something that is not a thing, something we must imagine. We don’t know what the movement brain is. In that sense it fulfills the role of a black box that, unseen, must be learned about through direct Body as a Movement System experience, by building a sense of what it is. We learn how to speak to/hear from the A Premise for Structural Integration movement brain and thereby get to know its personality. We learn how to see movement By Kevin Frank, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ as choreographed by the movement brain.

Editor’s Note: Reprinted with permission from the 2008 IASI Yearbook. Holding Maps Lightly The movement brain model embraces but doesn’t fully explain the complexities of Abstract: Ida P. Rolf formulated structural integration (SI) based on premises regarding the human motor control. The movement brain biochemical and biomechanical properties of fascia, and regarding the relationship of the Earth’s point of view benefits from a broad outline gravity field and the capacity of human beings to find normal posture. Neuro-scientific research that traces control pathways in neurological and clinical observations of SI practitioners suggest that the logical explanations for why and terms. We know that movement control how SI works will benefit from a shift in conceptual emphasis: SI is a system-oriented approach involves the cerebellum and sensory and for reviving natural coordination, and for working with the now broadly adopted concepts of body motor cortex, plus the system of reflexes image and body schema. The author explores how this shift of thinking changes both the way SI is that operate using the stretch reflex. To taught to students and clients, and the way Rolf’s message is presented to the world. describe movement control in this way, however, one makes no less a fiction than We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. by describing it as movement brain. Such a 1 Norbert Wiener story is incomplete and quickly out of date. The purposely vague image of a movement brain confronts our impulse to control it, or Premises and Conclusions body responds well when it gets appropriate to use the anatomy terms in false ways. We information. This way of thinking provides need a map. To focus on the map is to lose In an archival film, Ida Rolf says that if opportunity for the field of SI to further touch with the intelligence with which we you wish to reach different conclusions develop its potential. wish to work. (To appreciate the complexity you must start with a different premise. of the movement brain, the reader is How do premises affect what we do as SI How do we conceive our work? directed to Blakeslee and Blakeslee’s book practitioners? The Body Has a Mind of its Own.2) An Information- The manner in which one conceptualizes a The movement brain isn’t a central Based Model: field of inquiry shapes the manner in which computer. It’s the way in which the body one operates, the questions one asks, the The Movement Brain acts as a system in relation to context. models one constructs, and the identity The author finds it helpful, in teaching System activity involves interrelated of the profession. For example, the idea groups and working with clients, to propose complex networks, and often there is no that germs cause disease builds a medical a specific premise for SI work. The concept anatomical structure on which we can system that looks different from one built on itself is simple: SI addresses communication pin the complexity. As a system event, the idea that evil spirits inhabit bodies and to and with a system, something that can be coordination cannot be locally defined. cause illness. Each premise reaches different called “movement brain.” The movement Continual refinements emerge in the science conclusions. Ida Rolf started with several brain idea is a different starting point that explains motor control. We benefit as premises that were new at the time: that the for considering posture and structural research validates and refines the model of body is plastic and fascia can be reshaped, bodywork than the premise that the body our work, but the term “movement brain” and that posture can be provoked so that is something plastic to be reshaped. If one doesn’t require frequent updates. the body regains a healthy relationship with starts with this system idea – the movement Body therapists and educators need gravity and functions harmoniously. Her brain – the SI story unfolds in a particular anatomical knowledge to understand thinking derived from her practice of yoga, direction. Rolf’s legacy is still served, but and see how the body is constructed. the study of biochemistry, and treatments the SI model has broader congruence. and training from pioneer osteopaths. When we habitually think anatomically or Rolf’s premises birthed the SI field and a System vs. Mechanics biomechanically, though, it can interfere concept of what SI is. with movement. Some forms of anatomical The movement brain idea emphasizes awareness facilitate flow and ease in How we conceptualize SI has practical system phenomena in contrast to mechanical function, and we will cover these later in consequences. This article looks at an “parts” such as muscles, fascia, nerves, the article. information-based model of SI, meaning restrictions, mechanism of injury, and a mode of SI in which it is posited that the failures of “structure.” The movement The movement brain concept reduces focus on the fascia as something to reshape. Fascia

14 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION becomes, among other things, a portal of To what, in terms of body schema (including color, texture, detail and, as noted above, communication.3 postural schema) and body image, do the matches what is seen with that stored in SI goals translate? memory. State change in fascia as an explanation for what is occurring in SI, while having When clients make lasting shifts in postural Body Schema and Body Image provided fifty years of marketing for coordination, the schema (automatic Function Rolf’s work, may need reconsideration. At pattern of coordinative control) has shifted; present, a change in emphasis revitalizes in some instances we could also say that the In a social context (and with no imminent thinking about research, education, and schema has received permission to express danger), we have the dubious luxury of marketing – it changes how we think as itself. Why permission? Because the schema choice about how we move (or express we work. part of body attempts optimum efficiency posture). Our mind may then be more and stability in response to the demands concerned with “what” (or “who”) Scientific research supports an information- made upon it. The body is challenged questions. In these contexts, we often based system approach to modeling SI, and and schema responds. (It is important to express less coordinative intelligence than assists in the evolution of Rolf’s work. And, note that a demand must be made on the in the earlier examples. Instead, body image the movement brain model dovetails well system in order for it to perform. More will intervenes and biases or interrupts body with examples of successful research within be said about demand later.) This occurs schema’s function. For example, when a the SI community that are mentioned later so long as body image does not interrupt client is observed walking in front of his in this article. the process. or her SI practitioner, he or she may try to “look good” and amplify the improvements Body Schema, Postural Slip on the ice, or catch sight of something that the practitioner apparently likes to see. Schema, and Body Image in the street as we drive, and the deepest How do we meet this challenge? parts of our “movement brain” react, at In neurological language, “movement speeds faster than our cognitive brain As SI practitioners we have tools to help brain” aligns with the term “body schema.” makes choice. It is after our instant reaction individuals meet the social context, and Body schema was first proposed in 1911 that thinking evaluates what it was that other practical contexts, with a more by two British neurologists, Head and happened or what object we avoided. adaptive body schema. We also offer tools Holmes. Their model states that the body Schema reacts, then the “what” part of the for using body image to revive schema has two levels of coordinative control, one brain catches up with the event. function when we notice that it is missing. that is largely automatic and beyond our Body Schema is not Personal conscious awareness, body schema, and What and Where Distinction in the other, an overlay that can influence Function of Vision Body schema means the coordinative but also interrupt the functioning of the A “what and where” model of vision helps intelligence that underlies optimum former, body image.4 Postural schema, a us understand more about body schema movement. The schema part of body subcategory of body schema, refers to that and body image. This model is described isn’t personal. In fact, schema doesn’t part of automatic coordination that governs in terms of how our vision has separate differentiate body from the peri-personal gravity orientation. 9,10 Schema looks for pathways, linked to schema and image space around body. movement potential based on knowledge Over the past hundred years, this model function. of body and space around it. has been used by neurophysiologists to Paillard, a body schema/body image untangle the various issues that cause Our genetic body plan and our human neurologist, summarizes and diagrams the motor and perceptual dysfunctions in ancestry endow us with the ability to react “what” and “where” functions as two sets patients. Gallagher and Cole also write 6 automatically and skillfully. If a body part of pathways that are connected with vision. about the body schema and body image The “what and where” vision-model is damaged or lost, or if there is disease or a concept.5 They describe a patient who provides distinction between movement neurological failure, the schema will adapt lacks afferent proprioception. He must brain and object recognition brain. as best it can. The “hardware” part of us do with conscious control what a normal Livingstone, a Harvard neuroscientist, belongs to the schema and is part of any person does through automatic reflexes notes the difference in evolutionary age for movement equation the body composes. and coordinative patterns. The patient is an the “where” and “what” connections in the But a damaged body part is also registered extreme example of the human dilemma, brain.7 The “where “part of vision belongs in our body image, and it may or may not in which we substitute voluntary control 11 to earlier function in the development allow the body schema to function. (body image) for the schema that in of the brain, ones more concerned with Tools, body prostheses or extensions, if not Gallagher’s patient is no longer available, survival. The “what” part of vision belongs rejected by body image, are quickly added but the rest of us take for granted. to the more cortical and more recent brain to body schema. A tall hat worn in a room What does this have to do with SI? development and is a large part of modern with low beams will become, effectively, life. Coordinative Intelligence the top of head after a little time. A rake “Where”-oriented vision is also called or an automobile will become a temporary In SI, we seek long term improvements peripheral vision.8 It notices outline, extension of body schema if body image in posture, movement, and integration of contrast, movement, directionality, and sees is willing. coordinative change with the psychological in black and white. “What”-oriented vision sense of living in a body: not modest goals. is also called focused or fauvial. It notices

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 15 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION

Body Image and body image. Schema, again, refers to responds to demands put upon it – what the the aspect of movement that responds as author calls “happy accidents?” You might In contrast to schema, body image is necessary to changing circumstance that call reflect on work, sports and art performance personal. It is patterned by our development for movement. Image refers to the overlay moments in which your body recalls and circumstance. Body image is a potential –the sense of our self and the way in which noticeable grace, strength, or miraculous filter through which coordination often our movement responses may be filtered. timing and accuracy of a movement. has to pass – much coordination happens Image reflects our history: how we are held, without interference but in SI we are One counterintuitive example of body touched, instructed, encouraged, punished, particularly concerned with those places schema is the exercise called, “Sitting and inspired, and so on. Our body image where interference has occurred. Up with a Stick,” illustrated in How Life also reflects the culture we grow up in, Moves, Explorations in Meaning and Body Body image represents aspects of posture including the structure of language and Awareness.17 In this exercise we have the and movement control that are within the mythology. We could refer to the body movement brain story displayed. The reach of conscious awareness. However, image as the social input and schema as the mover lies supine and holds a substantial although we can be conscious of body movement brain component. stick in both hands. He or she attends to image, certain parts of it can be out of What are examples of how SI works orientation, to space and to weight, and to awareness or may be repressed. implicitly with the body image and body the sensory impression of the stick in the Body image is acquired through personal schema? hands, and to the imagined power of the 12 stick to lift the head and torso to sitting. To history. We build a representation of Postural Schema ourselves, including a body map (which is do this requires simultaneous and sustained an overlay to the implicit body map at the Postural schema is central. Rolf spoke about perception of space, weight, the stick, and level of body schema). gravity constantly. Godard’s tonic function abstention from effort. The result is that the movement brain functions to allow Imitation and Mirror model describes gravity orientation as the fundamental piece of the movement brain antagonist muscles – the back muscles – to Neuron Theory with which we, as practitioners, wish to substantially release so a smaller quantity For example, we imitate the posture of our communicate.15 Before we move, before of agonists do the work to sit up. family. We empathize with the movements we build a perception, the background and posture of those we see. This is another to all our actions is gravity orientation. documented aspect of brain function, of Gravity orientation, the way in which we movement brain. Our brain triggers a motor locate ourselves in space and on the Earth, control pattern when we observe another in is necessary to organize the movement of movement, as if we are doing the movement the senses and the movement of our body. or posture ourselves. This phenomenon is Rolf referred to gravity as, “the most potent part of what is called the “mirror neuron” physical influence in any human life.”16 theory. Research by Umilta, Rizolatti, When SI assists a body to recover postural and others document that we have this schema integrity, and to integrate a person’s capacity to learn movement by seeing it life with his or her postural orientation and empathizing with the motor activity of settings, change occurs at a deep level of 13,14 movement intelligence. another. In essence one’s brain activity Contrast this with conventional sit-ups that imitates that of another, as though the aim to exercise the rectus abdominus and observed motor activity is one’s own. Movement Intelligence external oblique muscles. Watching Sitting Self-Image – Schema Revealed Up with a Stick, it looks as though the stick The postural schema is part of what is here lifts the head and torso. We know physics We imitate. As we develop we also attempt to being called body schema. What are other dictates otherwise, so we are surprised. A relate the sensations of our inner experience examples of body schema expression? conventional sit-up showcases the belly into something we are told is our “self.” We wall doing work. The contrast of Sitting acquire a sense that what is inside “me” We have alluded already to the function that Up with a Stick and a conventional sit-up is seen from outside as someone with a keeps us upright when we slip on the ice or is a contrast between body schema and name, a shape, and what will become a the brake pedal response before we know body image. collection of stored memories about how I what’s ahead. There are other dramatic am seen. We build our movements from the examples: a mother who lifts an enormous This example illustrates how body schema others in our environment. And we build object, such as a car when she sees her functions liberated from body image. The a representation of our movements and of trapped child; a wheelchair-bound person body schema doesn’t “think” about muscles. our body shape and size from others as well. who runs out of his home suddenly on fire The movement brain only “knows” the body Our learned movement patterns are partly – these examples involve schema but also as a complex palette of motor units that it schema adapted to circumstance, and partly a high level of arousal. draws upon in nuanced combinations. image as we copy images of others and as It “knows” that release of antagonists is Other examples, less dramatic, are we build a social self. preferable to use of agonists. It “knows” nonetheless compelling. Notice your own that the agonists for the motion already Our vocabulary of movements is separable, personal list. What are some ways the express a baseline level of contraction artificially but usefully, into body schema body’s movement system miraculously and abstains from adding to it until the

16 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION moment it is necessary. This level of refined presence, is the basis for the capacity to internal felt sense. By so doing, we are using orchestration is beyond conscious control. “see” the movement (or postural set) of the “where” or subcortical visual system From such an example, when experienced, another. Seeing allows SI work to have referred to earlier. we get a sense of the movement brain. depth. We notice that the eyes can shift from a The movement brain isn’t beguiled by How does “seeing” work? Seeing is linked central, focused, and mostly cortical “what” anatomical descriptions of muscles, or to mirror neuron theory, mentioned earlier. function, to a peripheral subcortical “where instructor urgings to try harder, or the We watch a movement and our body has the function.” As stated earlier, vision functions fashion-magazine invitations to acquire capacity to know that movement from the through two pathways, one that attempts to particular muscular shape. The movement inside, through the subtle but substantive match objects with remembered identifiers, brain uses the optimum (economical) motor activity that occurs in our body as it and another which helps us locate ourselves coordination to, in this exercise, lift the watches another person’s movement. This in space and builds a sense of the space we torso. is called kinesthetic empathy or empathic occupy. The movement brain draws from kinesthesia. What then allows us to discover gaze that is peripheral. Inhibiting the Inhibition our empathic kinesthesia with another? Inter-Sensoriality As mover, one must give the movement Which kind of brain do we wish to arouse brain a chance to function. To do so, often and how? As we practice using peripheral vision requires one to inhibit the inhibition of the we notice that this kind of vision is inter- The movement brain concept serves the body image; to quiet down held images sensorial (having a quality of synthesesia), discussion about what we do and learn of body, conscious or unconscious, to and elicits an inter-sensorial experience of in body reading. Although some students quiet impulses to perform and act in some our world. When we observe movement come to SI with strongly developed skills idealized way. with peripheral vision, we see it and we in kinesthetic empathy, many do not and feel it. We may also hear it or possibly even Our predisposition to effort comes, for most this begs the question, “what helps one smell it or taste it. The movement brain of us, effortlessly. It is a habit that overlays learn it?” doesn’t separate the senses. a more instinctual responsiveness that we Body Reading and Sense Structural integrators cultivate this type call body schema. To undo body image Perception Linked to Orientation inhibition what tools do we have? of seeing, seeing that is inter-sensorial and To learn any movement, the challenge is kinesthetically empathic. This seeing allows As mentioned, we wish to give the usually unlearning that which prevents it. us to know the movement of another from movement brain information that helps it To revive, or begin to better notice, the body our own body’s sensory experience, and to to function. Why do we need to give it help schema’s capacity to body read, we want make interventions informed by internal if it’s supposed to be automatic? Because, to attend to the simplest (least abstracted) information. we have “taught” it to be overruled by our order of consciousness. This deepest or body image, our effort, our attempts to Pre-Movement lowest order of body image is at the level “master” the movement, and we typically of sensation; sustained sense perception This form of seeing is quick enough to try to learn through effort. When we is already an interruption to that which enable us to notice movement preparation in consciously attend to orientation and to blocks seeing. another – to see the manner in which a body sense perception and to felt potencies of organizes itself before it moves. Contained mass and directions into space, we displace To begin with, we can notice those within pre-movement is information about the impediments of body image and effort. expressions of the movement brain that the postural schema and information about We consciously choose image input that work easily. Where is there flow in one’s the perceptual orientation of the other. supports schema. This is the primary work own system already? Can we notice of SI. How do the tools of this work feed something in our sensory experience that Body reading is one important part of the movement brain? What do structural attracts our interest? What does that feel embodied presence. What else does a integrators do? What are our tools? like? structural integrator draw on? We track sensation, which means staying 2. Rolf’s Recipe Structural Integrators’ present to it. We build an articulated Tools internal sense of primary body image, a Rolf proposed that SI requires a series of ten sessions, a sequence of interventions that 1. Embodied Presence, sense of weight and density, a sense of spaciousness, and the myriad movements built on each other. This is a strategy for Kinesthetic Empathy and doing SI work as well as teaching it. Body Reading that we can sense. For almost every person sensation is present. What may be new Caspari describes the functional rationale The primary tool of the structural integrator is the capacity to notice it and put it into for this recipe in the 2005 IASI Yearbook.18 is embodied presence. Embodied presence words. The notion that each session builds on the allows us to demonstrate new coordinative Then we build on this. We link felt sense/ one before can be interpreted mechanically, possibilities. Embodied presence offers internal experience to the reception of like a machine assembled in a certain order, a safe container for the work and speaks sensory impression from the environment. or from an information or coordinative directly to the movement brain of the client. This contradicts the body image belief that point of view, like a piece of music or Also, a practitioner’s differentiated and outer and inner senses are separate. We a computer program. Restoration of articulated sensory awareness, and oriented wish to connect our visual sense with the function requires seeing that the body has

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 17 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION a developmental and coordinative logic. and emotional benefits, but as side-effects to and implicit, are documented in her book Without, for example, an improvement in the expression of natural function.) on integrating structure.27 Within these upper gravity center mobility in session templates we infer an aesthetic, a set of What do hallmarks look like? Two examples one, there is less profit from more adaptive values about what constitutes normal. SI follow. support and the potency of the foot to practitioners learn to feel what normal is propel the spine forward in session two. Contralateral Gait like in the course of receiving the work, and in training. In SI, multi-session, sequenced protocols One hallmark is contralateral gait.20 When imply that body image can shift and schema we observe an emergence of enhanced Emphasis on normal makes Rolf’s assertions can improve in steps, first easy and then contralateral gait, we know we are seeing bold and at the same time begs for further more advanced; some steps becoming more schema manifest. We see the movement substantiation – what concept can take possible with the accomplishment of earlier brain express healthy function. Image fails normal out of the realm of good and bad? ones. One can interpret this sequence idea if it attempts to produce contralateral gait. How do we explain normal as something as an organization of parts or a progression we can’t make happen, that isn’t just more Rolf’s Sky Hook of coordinative challenges. Which best fits mischief from body image? The movement the SI series model? A second hallmark of integration helps brain idea fills this gap and the body remind us of the movement system point schema/body image concept links it to To answer this question one can ask of view. It is Rolf’s picture of the sky hook contemporary neurophysiologic motor another: At any point in the “recipe” is it holding up the head.21 What is that holds control research. possible for one detail of the work to reveal up the head? We may have felt it but have a systemic change in coordination that 4. Imagery, Attention to we wondered what it implies about our reflects the point of the entire series? Can we Orientation, Sensory Skill, movement brain? What allows pleasant see integration emerge in any session? The Tracking Skills, Experiential buoyancy of the head following successful author asserts that it is possible, and we all Anatomy intervention? Examples of perceptual see it happen. Therefore, unlike assembly interventions include lessons that clarify of a car or a clock, the “assembly” process Imagery, orientation, sensory skills, and the location of the occipital condyles22 or is in fact not about mechanics but more tracking skills, as noted above, are tools used that arouse in the imagination an extension about reawakening a system, a system that within the perceptual realm of SI. The tonic of the sense of head into the space above is never really “apart.” This brings us to function model proposes tools and logic for one such as the cone head exercise.23 These the question, “What tells us the movement how we negotiate perceptive habits so that belong to the realm of something called system has awakened?” clients achieve shifts in coordination. How ideokinesis. We mention it because it is does anatomy work into this logic? How 3. Rolf’s Templates not something new. In fact, one of Rolf’s is development of anatomical awareness of Normal Structure inspirations, Mabel Todd, was a movement useful in this model? brain pioneer. A part of the SI approach is Rolf’s notion Anatomical Awareness (through Body that there is such a thing as normal posture Idiokinesis Image) Can Inform Body Schema and coordination. Rolf’s insistence on Ideokinetic tools release the body image’s SI practitioners have the opportunity to normal posture sets her work apart. Manual hold on face (mask) and head posture, therapies that offer to palliate bodily use anatomy to assist movement. When through perception, so the natural buoyancy we show people the body plan, through complaints, or psychological therapies that of the head (body schema) expresses itself. assist changes in behavior or emotional models or diagrams, and have a person Imagination, the perceptive activity of find the body parts of the body plan inside well-being, while serving a useful function, ideokinesis, releases inhibition by speaking do not fulfill the unusual role of SI. themselves. When we palpate skeletal to the movement brain. The vestibular geometry, the movement brain is informed. “For most people in the real world, the system, part of body schema, is stimulated Sensing the mass of the bones, sensing pattern body has been lost or is no longer and freed to orient the head. the articulations between bones (spaces) visible. Therefore, in our culture, there is Ideokinetic imagery, as passed down from is helpful information and coordination little or no recognition of what this ideal 24 25 shifts accordingly. And, we will also speak 19 Todd , Sweigard and, more recently Rolf’s words are bold, 26 pattern looks like.” Franklin, is a potent tool for liberating about muscles and explain their locations. and sound dogmatic. She asserts that for movement brain to function more normally Generally it’s not helpful to ask people each individual there is an ideal pattern. in the manner Rolf indicated. Ideokinesis to consciously think about muscles when Might Rolf’s ideal be more palatable is the use of imagination to stimulate the they move, however. Body image is least expressed as body schema? movement brain. Ideokinesis, is an example helpful for direct control of muscles. For SI presumes to say that postural analysis of perceptual intervention – one that can example, we wish people to know about speaks to something more important give us a feeling of Rolf’s hook. It reminds the transverses abdominus. At the same than body complaints and body neurosis. us that evolution required all mammals’ time, it is counterproductive to ask someone Rather than focus on palliating distress, SI heads to move freely. Rolf was pointing out to voluntarily contract it. Body image is posits happy accidents of body schema, that head buoyancy is our birthright, not a good for perception and rather clumsy at meaning happy accidents where we observe modern improvement, but one that most coordinative control. hallmarks of integrative function in gravity. people have lost. We also speak about, and touch, the fascia. (A shift in coordination may lead to physical Rolf’s functional templates, both explicit The fascia reflects the manner in which body

18 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION image has exerted effort, but it belongs to Imagine fascial work as a way to speak to Theoretical and Practical body schema. We educate clients about its the movement brain: to “say” to the body Examples of Movement function in support and its responsiveness for example, “Update your knowledge Brain Thinking to life’s challenges. Fascia is part of the – notice these layers of dry, fused and movement brain. We can talk to it and confused fascia in the location I am pressing The following examples show how this through it, but we can’t “do” it. on. These motor units I am outlining as conceptual shift to movement brain thinking separate are, in fact, separate motor units”; supports Rolf’s vision of integration: the Our touch, through the fascia, can shift how or to say, “This bone is, in fact, a separate concept of core, and the concept of the the fascia feels under our hands. What is bone from this other bone”; and “This bone, vertical axis in gravity. going on? What about that aspect of SI most (the radius) has a greater articulation with linked to its public image: deep pressure Body Schema and Core the carpal bones than its neighbor (the ulna) in fascia? – feel that!” Here words stand in for the One of Rolf’s templates is the sense of 5. The Role of Fascial nonverbal language of touch that speaks strength and power in standing and “Manipulation” in Speaking to proprioception. walking that is often described as to the Movement Brain demonstrating “core”. SI authors, as well Or what if we thought about pressure as other professionals, debate the question, in the fascia as a specific demand on the What is it that structural integrators are “What is core?” Answers include but are not movement system for coordinative change? known for doing, classically, in the service limited to: muscles that lie close to the front If the demand is not overwhelming and we of postural health? A percentage of the SI of the spine; intrinsic muscles; the viscera; have started gradually, the client finds that work, at times the majority, involves touch the spine itself; the transverses abdominus he or she gains skill in allowing demand on the body surface with the intention and multifidi muscles, the “Line”; and on to precipitate organization – coordinative of moving or releasing fascia. Why? and on. Traditional explanations advance the organization in motor control and body notion that SI is a form of deep massage, mapping. If we think about fascial work What happens if we speak about core as or a version of myofascial release, or a this way, how does it shift the meaning of a function of body schema? What if we soft-tissue version of osteopathy. Here the SI? It shifts the focus for the client. He or she reframe our image of the core from body reader is invited to consider the different doesn’t “receive” softening of connective parts or location, to system event – a system premises and the conclusions. tissue ground substance. He or she attends event that denotes optimum coordinative to new information in the service of response to a demand? Do we know what effect deep slow touch coordination. His or her movement brain What does core look like? Push on someone has on the biochemistry of the fascia? We is empowered to regain primacy. have speculation. We have fifty years in who is standing and “core” responds by which the posited state change within the For the practitioner, does this change the finding ground and space orientation and connective-tissue matrix has been a central way we think about and apply touch? We the application of selected and properly explanation for why SI works. The author might not only think differently but the way sequenced motor units throughout is agnostic on this point. There may be an we touch might feel quite different, to the the system. The pushed body adapts effect similar to the one modeled by Rolf client and to the practitioner. Does it change and remains stable, without effort. A in which muscles get unglued from each how we monitor the effect of our touch? We person walks and we see articulation and other, or there may not. Fascial researchers might define a successful moment of contact differentiation, a sense of strength, a sense quite differently if we look for coordinative of global breath, a bidirectional sense of find the hypothesized “gel to sol” action 28 elusive in work with cadavers but cadavers change. spine – what Maitland terms palintonus. Any exercise or task involves a form; core are different from live clients. At best, This shift in meaning generates a coherent is an expression of flow in execution of the we are on shaky ground to claim this as framework for the various tools we use in form. the foundation for Rolf’s most imitated SI. Movement brain logic is an umbrella technique. term for the different things we do. We How do we evoke core? We provide If we change the question to, “Do we embody, we speak, we show, we imagine, perceptual information and then we put a know what effect touch in the fascia has we direct attention, we stay present, and demand on the system (at first, preferably, on the movement brain?”, we can answer we touch, all in the service of empowering a small demand). Without demand the definitively. We observe immediate shifts in body schema through better information. core is not called forth. Demand means any coordinative challenge and covers a coordination from brief moments of touch It is attractive to picture fascial ground spectrum of possibilities. Demand means a in the fascia. We don’t need sophisticated substance literally melting under our slight posterior reach with the tip of one’s research to demonstrate this point. Gentle hands, because it feels like it does. We may coccyx bone. Demand means raising the moving pressure on the chest in a first discover this is a true picture. It may also straight leg from supine without disturbing session of SI reveals an immediate shift be that the neural control of fascial tissue the pelvis and spine. Demand means the in the movement of inspiration. A stroke is responsive to energy applied in the system has a challenge and core means of touch to the intermuscular septa in form of strong pressure and that when we the system is free to respond in a way Rolf the calf on a standing client, while he feel softening we are feeling how quickly might have termed “normal.” or she executes slight knee bend, shifts the movement brain can respond to new coordination of walking instantly. Pressure information. Demand includes things that leave no time on the talus bone during knee flexion also for slow, careful execution: Someone is shifts coordination of walking instantly.

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 19 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION asked to run and jump over a bench. If she in lengthening. On closer observation, range of motion is caused by body image, or he focuses on the bench, the movement palpation reveals that at one or more this is spinal inhibition in contrast to spinal fails to show core – the subject hesitates segments of the spine, the spinous process lesion (or subluxation), which is an articular as he or she approaches the bench. If the pushes back against touch as inhalation fixation in body schema. perception is directed peripherally to starts. Testing this observation, one finds SI examines the possibility of inhibition another person adjacent to the bench or to a that when the person pushes against before attempting to solve lesion because target in the distance, the schema organizes resistance (with the hand) the same posterior the movement brain is our province, our the jump successfully – no hesitation and movement of the spine occurs, at the same more unique attribute. How might this be flow from run to jump. A trial of each segment. done? version reveals that the schema can respond Godard has referred to this aspect of body to the demand better when body image Bench Work for Spinal Inhibition image as “character knot,” meaning a place is directed to orientation and perceptual that, in our attempt to master situations, information. The figures below illustrate one setup to we (habitually) attempt to add stability work with inhibition in the spine. The Inhibition versus Lesion29 by contraction in the front line.30 Godard client sits on a bench that allows the hips asserts that all of us demonstrate this to be slightly higher than knees, with feet We show, we touch, we invite sensory tendency and it’s a matter of where we on the floor and hands on the soft edge of awareness. These elements come together express it rather than if. Some people show a bodywork table that is fixed so it cannot in many combinations in the work, as we character knots more strongly and others move. The practitioner shows the client a envision speaking to the movement brain, more subtly. It is a symptom of the body model of the skeleton and explains what it as we think about inhibiting body image so looking for a hedge against failure, and it means to allow length to occur on the front body schema is free to function. adds to each person’s kinetic “fingerprint.” of the spine. Also, the practitioner invites A central part of the SI template is the sense To be human is to experience failure and to the client to bring attention to the sensory of two directions in the spine. Orientation of want to avoid its repetition. And, clearly a experience in the hands and feet so the our axis to ground and space, the sense of bi- character knot does nothing to improve the skin of both extremities has good contact directionality of the spine speaks especially ease of our movement. with each surface. The client is asked to loudly to the movement brain. Tonic One can work with a client around issues of stay aware of surface contact with the skin function theory suggests every successful character knot standing or supine, inviting of the hands and feet. Also, the client is movement begins with a lengthening in the client to imagine the vertebral segment invited to notice an imagined vector from the spine, with particular attention to the shifting slightly anterior in the moment the top of the head toward the ceiling and front of the spine. before inhalation. Sometimes this takes from the tail toward the floor and slightly posterior. Additionally, the client is invited Body Image as Potential Inhibitor negotiation, and involves exaggerating to feel weight in the tissue anterior to the to the Lengthening of the Spine the pattern or finding greater support for change. ischial tuberosities. The client is invited to Does the front of the spine present bi- find a peripheral gaze that brings a spatial directionality in the initiation of breath and In the course of SI work, a character knot- awareness to the body. The total situation other movement? If you watch someone like issue may manifest as noticeable is about parameters that demand that during inhalation you see one or more reductions in range of motion in backward the movement system stabilize the trunk parts of the spine that do not participate bending in segments of the spine. If reduced (including spine) from hands, feet, and

20 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION orientation. leads to a change in coordination as an what? improvement in contralateral gait. How After setup, the practitioner presses on the While each practitioner discovers his or does a sagittal exercise lead to improved spinous process of a vertebra that he or her own approach, some fundamental torsion in movement? The particular form, she feels needs information. The pressure guidelines include: have the client shift or figure, of the exercise is trivial compared can be strong in some instances in order to from the new coordination back to the old to the activation of the system. Only by help the client register the new possibility and find the benefit to that inhibition and positing that the movement brain already of movement, and the sense of the segment acknowledge it. Work with sensation to knows how to do contralateral gait, and in having articulation from its neighbors. find the felt sense behind the meaning in fact prefers this movement, does the cause Because of stability brought through the former movement. Bring body-image and effect make sense. The movement orientation and sensory channels, and awareness to sensation, to the vocabulary brain expresses optimum coordination because the client has been informed about of primary security. See if it is possible to when unhelpful aspects of body image are potential release of the vertebral segment find the felt sense of security in the new displaced with better information. to slide slightly more anterior, the segment coordination. See if it is possible to imagine is likely to move at least a little through In both of these examples, symptoms that the new coordination in a context outside its inhibitory barrier. The client is then have little directly to do with the form the container of the session, something the requested to push the segment back against of the movement challenge may abate client notices and explores with curiosity. the practitioner’s hand, using the hands and because the movement brain, the system, feet, staying present to his context with eyes the schema, is operating more robustly in Portals to the Movement and a sense of bi-directionality in the spine. the absence of messages (from body image) Brain, Summary of Tools The sequence of anterior and posterior that previously had been causing difficulty. movement of the segment may be repeated, For example, a knee issue or a shoulder There is no formula for evoking coordinative and with each instance some further release issue may suddenly organize and improve change. Though it is risky to imply any kind of inhibition may occur. This is segmental function following a release of inhibition in of formula, is it possible to summarize some stabilization. This part of a session may trunk stability. of the major opportunities for speaking to address several segments. the movement brain? What works, so that Renegotiations with Body Image we speak to schema and inhibit image? The client is then observed walking. If Practitioners who assist clients with shifts Here is a partial list of qualities that speak we see a change in gait, an increase in in coordination may notice that small shifts to the movement brain: the contralateral action of the spine, we of coordination can precipitate emotional see the body-schema response to better 1. The sense of weight and the sense of or psychological shifts that feel large to the information, or, put another way, the space. client. All admonitions to take care and displacing of body-image inhibition with titrate apply here. Additionally, what about 2. Imagined directions into space, information that speaks to the movement the body image? It has been interrupted. imagined vectors. brain. The body is suddenly moving in a manner 3. Sensing distance or proximity between The movement brain or system concept that body image normally blocks. In the objects or between one’s self and makes it possible to understand how context of the session this may be all right, objects in space. sagittal movement or, similarly, the sagittal but what about after? And, even within aspect in the Flight of the Eagle exercise31 the session the body image may suddenly 4. Sensory impression from hands and resume, effectively saying “no.” Then feet. 5. Imagined bi-directionality along the long axis of bones and in adjacent paired bones; bi-directionality in the long axis of the spine and in the anterior/posterior axis of the spine. 6. Sensing the mass of, and articulation between, bones. 7. Sensing skin and movement of skin. 8. Touch that draws the attention of the fascia, to sense differentiation and articulation, sometimes very deep touch in fascia. 9. Peripheral gaze, a gaze that links to inter-sensoriality 10. Inter-sensory use of any senses 11. Change of gravity orientation of senses. Weight and space orientation to sight,

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hearing, smelling, kinesthesia.32 facilitates lasting change in coordination 3 Proceedings of the October 2007 First in a patient for which SI manipulative International Fascial Research Congress in 12. Micromovement of joints. techniques had failed after a number of Boston, available in book or DVD format, 13. Slow motion. sessions to change the subject’s symptoms. are a source for many perspectives on fascia This shift in coordination has repercussions as an organ of response and information. 14. Use of imagination that interrupts at the autonomic level as demonstrated customary body image and provides 4 Head H, Holmes HG. “Sensory by changes in the measurements of vagal proprioceptive information to Disturbances from Cerebral Lesions.” Brain, tone.34 schema. 1911–1912;34:102–254. 15. Imagination that shifts the meaning of What Conclusion Does 5 Gallagher, S., & Cole, J. (1995) “Body the context. this Premise Lead To? Image and Body Schema in a Deafferented Subject.” J. Mind and Behav, 16,369-389. 16. A new demand, or a slightly dangerous If we think of the body as a movement demand. system, we conclude that SI involves a 6 Paillard, J., “Sensorimotor versus Representational Framing of Body Space, A 17. A demand for acceleration in spectrum of practitioner skills for restoring Neural Basis for Distinction between Body movement body schema by speaking to the movement system of the human body, and we find that Schema and Body Image.” Body Image and 18. Triangulation – adding the perception current research validates these methods Body Schema: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, of an additional oblique or lateral object and this conceptual model. Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2004. while responding to a situation. Fascia is probably the most enduring 7 Livingstone, M., Vision and Art: The Biology Imagination and Sense legacy of Rolf’s work. Talk about fascia, of Seeing. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Perception – Not Separate dysfunctions of fascia, and release of Inc., 2002. fascia is now ubiquitous. But some From a phenomenological point of view 8 Peripheral vision is not exclusively considerations of fascia rise to a different and from a neurological point of view, responsive to phenomena to the sides or level of thinking. James Oschman is one imagination and perception are not two out of the corners of one’s eyes. Peripheral author who researches and writes about separate things. What we perceive through vision, although not focused, can receive fascia; he was specifically requested to our senses and what we perceive by information in the entire visual field. do so by Rolf and he faithfully performs imagining our senses both create identical Also, peripheral and focused vision can this task. Readers of his work come away activity in the sensory cortex. If you look work together, back and forth. For body with at least one profound impression: therapists, it is, however, typically more at the list of opportunities for conveying 35 Fascia is an organ of communication. information to the movement brain, much challenging to learn to voluntarily shift to Signals travel through the body’s fascia at of the work is about imagination and a stronger sense of peripheral or “where” the speed of light, and the fascia acts as a perception. The capacity to select what we vision. biological semiconductor. When we think imagine or perceive, and the capacity to of fascia this way, we amplify the sense that 9 Blakeslee, S., and Blakeslee, M., op. cit. sustain several perceptions at one time, turn SI work in the fascia may be more about out to be the skills most useful in releasing 10 Holmes N. P., and Spence C., “The communication and information than about body schema from body image. Body Schema and the Multisensory mechanical/biochemical shifts. Representation(s) of Peripersonal Space,” Research and SI Llinas, in I of the Vortex, From Neurons to Cogn Process, 2004 June; 5(2): 94–105. Past and Present Self, paints a picture of brain evolution as 11 Godard has reported unpublished case the means by which life made prediction studies in which a person receiving a Two notable research achievements for our of movement possible. The brain is life’s prosthetic limb rejects the prosthesis at a field involve using perception to change answer to the question, “How can I predict body image level and when the body image coordination. 36 what movement will occur?” issue is renegotiated the body schema is Three members of the SI community What movement will occur in this moment? completely able to adapt quickly to the have investigated how perceptual We don’t have to ask. Our movement brain prosthesis. and coordinative interventions lead has already done so. 12 Godard posits a model partially derived to measurable changes. Godard uses from French psychoanalyst Lacan, that we conventional EMG equipment and he The author acknowledges, and expresses have in fact three distinct body images. participates in experiments that use motion- appreciation for, collaboration with Hubert The primary body image is made up capture technology. Motion capture uses Godard on this and other projects. of sensations of density and mass and pressure sensitive plates under the feet of spaciousness. It is built through the and joint angle receptors to pinpoint shifts NOTES sensation opportunities including how we in coordination and delivers “real time” 1 Quoted in Rolf, I.P., Rolfing®, The Integration are touched and held in early childhood. biofeedback to client and practitioner. To of Human Structures. New York: Harper and The second body image, what Lacan calls make these changes Godard uses perceptual Row, 1977, p. 15. the “mirror self”, is the body image at the intervention.33 2 Blakeslee, S., and Blakeslee, M., The Body level of how we see ourselves and are seen Cottingham and Maitland show how Has a Mind of Its Own. New York: Random by others. The third body image is symbolic shifting pre-movement in neck posture House, 2007. body image, at the level of language and

22 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION culture mythology. It is useful to remember 31 McHose, C., and Frank, K., op.cit., pp. that change at the image or schema level is 107-111. Also, Frank, K. “Flight of the facilitated through resource building at the Eagle – Self Care for Structural Integration sensation – primary body image – level. Clients.” 2005 IASI Yearbook. Missoula, MT: IASI, 2005. 13 Rizzolatti, G., et al, “Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying the Understanding 32 Frank, K. “Posture and Perception in and Imitation of Action.” Nature Reviews/ the Context of the Tonic Function Model of Neuroscience, Vol. 2, 2001, 661-671. Structural Integration.” 2007 IASI Yearbook. Missoula, MT: IASI, pp. 27-35. 14 Umilta, M.A., et al, “I Know What You Are Doing: A Neurophysiological Study.” 33 Godard used EMG while performing the Neuron, Vol 31, July 19, 2001, pp. 155-165. “unbendable arm experiment”, in which a straight arm resists bending with greater 15 Frank, K. “Tonic Function - A Gravity strength and lower effort if the subject Response Model for Rolfing® Structural projects a sense of direction, a reach, from and Movement Integration.” Rolf Lines. the end of his or her hand, compared with Boulder, CO: Rolf Institute, March 1995. the intention to not let the arm bend. In 16 Rolf, I.P., op. cit., p. 30. this experiment the reach elicits a pure action of the triceps while the resistance to 17 McHose, C., and Frank, K., How Life bending elicits triceps and biceps activation Moves, Explorations in Meaning and Body simultaneously. Using motion-capture Awareness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, technology, a subject can be monitored 2006, p. 121-122. for, among other variables, the balance 18 Caspari , M., “The Functional Rationale of weight pressing from different parts of of the Recipe.” 2005 IASI Yearbook. Missoula, each foot. The subject is given visual and MT: IASI, 2005, pp. 51-78. auditory cues about the relative pressure in each part of both feet and as he or she 19 Rolf, I.P., op. cit., p. 16. modifies the pressure receives feedback on 20 Frank, K. “The Relationship of the change. After some use of the feedback, Contralateral Gait and the Tonic Function the subject can reproduce the change Model of Structural Integration.” Structural without the feedback. Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute. 34 Cottingham, J., & Maitland, J., “A Boulder, CO: Rolf Institute of Structural Three-Paradigm Treatment Model Using Integration®, Dec. 2003. Soft Tissue Mobilization and Guided 21 Rolf, I.P., op. cit., p. 33. Movement-Awareness Techniques for a Patient with Chronic Low Back Pain: A 22 Sweigard, L., Human Movement Potential, Case Study. JOSPT, Vol. 26, No. 5, Sept. Its Ideokinetic Facilitation. Dodd, Mead and 1997, pp. 155-167. Company, Inc., 1974. 35 Oschman, J., Energy Medicine in 23 McHose, C. & Frank, K., op. cit., p. 54. Therapeutics and Human Performance. 24 Todd, M.E. The Thinking Body; A Study of Edinburgh: Butterworth, Heinemann, the Balancing Forces of Dynamic Man. New 2003. York: Dance Horizons, 1937. 36 Llinas, R. R., I of the Vortex, From Neuron 25 Sweigard, L., op. cit. to Self, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. 26 Franklin, E. Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics, 1996. 27 Rolf, I.P., op. cit. 28 Maitland, J., “The Palintonic Lines of Rolfing.”Rolf Lines, Boulder: Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®, January/February, 1991, pp. 43-49. 29 Caspari, M., “The Functional Rationale of the Recipe.” 2005 IASI Yearbook. Missoula, MT: IASI, 2005, p. 51. 30 Lecture notes of the author.

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accompanied the appearance of gains in physical order or “integration,” independently of any conscious reorientation of awareness or intention; that is, a sort of consequence of this gain in physical organization. Second, I would The Evocation of Unique States like to discuss the nature of the process of releasing restrictions in the body whereby of Consciousness as a changes in shape are made possible and the shift in consciousness that this entails. Consequence of Somatic Practices I will also suggest possible neurological indicators of this state shift. By Michael Salveson, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ Rolfing grew up in the human potential movement of the late 1960s and 1970s and was and is used as a tool for self- Editor’s note: This talk was presented at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in1994 and originally development, aside from its utility in published in the March 1995 issue of Rolf Lines. relieving physical pain and dysfunction as a result of injury or degeneration. The “self development” promulgated by the Primarily, as physical bodies, we are have been a practitioner of Rolfing® for human potential movement involved the sentenced to an abiding relationship with Imore than twenty-five years and it has exploration of “altered” or “heightened” gravity and our physical ease is to a great been even longer since I received my first states of consciousness which, aside extent determined by our ability to deal sessions from Dr. Rolf. From the beginning, from their entertainment potential, with this force successfully. The trauma and I have experienced in myself and my clients promised access to an inner technology random injuries of life reduce our physical changes in states of consciousness that of transformation, closely allied with plasticity, and this in turn opens the door to accompany this work. In fact, the appeal traditional notions of healing. It was Dr. the disintegrative effects of a maladaptation of this work has often been precisely the Rolf’s belief and experience that access to gravity. Rolfing seeks to reverse this combination of the increased physical to these “states” could be promoted by a process by restoring the plasticity of the ease and the change in awareness that careful alignment of the body. She drew connective tissue and guiding people is produced by the gain in structural upon her experience with yoga, which to a more economical, easy structural integration that characterizes Rolfing. acknowledges that physical position and organization in the gravity field. As a practitioner with a large clinical characteristics influence “transformational” practice and an Instructor for the Rolf I am describing a process that is concerned states and upon her training in Gurdjieff’s Institute of Structural Integration®, my time with the material properties of human epistemological system, which cultivated at my desk is usually devoted to the affairs bodies. Ignoring the implications of modern these “states” with physical practices. What of a busy practice, preparing for classes and theoretical physics and the way in which was unique about Dr. Rolf’s application of the mastery of new, clinical, manipulative our understanding of material substance her training was the extent to which she skills. It has been an interesting exercise has been thereby changed, we are dealing identified access to these “transformational” to take time and think through some of here with forces expressed by the laws states with an optimal shape, governed by the issues related to our common interest of mechanics. Freeing human bodies to the principles of mechanics and the action in “The evocation of unique states of function more economically in gravity of gravity. It has been my experience, and consciousness as a consequence of somatic should result in greater ease of motion and I think the experience of many others who practices.” I am grateful for the opportunity a reduction in the compressive forces that have received Rolfing®, that “moving” into to participate in this discussion and hopeful ultimately lead to degenerative changes alignment with gravity is often accompanied that the increased understanding we may and immobility. However, aside from by heightened “energetic,” perceptual and gain will result in our greater ability to the obvious gain in the physiological intentional or volitional awareness and nourish the biological topsoil in which our wellbeing of the tissues involved and the control. It does not seem to be the case being has its roots. resultant sense of comfort or wellbeing that pushing or stretching tissues alone that this entails, we are inquiring today produces this “heightened,” “clarified” As I think most of you are aware, Rolfing into the way in which such a process as state. “Deep-tissue massage” or massage is a manipulative technique, a form of “structural integration” and other somatic in general produces obvious changes in manual therapy, which aims to improve practices affect states of consciousness. To consciousness related to relaxation and the organization of human, physical do this we must necessarily look beyond improved “flow,” but I am suggesting that structure, what Dr. Rolf, the founder, called the traditional kinesiological models of there are unique attributes to the “state” Structural Integration. The question “what human biomechanics and inquire into other produced when human shape changes in are the characteristics of human structural properties of physical organization. the direction of greater order or organization integration’?” is still being answered. We of the constituent parts. Alignment with have come a long way from Dr. Rolf’s first I would like to approach this question in the gravitational field is one criterion for formulations but only by building on her two ways. First, I would like to describe an establishing a particular pattern of order fundamental ideas. experience that seems to have frequently and is at the heart of Dr. Rolf’s teaching.

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This is a somewhat radical notion and “It is not what you do but how you do than sensing the differences between one’s deserves a closer look. What I believe is it” has been, for me, one of Dr. Rolf’s foot and one’s face, although this is usually most relevant for our discussions is the most provocative remarks and it raises the starting place. What is most interesting notion, explicit in Dr. Rolf’s work, that the second issue I would like to discuss; here are the consequences for consciousness patterns of order in the body may be namely, the way in which somatic practices of being located in different places in the constitutive of “states of consciousness.” accomplish their ends. It seems that almost body. The act of locating consciousness My emphasis here is on the notion of every somatic system involves some notion in sensory experience and then noticing “patterns of order.” The innovative aspect of release from limitation or restriction or the consequences of spatial differences of Dr. Rolf’s work was her emphasis on education of some dysfunctional aspect, involves a radical change in most people’s “order” or “pattern” as the fundamental and that one of the great benefits of somatic normal conscious state. Once consciousness notion. It is the way in which the parts are practices is the increased ability one gains attends to inner sensation it becomes related that produces the desired effects. to do these things for oneself. It is my sense spatialized, because inner sensations have Different patterns of relationship produce that these “changes” induced in people by by nature locations. It is the way we know different effects. This is a profoundly somatic practices involve access to states ourselves in space. The inclusion of spatial structuralist view and may provide one of consciousness that are often quite out of attributes in descriptions of consciousness, useful attribute of physical systems that can the range of ordinary experience for most although innate, involves a significant be identified as constitutive of associated people, and that the learning that goes shift in the way most people normally states of consciousness. on in somatic practices often occurs in an know themselves. This knowledge has altered state. At least, that these changes historically been a part of esoteric and Proper relationship among the parts of the involve states of consciousness that are meditative practices, which cultivate access body entails a notion of wholeness. The not commonly reinforced by contemporary to transformational states through attention experiences I mentioned earlier, arising culture. I believe that these states are to specific sites in inner sensation. For our out of the Rolfing experience, seem to be immensely beneficial, that they are part of discussions, an inward focus on sensation an emergent property of the presence of learning how to heal oneself, that they are and the derivative spatial implications may pattern adequate to imply a sense of the related to ancient, primitive healing states be useful aspects of the bodily rooting of whole. It is my sense that the energetic, that are our neglected birthright, and that states of consciousness. perceptual and intentional aspects of they offer a vast unused medical resource. consciousness affected by the Rolfing Another aspect of inner sensory experience experience emerge when there is adequate Our failure as early Rolfers was to think that I believe is relevant to a discussion of pattern present. that our new shape could be put on like the bodily roots of states of consciousness is a new suit of clothes and that we could the apparent “flow” of sensations that one Thus, I am suggesting that two aspects be sculpted into it by our Rolfer. In fact, encounters. Careful attention to this world of this experience may be useful in our we discovered that we were much more of inner sensations will reveal that the body discussions. First, that the pattern of order intimately involved in the process and is in motion and that this motion seems to be present in bodies may be a constituent that only by attending to our inner sensory autonomous and independent of conscious of the associated states of consciousness. experience could we learn to “be” in a new volition. When asked what he knew for Second, that the aspects of consciousness way. Understanding something about an certain, Einstein replied, “Something is affected by bodily states or present in bodily optimal relationship with gravity was not moving,” and this seems to be an accurate states emerge when adequate pattern is enough. The practitioner could release description of our inner sensory world. present to imply some sense of the whole. restricted tissues but we had to allow it. The small, autonomous motions and That is, that there must be sufficient We had to grow into our new shape, and flows, the streaming and pulsation that relatedness, according to the principles of that involved paying attention to our characterize much of our inner sensation, I the model. I categorize these as structural inner sensory experience. All self-healing term “motility” to distinguish these “inner” considerations or the influence of “shape” systems involve the development of an motions from the more well-known, on consciousness. inner focused awareness. What seems voluntary motions of the musculoskeletal The early enthusiasm for the Rolfing to be unique to somatic practices is their system, which I term “mobility.” What is “shape” led to excesses of effort that did emphasis on the sensory aspects of inner so important about this inner movement not seem to yield the desired result. Some experience, as opposed to the visual, is that it is autonomous, and the encounter students identified with the “shape” symbolic or linguistic. And it is this with inner, autonomous movement is and attempted to mimic or copy it onto inward-focused development of sensory almost always transformative. Much of their own bodies. The result, which is discrimination that I think makes possible what I believe I accomplish with my clients predictable, was rigidity and compulsion, access to unique states of consciousness in ultimately comes from the introductions I which seem to be inimical to states of which self-healing is possible. make to this inner movement. heightened awareness. Although physical Once consciousness is directed inward The experience of inner motility can promote a shape seems an objective aspect of human and focused on sensation, several things dramatic reordering of one’s psychic world. life (which it is and from which its value become apparent. First, that the experience for somatic practices derives), it matters Once one is aware of the presence of inner, of space in the body is not homogeneous very much how one gets there; which, in autonomous motion, a relationship between and that attending with consciousness to fact, influences the qualities characterizing the center of control in consciousness (for the sensations of different aspects of the that shape. discussion purposes, the ego) and the body creates distinct experiences. It is more autonomous motion is inevitable. This

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 25 Rolfing® and PERCEPTION creates the possibility of cooperation, and organization are accompanied by a shift in it is the experience of opening to inner, balance in the autonomic nervous system autonomous motion and the resultant away from sympathetic dominance, by a cooperation that occurs that, I believe, shift toward more vegetative functions and makes accessible the most significant shifts away from the fight-or-flight mechanisms. in states of consciousness that arise from While these are very preliminary studies, I somatic practices. think they suggest that it may be possible to correlate the changes in state that occur As Freud pointed out, the neurotic is over- in somatic practices with changes occurring controlled. Lack of authenticity is a lack of in neural organization. contact with the autonomous forces in our lives. The experience of inner motility can I believe that the presence of autonomous promote a dramatic reordering of one’s motion or motility in the body (whether it psychic world. Relinquishing control, is the pulsation of the craniosacral system, without relinquishing awareness, opening the flow of chi, or the well-known motility to this inner motility, is accomplished by of peristalsis) indicates the action of an a change of state. It is a different state of adaptive and organizing intelligence that is consciousness, a different point of view. often out of reach when movement becomes It seems to be the essence of opening or over-controlled or dominated by attitudes releasing and characterizes the way in that inhibit motility, and that access to this which we move into new patterns of order. inner, sensory-based intelligence results in It is a skill that is essential to self-healing states of consciousness sharing attributes and it can be learned by paying attention with the states of awareness in primitive, to inner sensation. shamanic healing systems. It is as if we have forgotten what we once knew and If what we as somatic practitioners term must now consciously and deliberately “dysfunctional movement patterns” retrace our steps in order to reclaim what are characterized by over-control and threatens to become lost. I do not advocate there exists the possibility of releasing a romantic regression to some nonexistent this over-control and allowing new, less shamanic world, but I do suggest that controlled patterns to emerge, then, I somatic practices make available states of suspect, this change of mind, from extreme consciousness from which other ways of voluntary control to the emergence of a knowing ourselves and our world emerge, more “involuntary” driven movement and that these states are useful critiques of pattern may be characterizable by changes the culturally dominant states and that they in observable brain states, by a reduction are much needed for the adaptive demands in cortical override or inhibition and an of the present and future world. increase in brain-stem or instinctive patterns of organization. A sort of reclamation of I am reminded of one rendering of the hero’s instinctual wisdom. At least, there may task. Traditionally, the heroic task has been be neurological indications of the change to establish some outpost of civilization in state associated with what we know as and order amidst the rampant, vegetative release or letting go; the process of opening power of nature. The hero’s task was to rise that allows for the uninhibited action of each morning and with his or her machete, motility. beat back the incursion of the jungle that threatens to overgrow the village. Now, The Rolfing® community has looked at one we know this has changed. The hero’s aspect of this process in a very limited way. task is very different. It is now necessary Dr. Stephen Porges, a psychophysiologist, to rise each morning and with watering and John Cottingham, a Rolfer, physical can in hand, water and nourish the jungle therapist and graduate student in because it is endangered. This change has physiology, have demonstrated that certain occurred very recently, within our lifetimes, structural shifts in body organization and involves a radical reorientation of our and the release that accompanies them attitude to nature and our value systems. are associated with changes in activity I believe the emergence of a vigorous of the vagus nerve, the principle outflow community of somatic practitioners is but of the parasympathetic aspect of the another way of watering the jungle. autonomic nervous system. Preliminary studies indicate that this change correlates increased vagal tone with this release and subsequent gain in structural organization. In other words, that release and gains in

26 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Thoughts on “Core”

teacher Hubert Godard (2005, 2006). Within the last ten years, “core” has emerged as an important concept in physical therapy and exercise science and has been seized eagerly by the fitness The Core as a Coordination industry; now all personal trainers and By John Smith, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ coaches seem to offer some form of “core stabilization” training. This recent interest was inspired in part by the groundbreaking biomechanical discoveries of a group of This is what Rolfers are doing: we are lifting a body up. We’re getting the uppermost pole of the Australian physiotherapists and researchers body lifted up. Sometimes you wonder what the relation is, the connection that makes one man a (Richardson et al. 1999). Godard, in his rigid stalk and another man flexible and lifted. workshops, has referred to this Australian Dr. Ida P. Rolf (Feitis 1978) research and amplified its somatic relevance by bringing to it a rich synthesis of thought in which perceptual and coordinative art of Ida Rolf’s genius was that she “core” with “Line”; others have equated processes are central to the organization of Pintuited many fundamental truths it with the “gut body” or the endodermic efficient posture and movement. Godard about human function long before there system of organs. Others have developed sees “core” as a coordination. was any rigorous science to support them. a way of categorizing their clients using This can be seen, for instance, in her belief this terminology – hence “tight sleeve, Rolfing practitioners tend to look first in the central importance of the role of loose core”, or “loose sleeve, loose core” to structural rather than functional water metabolism in the plasticity of the etc. “Core” has also been widely used explanations for the shifts we see in our connective tissue network (Rolf 1978), in psychological contexts – sometimes clients. After all, as structural integrators we and now we have the work of Klingler et associated with deep, organic or instinctual integrate structure, don’t we? Many of us al (2004), Oschman (2003) and Ho (1998) drives within us, but also as “our innermost agree with Dr. Rolf, that “lift” appears in our supporting her intuition. We also see this sense of identity” (Maitland 1995). clients as an emergent phenomenon as our deep insight at work in how she formulated work unfolds. But is it a structural change Because “core” has been used in such a wide some of the most central premises of we are witnessing? So much of our thinking variety of contexts, its various meanings Rolfing®: about “core” has been to view it in terms have become confusingly conflated; its of bodily structures; it is very tempting to • That as a body is reorganized in gravity, very ambiguity has limited its usefulness; it “explain” the lift-via-core phenomenon in it will achieve “lift” means too many things to too many people. terms of structural building blocks such as There have been some useful attempts at • That there is a two-level hierarchy in our a lengthened gut-body, a re-alignment of clarifying the concept. Structural Integration neuromuscular organization (involving body segments, or through the activity of a has devoted two issues to this discussion what she called “the intrinsic and special group of dedicated “core muscles”. (December 2002 and February 2003). In one extrinsic” musculature). Perhaps if we look more closely we may of these articles, Stephen Paré provided an find that phenomena such as “lift” are Both of these premises are now finding excellent summary of the debate so far and more to do with refined coordination. And, scientific support. outlined the different meanings attributed according to Godard, this coordination is to “core” within the Rolfing community Historically, these fundamental premises of largely fed and organized by perceptual (Paré 2003); those wishing clarify their Rolfing have been inextricably connected and imaginative processes – by how we thinking around “core” from a Rolfing with other key concepts she introduced receive the world. perspective should read it. [Editor’s note: – “core”, “sleeve” and “the Line” – and this The article is reprinted in this issue] His article cluster of linked concepts has been central The Australian research reveals at once both the confused thinking to the rich tradition of enquiry, debate, and that has surrounded the concept, and its on core stabilization conceptual clarification that has taken place extraordinary siren seductiveness – it is A group of Australian researchers at the within the Rolfing community ever since. clear that we love the idea of “core,” that University of Queensland has provided Long before “core” became a fashionable it has a deep resonance within the Rolfing new insights into our understanding of word around modern gymnasiums, Ida somatic perspective, and that we will not let the neuromuscular control of the posture Rolf used it to refer to deeper structures it go so easily. We must refine the concept during movement (Richardson et al. in the body, and “sleeve” to the more rather than dismiss it. 1999). Their research has centred on that superficial. In this simple sense, the core/ neuromuscular coordination now widely sleeve distinction even enters into the This paper will not revisit the territory so known as “core stabilization,” while design of the 10-session protocol; sessions clearly summarized by Paré; instead, it will their broader aim has been to assist in the 1-3 are often referred to as the “sleeve” briefly examine some important Australian rehabilitation of patients with low back pain sessions, and 4-7 as the “core” sessions. biomechanical research around “core or low back injury. An excellent technical She also at times linked “core” with the stabilization”, and will also look at a new exposition of their work has already been intrinsic musculature and “sleeve” with the functional understanding to the concept of presented to the Rolfing® community extrinsic. Some Rolfers have since equated “core” as articulated by Rolfing Movement (Newton 2003).

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 27 Thoughts on “Core”

These authors view “core stability” as the stabilizing effect on adjacent vertebrae, buckling under stress (it is unfortunate ability of the spine and trunk to respond acting at times almost like ligaments. The however that these researchers use the to all forms of kinetic perturbation and muscles of the local system tend to be deeper somatically unhelpful term, “stiffness” to to bring the system back to equilibrium. in the body and less bulky than their global describe this). These perturbations arise either from the counterparts. They work in a coordinated bending, buckling or torsional forces that fashion, providing differentiated tension It is all about timing flow from the environment (a push, a pull, through the thoracolumbar fascia while at a hug, a lean, the acceleration and braking the same time controlling intra-abdominal These researchers used quite novel methods of the bus I travel in, a strong wind, the pressure in order to enhance lumbar in studying this group of deep, often fine or momentum of the ball I catch, the weight stability. Contralateral fascicles of the TA narrow muscles, which have long been hard of my backpack), or from forces generated work in conjunction with the multifidi to study using standard electromyography. from my own movement (the momenta of at their respective lumbar segments to Instead they used real-time ultrasound all my body segments during walking, the produce “rings” of control around the imaging to measure their activity. They also turning moment of my arm in reaching, abdomen such that, used in a coordinated used ultrasound imaging as a biofeedback all eccentric and concentric movements fashion, they can control the movement of device, giving clients visual feedback around joints, the shifts in my center of individual spinal segments, or by gently in their efforts to re-engage these deep gravity as my body morphs). The spine squeezing the semi-liquid gut-body can lift muscles. has to respond to all these forces, both the the chest from below. This is beginning to Their research has clearly demonstrated expected and the unexpected, and still sound a little like what Rolf called “lift” or that for the effective coordination of maintain its physical integrity. “finding the Line.” the local and global systems timing is They note that some of this stability crucial. For people with back injury or is provided by the passive structural The global system low back pain, the coordination between the local and global systems goes awry. properties of the vertebrae, discs and The global system consists of the larger, In a well-functioning body the TA and spinal ligaments; however it is the dynamic torque-producing muscles such as the related multifidi should fire milliseconds response of all the muscular elements of the erector spinae, rectus, the obliques and before any gross movement of the trunk spine and trunk that they regard as crucial the latissimus. These muscles tend to be or extremities, but for those with low back to creating and maintaining core stability. more superficial and have longer leverage; pain the response of these muscles comes They propose a two-level hierarchy of their main task is controlling gross trunk too late – after the gross movement has neuromuscular control during normal movements. They can flex, extend, side- already commenced, thereby incidentally movement: flex and side-extend the spine; they can increasing the likelihood of re-injury. The also differentially rotate the thorax against • a local system, which is the coordinated TA and multifidi consequently become the pelvic segment around a longitudinal activity of a group of muscles they call neurologically inhibited and rapidly axis; however they are unable to provide the “inner unit,” whose main task is to atrophy. Other muscles, such as the rectus a specific and controlling influence at the maintain the balance and integrity of and erector spinae, will try to take over level of individual spinal segments. the lumbo-pelvic–hip complex during their function but ultimately they are not movement, and suited for the job. For uncompromised The stabilizing role individuals however, the multifidi and • a global system (utilizing the “outer unit” of co-contraction of torque-producing musculature) whose TA have been found to be fully responsive main task is to initiate and control a more When looking at the role of the deepest during all movements of the lumbar spine gross level of trunk movement. spinal muscles in maintaining spinal and extremities. The research has also stability it appears that much of their activity shown that when the local/global timing In a well-functioning organism, these two consists of the isometric co-contraction of was “out,” there is an increased incidence control systems work in a coordinated antagonists. At first glance this appears to of injury both to the spine and to joints way – the local system working non- be at odds with Rolf’s well-known dictum in the extremities – it seems that without stop, below the level of our ordinary around reciprocal inhibition, that “When efficient core stabilization, the stress of awareness and volition, harmonizing flexors flex, extensors should extend [i.e. external perturbations can be transferred itself with the “intentions” of the global lengthen].” But not all co-contraction is to any “weak link” in the body. system, maintaining balance and constantly dysfunctional. We see many examples guarding against spinal stress. in our clients when co-contraction is Feed forward – the obviously deeply problematic – when anticipatory recruitment The local system agonist/antagonist tonus is so exaggerated of the local group that it becomes biomechanically inefficient The local system is the coordinated The local group seems to have a different functioning of the inner unit musculature: – compressing joints and dampening an organic flow of movement. But such form of neurological control from the global the transversus abdominis (TA), the lumbar muscles – being automatic and working multifidi, the breathing diaphragm and dysfunctional co-contraction is probably more usefully called “armoring” or simply below the level of normal conscious muscles of the pelvic floor. It also includes awareness and volition. The local group has other deep one- or two-segment muscles a “holding pattern.” Efficient synergistic co-contraction around a joint is actually a an anticipatory role, pre-stabilizing body such as interspinales, intertransversarii segments prior to any overt movement. and rotatores, which provide individual vital aspect of its stability, helping it to resist

28 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Thoughts on “Core”

These researchers called this role “feed system. The training industry has now this kind of differentiated function is not forward.” spawned a huge array of products designed encouraged or even recognized. Usually to provide such unstable platforms: the a total tightening of the entire abdominal Hence the commonly quoted observation gym ball (see Chek), the Duradisc, the package is encouraged through holding that when someone in a relaxed standing BOSU, wobble-boards and the Bodyblade. static positions on unstable platforms such position simply abducts their arm, even However all these exercises clearly come as the gym-ball. The general tightening before the deltoid contracts there is first from a physical therapy/personal training of the belly will actually produce a deep some stabilizing activity in the soleus of perspective – they rely on the deliberate muscular conflict – a simultaneous impulse the contralateral leg and then activity in isolation of functions, and though proven to shorten and lengthen the superficial the TA. It is as if some level of our moving to be quite effective in reanimating these front line. This is an extremely common intelligence has already anticipated that weak and inhibited muscles, they do dysfunction in the West where the “cut displacing an arm from the trunk will not necessarily help patients take this abs” aesthetic prevails. But this general shift the center of gravity of the organism regained functionality into whole-body tightening of the belly seriously interferes as a whole thereby unbalancing it, and so movement. Such exercises could obviously with chest breathing and dampens the prepares in advance to maintain balance in be deeply enhanced by somatic work flow of all movements through the center. gravity. If you were to reproduce the same such as Feldenkrais, good Pilates or yoga Some practices such as yoga and the more arm-abduction, say, on a finely balanced instruction, Rolfing® Movement work, enlightened Pilates do recognise this vital shop dummy, it would most certainly and particularly the kind perceptual differentiation in belly wall function and topple over due to the shift in its center “awakening” work advocated by Godard. work with it. Caspari (2005) has distilled of gravity from its midline. So, in a well- a great deal of Godard’s thinking in her functioning body, this shift in the center According to Godard, the factor that is impressive formulation of the “functional of gravity is prepared for milliseconds in usually entirely absent in these exercise recipe.” She notes Godard’s point that advance of any overt movement. systems is attention to the “pre-pre- if we look at the functional goals of the movement,” the perceptual act of orienting In his teaching, Godard describes this traditional fifth hour then in this session to the environment; so much of his work intelligent anticipation as an example of we are attempting to evoke this precise involves the awakening and opening of “pre-movement” – a pre-movement being differentiation in belly-wall function. the “portals of perception” to set up the any form of anticipatory postural activity. initial conditions that will allow a natural However he goes much further than the flowering of core coordination. Some of Godard’s Theory Australian researchers in suggesting such this work involves guiding the client to of Tonic Function pre-movement is preceded by a “pre-pre- finding a different perceptual relationship movement” – an active perceptual reach into The work of Godard is now well known with the immediate environment; it may the kinesphere, and that the quality of this to the Rolfing® and wider structural also involve using “imaginative” processes reach will have profound implications on integration community (Frank 1995, 2003, like previewing a movement, visualizing the quality of the succeeding movement. 2004, 2007; Newton 1992, 1995); however a vector into space, or using image or it might be useful now to examine some Pre pre movement will be the perceptive metaphor to find a quality of movement. It of the central ideas of his work. Godard activity happening in the project of is clear that such work is entirely consistent “focuses on the gravity response in the moving with the tracking and perception work human body as a unifying principle for that has long been central to the Rolfing Pre-movement will be the postural activity what has been called intrinsic movement” technical repertoire. setting the coordination of the movement (Frank 1995). Intrinsic movement comes (before we really move) from the harmonious orchestration of Core stabilization the tonic musculature, which is activated Movement will be the displacement of any gym-style through our perception. There are many part of my body. (Godard 2006) “portals of perception” but he particularly Looking at the distribution of fiber emphasizes two main ways of relating orientations in the musculature of the Exercise methods to the world – a ground orientation and abdominal wall, we see that the fibers of a space orientation. Everyone has both around the core the rectus and obliques are essentially of these as a resource but we can have a Richardson et al (1999) have developed a oriented more towards the longitudinal preference to one or the other; we can be comprehensive exercise method aimed at axis of the body; they will therefore tend predominantly ground- or space oriented, showing patients how to regain control of to flex the trunk with varying degrees of and this will have very definite effects on the segmental stabilization of the spine. rotation depending on their cross-lateral how our posture is organized, how we Their initial focus is on retraining the synergy. Only the TA has fibers that initiate movement, and in the longer term, co-contraction of the TA and lumbar run laterally, such that when they work how our structure crystallizes. multifidi; this may have a considerable they diminish the circumference of the cognitive component and involve the use abdomen, squeezing the gut body and His work explores many exteroceptive of biofeedback devices. After the patients elevating the costal arch and diaphragm. and proprioceptive channels that feed have developed voluntary control of the Thus north/south abdominal muscles into core stabilization: the palpatory “drawing-in manoeuvre,” exercises may will actively shorten the front line while activity of the feet and hands; the pressure then move to working on unstable surfaces the east/west muscles will indirectly proprioception in the skin of the feet; the to stimulate the reflex activity of the tonic lengthen it. Yet in many training systems orienting information of the inner ear (and

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 29 Thoughts on “Core” its close cooperation with the oculomotor The business of living in extrinsics is the pelvic and respiratory diaphragms are musculature of the eye); focal and peripheral characteristic of the very young; it is a also strongly recruited, and this may, at vision and the proprioception of the characteristic of the immature. (Feitis times, be entirely appropriate (if you are suboccipital muscles. Much of his practical 1978) lifting a Volkswagen, for example). work consists in guiding the client’s And in many of her subsequent talks, she attention to different ways of perceiving speaks of how we initially learn to move Rolf and perceptual the immediate environment or by creating through the volitional use of the extrinsics, orientation imaginative constructs that profoundly and that as we mature these skills can be affect tonic function. It is apparent that Rolf had more than gradually subsumed by the intrinsics, or an inkling of the importance of spatial Departing from the exercise science not. Whether people end up “living in orientation in organizing posture. When paradigm, Godard has declared that their extrinsics” through poor somatic looking at the photograph of a client she there are no “core” muscles. There are, socialization, or through injury and trauma, once remarked: however, certain muscles, like the TA, the way out is through any work that evokes that contribute more to a lengthening intrinsic movement – including most forms Oh, this is just another guy who doesn’t through our midline, though they may have of somatically oriented movement work. know where “up” is (Feitis 1978). multiple other functions as well. “Core” is Rolf’s observations led her to believe that This is yet another of her insights that thus a coordination – all the muscular (and postural and motor efficiency would be were to be confirmed later in the work perceptual) coordination that brings “lift” to enhanced if the deep, smaller muscles of others. In fact many of the traditional a structure, which can be observed in others were allowed to work freely without Rolfing® tracking techniques implicitly use or sensed in oneself as a subtle lengthening being overpowered by their larger, more directional cues and ideokinetic evocations through the midline and greater sureness superficial cousins. For instance, she said: to assist clients find different ways of and subtlety in movement. organizing their body or “finding the Line” When the head functions incompetently, Godard has drawn on a huge variety of – find the earth, find the sky. The search for movement of the head is initiated and largely disciplines in creating this perceptual the ground orientation can be seen in the executed by the superficial muscles that attach work – yoga, Pilates, the ideokinetic careful placement of the feet before long to the shoulder girdle. Thus in the random tradition of dance, the spatial awareness back-work for example. And it is clear now individual, the head or neck turns with little of the Alexander technique, the grounding that these practices are actually directing or no participation of the deep-lying intrinsics orientation of much of Feldenkrais’ work clients’ attention so they can open new (Rolf 1978). and the martial arts. Even some of the portals of perception into the environment, standard physical therapy repertoire Research is now confirming Rolf’s assertion and this can produce a real shift within finds its place, the use of Theraband for and revealing that the dysfunctional the tonic system. This perceptual strand instance to assist clients in finding the core substitution of phasic for tonic activity of Rolfing practice later became more during movement against light resistance. is extremely common; for instance, the explicitly stated in the palintonic principle However, in all this, the main work is in work of Richardson, et al. shows that of Maitland (1991), and Godard has refined setting up the pre-conditions for the core the substitution of the rectus for the TA this work in an extremely practical way. So coordination to occur. is strongly correlated with chronic back in the well-known images of a “sky-hook” pain. lifting the body, what is the significance The intrinsic/extrinsic of the skyward pointing arrow? Could it Godard reminds his students that our be the “knowing where ‘up’ is”? Could it musculature musculature has a great deal of overlapping be the vector of a skyward reach into the Let us look once more to Rolf’s distinction or duplicated functionality. This does kinesphere? of intrinsic and extrinsic musculature. explain to a certain extent the ease From her usage, this distinction appears with which extrinsic can substitute for The local system and the quite close to our present understanding intrinsic activity – in both a functional and anti-gravity system of tonic and phasic musculature. We now dysfunctional ways. But we are asked to have extensive knowledge of the different avoid a simplistic dualistic understanding The local system can be seen as just one kinds and proportions of muscle fiber: of even the tonic/phasic distinction, and aspect of a much wider system of somatic many kinds of both fast and slow switch that there can at times be a legitimate control, which in the past has been called the fibers, with their different biochemistries overlap in their function. Taking the “inner anti-gravity system. The anti-gravity system and different forms of innervation (and and outer unit” musculature as just one is essentially a “catch all” label for the full interestingly, Rolf had speculated that the example, the muscles of these groups could spectrum of proprioceptive, reflex and intrinsics and extrinsics had different forms have widely different roles according to learned activity that is constantly working of innervation (Feitis 1978)). This intrinsic/ immediate situational and environmental to maintains us in gravity. Feldenkrais extrinsic distinction is also clearly related demands. In various combinations the is alleged to have said that for someone to the local/global dynamic of postural inner unit may be used for transient core to do nothing other than to stand erect, control as proposed by Richardson et al. stabilization, for supporting chest breathing 70% of his neural traffic is connected with Rolf saw the inappropriate substitution of during exertion, for the stabilization of the maintaining this orientation in gravity. the extrinsics for the intrinsics as a sign of sacroiliac joint during trunk flexion or even How one would confirm this I do not know, either somatic immaturity or dysfunction. for more extreme and forceful coordinations but it does remind us of the staggeringly such as the valsalva manouver. For the latter complex web of unconscious processing

30 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Thoughts on “Core” that is occurring at all times in our nervous At some stage in their process I usually Maitland, J., “The Palintonic Lines of systems – the myriad minute adjustments introduce Godard’s “flight of the eagle” Rolfing.” Rolf Lines, Vol. IXX, No. 1, Jan./ taking place constantly throughout all (Frank 2005), which is an ideal movement Feb 1991. the tonic musculature. Core stabilization sequence for revealing key elements of this Maitland, J., Spacious Body – Explorations is just one example of the tonic system in approach – finding core stability through in Somatic Ontology. Berkeley CA: North action, and the “inner unit” as studied by perceptual reach, activating the palpatory Atlantic Books, 1995, p. 221. Richardson et al. is just a small part of the sensitivity of the hands and feet – but it overall picture of core stabilization. also provides many supplementary benefits Newton, A., “An Interview with Hubert such as mobilizing the spine in flexion and Godard.” Rolf Lines, Winter 1992. extension. What is most significant for Some “upper left Newton, A., “Basic Concepts in the Theory me, however, is that clients are genuinely quadrant” speculations of Hubert Godard.” Rolf Lines, March interested in this approach and invariably 1995. Being a dedicated fan of Ken Wilber carry out the suggested exercises most (1996), I will offer some thoughts that faithfully; and surely this is the real test in Newton, A., “Core Stabilization, Core may contextualize the Australian research the value of any approach. Coordination.” Structural Integration, Vol. mentioned in this paper. Being scientists, 31, No. I, December 2003. (Also found Richardson et al. deal with objective Endnotes at http://www.alinenewton.com/pdf- observables (“upper right quadrant”), and articles/core.htm) do not readily speculate about the somatic Caspari, M., “The Functional Rationale of implications of their work (“upper left the Recipe.” Structural Integration, March Oschman, J., Energy Medicine in Therapeutics quadrant”); however we, being adventurers 2005, Vol 33, No. 1, pp. 4-24. and Human Performance Edinburgh: in the experiential or somatic realm, are free Butterworth Heinemann, 2003. Feitis, R. (ed.), Ida Rolf Talks: About Rolfing® to draw such parallels. Phasic activity seems and Physical Reality. Boulder, CO: The Rolf Pare, S., “On Core (and Sleeve).” Structural to be strongly correlated with movement Institute of Structural Integration®, pp. 62, Integration, Vol. 31, No. I, February 2003. “intentions,” while tonic activity is more 108, 125, 232. primitive and, like the workings of the Richardson, C., Jull, G., Hodges, P., Hides, autonomic nervous system, seems to work Frank, K., “Tonic Function: A Gravity J., Therapeutic exercise for spinal segmental beneath the level of everyday awareness Response Model for Rolfing Structural stabilization in low back pain. Scientific basis and volition. Like heartbeat and digestion, and Movement Integration.” Rolf Lines, and clinical approach. Edinburgh: Churchill tonic activity seems to work perfectly well March 1995. Livingstone, 1999. without conscious awareness. Godard Frank, K., “The Relationship of Contralateral Rolf, I., Rolfing: The Integration of Human however has suggested that the tonic Gait and the Tonic Function Model of Structures. New York: Harper and Rowe, system may be influenced by unconscious Structural Integration.” Rolf Lines, December 1978, pp. 41, 232. psychological impulses, and has provided 2003. some poignant examples of the muscular Schleip, R., “Fascial Plasticity – A New conflict between the consciously controlled Frank, K., “Tonic Function - Gravity Neurobiological Explanation.” Journal of phasics and the unconscious tonics – I want Orientation as the Basis for Structural Bodywork and Movement Therapies 7(1):1, to kiss the girl (g) but social constraints Integration.” Hellerwork Newsletter, April 2003, hold me back (f), hence the unbearable 2004. Structural Integration “Core and Sleeve vacillation (n)! Frank, K., “Flight of the Eagle - Self Care for – Part I,” December 2002. Structural Integration Clients.” IASI, The Structural Integration “Core and Sleeve Some personal impressions 2005 Yearbook of Structural Integration. – Part II,” February 2003. I have attended a number of Hubert Frank, K., “Posture & Perception in the Wilber, K., A Brief History of Everything, Godard’s workshops in New Zealand and Context of the Tonic Function Model of Melbourne: Hill of Content, 1996 Brazil and also one of Kevin Frank/Caryn Structural Integration: An Introduction.” McHose fascinating workshops related IASI Yearbook 2007. to Godard’s work. The teacher of my Website resources Rolfing Movement training was Monica Godard, H., 2005 and 2006 class notes taken Chek, P: http://www.chekinstitute.com/ Caspari, whose teaching is deeply inspired by the author, plus notes taken by Lael articles.cfm by Godard’s work. Needless to say, this Keen at Godard’s workshops in Tremembe, perceptual/movement work now forms the Brazil. Newton, A: http://www.alinenewton. central platform of my Rolfing® practice, com/pdf-articles/index.htm Ho, M., The Rainbow and the Worm. New which has been rejuvenated by the process. Jersey: World Scientific, 1998. Frank, K: http://www. I have taken some of Godard’s exercises resourcesinmovement.com/Archive.htm with resistive tubing and developed some Klingler, W., Schleip, R., Zorn, A., “European playful dance-like moves that I give to Fascia Research Project Report.” Structural many of my clients to assist them in finding Integration, December 2004, Vol: 32, No. 4, the core in movement. I also give many pp. 4-10. gym-ball balance exercises as well, as a means of stimulating their balance reflexes.

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imprecise nature of her formulation; on the other hand, Feitis is clearly implying a relationship, if not an equivalence, between “core” and “intrinsics” – but what is it? That “intrinsic” is not equivalent to “core” in Feitis’ view is made clear by this intriguing On Core (and Sleeve) speculation: “intrinsic movement as a By Stephen Paré, Certified Rolfer™ whole is initiated from the core of the body, most probably by the older vegetative autonomic nervous system,” since the core 3 An earlier version of this article appeared in the February 2003 issue of Structural Integration. in this formulation is a discrete entity. The entry concludes by claiming that “electromyographic research has shown that Rolfing achieves this kind of core- n which a review of existing usually called the sleeve – following Rolf sleeve independence.”4 But the reference theories leads to yet another – is naturally also of interest, though some …I for this research is to an unpublished theory; that, too, is rejected in favor of the writers are more interested in thinking manuscript, and the core and sleeve priority of tradition; and the essay proceeds about it than others). have previously been neither defined nor to an appeal for a return to Ida Rolf’s The essay will go further, by proposing a distinguished. Therefore, such a statement original formulation. But this is discovered modification as well as a clarification of can convey nothing precise. She says that to be ambiguous; and the essay concludes, the “core as viseral space” theory, one that “the girdles should be sufficiently free so inconclusively, with speculation as to what links to a more traditionally recognized that their actions do not distort the serenity to do for the best. binary division; namely, the ancestral of the core.”5 Does this mean that the pelvic The question of the definition of the core of chordate opposition of dorsal versus and pectoral girdles are the sleeve? And the body is a much-vexed one in Rolfing® ventral. To support this, information will what does that have to do with intrinsics circles. Indeed, it is difficult to find complete be adduced from vertebrate morphology, and extrinsics? agreement between any two writers on fetal and early childhood development, and Elsewhere in the same book 6 is an the subject, much less among a majority. neuroanatomy. illustration with this caption: “Three views One thing lacking within the diversity is of the body core, the spine.” This appears a survey article that summarizes, assesses I. to be a different definition, apparently and reconciles, to the extent possible, the irreconcilable with the intrinsics/extrinsics various ideas. This essay will attempt to fill Rosemary Feitis edited Ida Rolf Talks About definition: the core is the spine. But it is the void by reviewing a number of existing Rolfing and Physical Reality, also providing reconcilable with her assertion that “the writings on the subject. Of particular a glossary. There is a glossary entry under girdles should be sufficiently free so that interest is the “core as visceral space” since “Core/Sleeve - Intrinsics/Extrinsics.” This their actions do not distort the serenity of it is presently the dominant conception of heading arouses the expectation that the the core.” the core in our curriculum. entry will convey Rolf’s own thinking on the subject. “Core” and “Sleeve,” though One of the persistent themes of inquiry into What is the validity of conceiving the core they stand at the head of the entry, are not the core is whether or not it is to be equated as visceral space? What relationship does defined specifically; one must then assume with the “Line”. For instance, Schultz, Rolf’s original formulation have to “the that they are identical with “Intrinsics” and in 1988, does equate them. According core as visceral space”? These two questions “Extrinsics.” “Intrinsics” and “Extrinsics,” to Schultz, Rolf does not appear to have are very closely related; since if we are not however, are not precisely distinguished, as expressed herself either in detail or very talking about the original formulation, it is the definition specifies a continuum, viz.: concretely on the concept of core and sleeve. difficult to know what we are talking about. “the rule of thumb [i.e., it is not a definition] This tends to be confirmed by Sultan: This is Sultan’s position: is that tissue nearer the bone is intrinsic; 2 She was looking for a way to describe I don’t think we really have to look tissue closer to the surface is extrinsic.” that something that happens to people any farther than Ida Rolf’s original “Nearer to the bone” does indeed seem at when they get “Rolfed,” that emergent formulation to see what it is we are first to be a useful “rule of thumb” [sic!], quality....her description of the core referring to when we’re talking about if an imprecise one; but it is a phrase that was as an energetic event, and the core.1 itself conceals difficulties. Most muscles sleeve referred to the flesh in general, Indeed, if we can determine what she attach to bones on either end of their that which was affected by gravity.7 meant, it would seem absolutely necessary span. Does this mean that their bellies Schultz’ brief article from 1988, on the to do as he suggests, an obligation less to are more extrinsic than their tendons? Or contrary, presents a quite simple and clear tradition or to the founder’s memory than that a skeletal muscle, attaching to bone, definition for the core, identifying it with to intellectual probity. She, apparently, was is more intrinsic than the stomach, which the central axis: the originator of the concept. does not? In this scheme, is the skeleton the anatomical core? This does not seem The core is a flexible line and the This essay will evaluate the range of to be the implication. By calling it a “rule sleeve is (are) the obliques moving conceptions of the core (its complement, of thumb” she seems to acknowledge the around it.8

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In a later book, The Endless Web (1996), others are naturally intriguing. It would incompatible. The problem, finally, appears Feitis and her co-author Schultz present a be very exciting, in this connection, to be to be unresolvable. different concept of core at greater length able to distinguish a physical or objective Maitland offers an additional “objective” and with appropriate discretion: core that also can be distinguished in definition of “core and surface,” one other dimensions of human existence. One With some caution, we use the that is quite incompatible with his first might then theorize that the condition ambiguous word “core” for the body’s definition: of the physical core also gives clues as to central axis...there is no structural the condition of the psychological and Another way to objectify the core correlate for this core.9 ontological being of the human being, and and surface is to understand it [he is But despite having “no structural perhaps vice versa. It might be possible actually only talking about the core correlate”… to integrate work on the motility of the here] as the space bounded by the spleen, for instance, into a course in anger pelvis, abdominal myofasciae, rib The concept of a core includes both management!13 cage, and jaw. This internal space [the] spine (with head, sacrum, and extends from the pelvic floor to the coccyx) and the viscera.10 Maitland identifies two “objective” palate or nasopharynx. The bony and conceptions in his glossary; the first, It also is seen to perform a fundamental myofascial structures that surround the however, seems, as Feitis and Schultz and functional role, although it has, again, “no core space constitute the surface...16 Feitis did, to amalgamate two separate structural correlate”: and unreconciled conceptions of core. The The real problem here is the idea that it is The balanced diagonals of the limbs problem is essentially the same as that in possible to have two completely different function best in combination with the Feitis: and incompatible objective definitions free spring action of the core.11 of the core. Is it “the intrinsic myofascial According to Dr. Rolf, one way to draw structures,” or is it the spine, or is it the The definition offered here is ambivalent. the distinction is to understand the visceral space? If it can be all three, how On the one hand, the core is the central intrinsic myofascial structures as core can we possibly be talking about the same axis with no structural correlates; on the structures and the extrinsic myofascial thing? Perhaps it is reasonable to present other hand, it is the spine (including the structures as surface structures... three possibilities, but not to suggest that all head) and the viscera. Note that Schultz’ one of her favorite indicators of can be true; otherwise, it is a matter of three earlier idea of the sleeve consisting of this economy of function was the different things, which should then have mobile “obliques” is preserved in the later appearance of the spine (core) moving three different names. And the question “balanced diagonals of the limbs”; and, in in free independence from the pelvic then arises: three possibilities of what, fact, the definition in The Endless Web is an and shoulder girdles (surface).14 exactly? For it is not clear what sense it amalgam of Schultz’ definition from his The first difficulty is that “intrinsic” is not makes to talk about a core and a surface. In previous article of 1988 and one of Feitis’ distinguished with respect to “extrinsic.” Maitland’s discussion of core and surface, previous definitions (the one that equated Are some myofascial structures “intrinsic” the abstract concept core has been reified core with spine). Gone here is the (only and others “extrinsic”? That is, are discrete into something, or rather into various implicit) equation of core and sleeve with structures either one or the other? If so, things; it doesn’t need justification. But it intrinsic and extrinsic tissues. Schultz and this is not specified. Or does “intrinsic” is not at all obvious from his discussion Feitis have also added the viscera, included signify “deeper,” not indicating structures that there even is such a thing; as we shall because they surround the vertical axis.12 themselves but a relative, not absolute, see, not everyone agrees that there is an Note that they do not mention, much less location? It does for Feitis, although anatomical core. Surely the argument ought attempt to define, the sleeve by name; she says that “...tissue nearer the bone to go from the observed and specific to the presumably, it is everything else. But the is intrinsic, tissue closer to the surface is abstract and general, and not the other way apparent connection noted with the previous extrinsic,”15 while Maitland refers only to around. The abstraction “core and surface” article of Schultz’ between “obliques” and myofascial structures. should be justified by observation. It is “diagonals of the limbs” suggests that unreasonable for it to start off as a premise Most likely it is the second meaning that what we are really talking about here is the and then go looking for an observable is intended, as Maitland attributes it, as fundamental opposition between axial and correlate to it. Feitis does, to Rolf. But if the distinction appendicular skeletons. is a relative one – like the anatomist’s To add further to the ambiguity, Maitland Maitland’s concept of core is similarly cranial/caudal, a bi-polar continuum – then adds a fourth definition in the body of his ambivalent, sharing several features in how is it possible for the core to move “in text, less anatomically precise but definitely incomplete agreement with Feitis (i.e., in free independence from the...(surface)”? locating the core in the physical body: Rolf 1978), and with Schultz and Feitis. At what point on the continuum is this You can visualize your core as Maitland discusses what he refers to as independence to be leveraged? In Maitland’s extending through the center of your objective, subjective, psychological, and schema, a clear distinction is assumed; yet body from the crown of your head, phenomenological taxonomies of the the possibility of one is negated. And, like down slightly in front of your spine, core/surface distinction (apparently alone Feitis, his definition has to do both with through the insides of your legs, and among commentators, he prefers “surface” intrinsics/extrinsics and with the spine/ emerging just in front of your heels on to “sleeve”). We shall concern ourselves girdles; the two aspects of the definition the soles of your feet.17 with the “objective” ones, although the combine uncomfortably and appear to be

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And now “core” becomes “Line” again! seems a reasonable hypothesis; researching Of exceptional interest is Deckebach’s this kind of question might be a very good assertion of the precedence of core over “You can visualize your core”; “Core...can way to respond to Flury’s critique: sleeve: be used objectively”;18 “The core can be objectified and described anatomically.”19 I haven’t found a question that could The unspoken premise we have been Yes, but why should it be objectified and be answered by defining a concept holding is that the sleeve determines described one way rather than another? It of core...why should I build a theory the form of the structure...In my work is not enough saying that it can be one thing when there is no question?25 I have changed this premise from or another; for what reason is it one or the the idea that the sleeve determines If there are two divisions in the human other? If it is one thing, then the other things the shape of the core to the premise body, it would be reasonable to expect should be called something else. that the core contents are shaping the manipulation to have more powerful sleeve.29 Maitland’s discussion is most useful when intradivisional than interdivisional effects. he refers to his clinical experience, such as If core and sleeve can be sufficiently It appears to be unusual, at least among the following suggestive observations: defined that predictions can be made as to published commentators, to assert that intradivisional, relative to interdivisional the core has precedence over the sleeve. Manipulating certain key myofascial effects, then there would be a question, Deckebach does not claim that most Rolfers structures...often visibly opens up, in Flury’s sense, worth building a theory give the sleeve precedence in their work, lengthens, and actually increases around. The “concept of core” could then except, as he puts it, “unconsciously.”30 internal spaces in the body. What have some predictive power. It would be a Perhaps Rolf’s assertion that her method Rolfers recognize and clients feel as theory of core – not a model but something works from the “outside in” (using the core length and core function happen you could build models from. metaphor of an onion, with its many layers) when these spaces visibly open up, is responsible for this. lengthen, and increase in volume...20 Deckebach has proposed yet another anatomical definition of core and sleeve: Schwind asserts the contrary: that “because He points out that it is important to have of the tradition of our profession, we a concept of core for this reason;21 but Core – the pleural membrane of say that the inside is more important as the concept has not been adequately the thorax and its contents, and the than the outside.”31 None of the other defined, or even isolated, the acuteness peritoneal membrane of the abdomen, sources analyzed here makes a claim as to of his observation is blunted. This lack of along with its contents.26 precedence, however. There does indeed precision is more unfortunate as he becomes This is quite concrete. He further appear to be less interest in discussing the more specific (and more interesting): distinguishes an “abdominal core,” which sleeve (and consequently the relationship Rolfing the myofasciae on the inside is defined namely as the second half of the between core and sleeve); and that, perhaps, of the thighs (e.g., the adductors) and above definition. This definition is different is indicative of a lower esteem for its pelvic floor often will lengthen and from one of Maitland’s definitions – his importance. increase the core space of the whole “core as visceral space” definition – in not Schwind has addressed the core/sleeve torso.22 extending upward to the nasopharynx; problem at the greatest length of any of the and in not extending downward to the Presumably, in this instance, he is referring published discussions.32 His discussion is pelvic floor. to a “core as visceral space” definition – or further augmented by his oral presentation is it “core as Line”? His observation about The sleeve is also included and defined in in a symposium on core and sleeve.33 Both the adductors is especially interesting in Deckebach’s scheme: are valuable for their critical (and self- light of yet another concept of core that he critical) attitude. However, they provide no Sleeve – everything outside of the mentions (though without reference): unequivocal statement of what the core is pleural and peritoneal membranes.27 in anatomical terms, certainly not what its Other models add [that is, to the This leaves us essentially with a definition parameters might be. On the contrary, he “pelvic floor to nasopharynx” model] for “sleeve” that means, “everything that doubts that it is possible to formulate an the space between the legs which is not core.” anatomical definition of “core”: extends from the pelvic floor down to and emerging just in front of the Deckebach points to an interesting The anatomical definition of the heels on the bottom of the feet. These phenomenon, presumably observed in his core has no chance of giving any models also insist that the core must practice, which might be of some value in explanation of why one anatomical also extend up past the roof of the distinguishing an anatomical core from its unit of the body should belong to mouth to the top of the head.23 sleeve: the core and why another should not belong to it. It is totally arbitrary.34 This is perhaps at least partly justified by his As the connective tissue in the sleeve observation about adductor manipulation24 tends to migrate to and contract His critique of the possibility of an (partly – does the effect he describes extend around bony attachments, likewise, anatomical definition is based on an downward as well as upward? He doesn’t in the core, the connective tissue of the interesting analysis; he thinks that the core say). Wouldn’t we expect the various mesenteries migrates to and contracts must be a collection of regions of the core to be more sensitive to around the organs it positions. This is ...the different elements of the body manipulation of another part of the core what causes organs to feel harder in which are most significant for the than to manipulation of the sleeve? This older bodies.28

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maintenance of the structure in one respect, this seems, in fact, to resemble thus also the division between the primarily time.35 Schwind’s own view: tonic extensors and the primarily phasic flexors. This, clearly, is the position of Deckebach It’s a symbol, it is a poetic definition who (in addition to asserting the primacy of course, not very scientific, it’s a The evolutionary development of pelvic of the core over the sleeve) has an answer symbol for the integrity of the human and pectoral girdles with extremities for what elements those are. Presumably, organism.40 introduced complications into this scheme he would prefer a term like “the structures” of motor neurological architecture, but According to Schwind, core is “an almost to Schwind’s unintegrated-sounding “the the bi-ramic logic of the ancestral “idea” metaphysical term.”41 Indeed, in this different elements”). But Schwind denies persisted: conception, the “emergence” that Sultan the possibility: speaks of is a function of structural Pectoral and pelvic anatomy evolved ...there is no reason to say, for example, integration, of balance not between core much later than the axial system, so “the spine is the core” or “the viscera and sleeve, but among all the “elements” of some of the segmental axial nerves are the core.” Logically, there is the body. For Schwind, “core” is effectively are extended and borrowed. Since absolutely no reason to do that.36 equivalent to “integration.” For him “core” the appendages are outgrowths of the should probably be called something else, ventral body wall, the appendages This reasoning, however, does not seem because that word implies a spatial location; are served by ventral branches of the sufficient; surely the issue is not a logical whereas, for him, the word means that a spinal nerves. These ventral branches but rather an empirical one. It appears that higher level of coherence has been achieved. also divide into dorsal and ventral Schwind simply has a different presumption This can be compared, of course, to Sultan’s divisions.45 of what the core should be than other idea of core as “that emergent quality”. commentators. There might be a good Note that the limbs also have upper, dorsal reason to say that the spine is the core; for surfaces and lower, ventral surfaces.46 instance, that it is the structure around which II. It should also be noted that our phylogenetic the ancient chordate prototype is organized, Jon Zahourek has analyzed human “anatomical position” is not only on all while the pelvic and pectoral girdles are anatomical organization in light of vertebrate fours but also with external rotation of much less ancient and are thus graftings morphological and neuroanatomical data the limbs. This means that the origin of to a pre-existing trunk. If a Rolfer is able with very interesting results. In evolutionary sartorius is presented on the dorsal surface to observe that phenomenon that Sultan terms, our biological line of descent has of the body and is part of the group of calls “...that something that happens...that only recently abandoned quadrupedal 47 37 extensors. emergent quality,” what is observable must locomotion. Zahourek points out that our have a physical dimension. Deckebach, for ancestral division between dorsal and Data from fetal and early childhood example, claims from the experience of his ventral is actually, in evolutionary terms, a development provide an interesting practice to have found the primacy of the division between top and bottom: confirmation of the fundamental bifurcation pleural and peritoneal membranes and of dorsal from ventral: their contents “for the maintenance of the Divide both halves [i.e., left and right] The sequence in which the head structure in time.” Nevertheless, Schwind into upper and lower zones: ventral, develops ahead of the tail and the back appears to backtrack in his oral presentation for the lower compartment occupied ahead of the belly is maintained, as far of two years later: by the guts, and an upper, dorsal zone of musculoskeletal array – quite as we can tell, after birth...at birth, the ...because of course, the space that the different ideas.42 most developed pelvic musculature viscera take up seems to be one of the is in the back. The gluteus maximus most significant components for a long This might seem at first glance to be, if not an muscle is very well developed. The term development of the shape of the arbitrary distinction, at most a convenient erector spinae...are strong, while the whole of the human organism.38 one; but the division exists in the nervous belly is less so.48 system and it is there that the significance If this is not a direct contradiction, Schwind of the distinction begins to emerge: Furthermore, the adductors of the thigh does not explain why not; he even uses are “even less strong.”49 Of course the almost exactly the same expression he Muscle activity in each segment is adductors are “ventral” in the sense used previously in denying the possibility served by a left and a right pair of mentioned by Zahourek – that is, they are of isolating the nerves from the brain or spinal cord, adjacent to the inside or “lower” surface each of which branches into two of the limbs. “Flexion...is any movement ...different elements of the body which branches (rami). One branch serves that brings the ventral surfaces toward one are most significant for the maintenance ventral muscle; the other branch, another,”50 as adductors do in our ancestral of the structure in time.39 43 dorsal. quadrupedal posture. But what is more fundamental is the As Schleip puts it, the extensors are It is a case of “ontogeny recapitulating unreconsidered assumption that the core “innervated from a dorsal primary ramus phylogeny”: the infant can acquire bipedal must necessarily be more important than or the dorsal branches of the plexi,” while locomotion and erect posture only after the sleeve. That one or the other may the flexors are “innervated from the ventral passing through quadrupedalism into a be more important is not the only set of 44 branches of the plexi.” phase of “apprenticeship” (Feldenkrais’ alternatives. Why could the importance not term) in bipedalism. It might be reasonably lie in a balance between core and sleeve? In The division between dorsal and ventral is

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 35 Thoughts on “Core” asserted, as Rolf did more than once, being equivalent to the ventral division that the viscera are automatically more that man as a species is in an epoch of of the human anatomy and the sleeve to protected merely by virtue of the fact that apprenticeship in bipedalism. The (ventral) the dorsal division? Developmental and the quadruped’s extensor side is on the flexors develop more slowly than the neuroanatomical data already divide the surface, exposed to the uncertainties of the (dorsal) extensors. Oddly, it is ordinarily the body into two divisions along these lines. world, while its flexor side is protected by flexors that dominate in the adult, despite the earth on the underside – the flexor side The importance of flexor/extensor balance developing after the extensors is, effectively, intrinsic. What Feldenkrais was fundamental for Rolf: calls “the body pattern of anxiety”62 is a A human being is evolving as an erect You must remember that in your return not only to a fetal pattern, but also to animal. How erect he’s going to be appreciation of a body what you are the primordial pattern of our evolutionary as an individual will depend on the looking at is the relationship between ancestors (in effect recapitulating phylogeny degree of balance between his flexors flexors and extensors.54 in reverse). The physical response to fear is and extensors. If our description of a return not only to the womb but to the evolution is accurate, then we have ...in flexion extensors extend when evolutionary trunk. slowly come up to the place where flexors flex. This is something that we are putting more responsibility doesn’t happen in an unbalanced The erect posture that distinguishes on extensors and trying to take away body.55 our species serves to obscure one of the responsibility from flexors.51 fundamental spatial distinctions of our There is also a physiological distinction evolutionary patrimony: dorsal equals The development of the fetus between flexors and extensors in general, outside, and ventral equals inside. The establishes the pattern of the later as extensors normally contain more red quadruped’s ventral surface faces the development of the body; it’s a pattern fibers than flexors do.56 The distinction earth, affording the contents of the visceral moving from habitual flexion toward has functional dimensions as well as space a measure of protection. The “soft balance between flexion and extension. structural: underbelly” is proverbial, signifying the Obviously, we will do well to get The first reaction to the frightening vulnerability of the ventral surface. strength and life and vital quality into stimulus is a violent contraction of extensors.52 From this perspective, erect posture looks all the flexor muscles, especially as though it should be evolutionary folly: And there appears to be an additional of the abdominal region, a halt in not only is speed sacrificed, with only two complication – or really many interrelated breathing, soon followed by a whole limbs available for locomotion, but the complications – added to this picture by the series of vasomotor disturbances such organism’s vulnerable parts are extended existence of what Rolf calls the “hypererect” as accelerated pulse, sweating, to up into vertical space where they are type of body or, in general, what is now micturition and defaecation.57 exposed. Clearly these are not the only referred to as the “external” type in which Feldenkrais “saw that negative emotion relevant factors in our troubled evolution. extensors are dominant. strengthens flexors.”58 To look at it another way, the structure of Zahourek’s presentation includes a pair of the human being is indeed quite a “different People go to flexion for emotional evocative illustrations, both representing idea” in Zahourek’s phrase. security. They curl up for protection... the body, in profile, divided front to back, immature behavior, negative emotions Human posture, furthermore, seems to call in two different ways. The first is with a demand flexion and are expressed for social and psychological innovations vertical line extending from the crown of through flexion.59 simply because of the fact that, in standing the head through the hip joint to the soles face to face, we also stand belly to belly of the feet at a point just in front of the ...the chronaxies of the flexors are (core to core?). The degree of intimacy that heels; the second illustration represents in general lower than those of the this implies is unprecedented among our the division separating the ancestral dorsal extensors, and they contract first.60 mammalian relatives, even our closest ones. from ventral.53 It is especially interesting to Feldenkrais chooses an appropriate moment Jane Goodall once made a film detailing note that, in the head, this division is just to speculate and, in doing so, points to a chimpanzee sexual behavior. While to above the roof of the mouth, recalling one fundamental distinction in our ancestral watch it is to recognize one’s own species in of the “models” of Maitland. morphology: many things, it is also to be astonished, even The particular slowness of the thigh shocked, at the absence of those things that ...limbs are thus drawn nearer to the adductors to develop in utero (and also in matter most in sexuality to most humans: body in front of the soft, unprotected early infancy, as Schultz and Feitis note) depth of involvement and intimacy, and parts – the testicles, the throat, and associates them with the flexors in the the intensity of physiological response and the viscera. This attitude gives the torso. This is consistent, not surprisingly, orgasm. best protection possible and instills a with the ancestral quadrupedal pattern and sense of safety. The flexor contractions, The numerous anatomical conceptions of the architecture of the nervous system, as when maintained, are instrumental “core and sleeve” reviewed here fall into noted by Zahourek. We have already cited in restoring the normal, undisturbed four categories (excluding Schwind’s, the Maitland’s observation about adductor state.61 core as “symbol for the integrity of the manipulation, and his comment that some organism”). These might be characterized “models” of the core include the inside of Obviously any quadruped has a profoundly as follows: 1) core as line; 2) core as the legs – that is, the ancestral flexors. Can different feature to its structure, as compared axial complex vs. sleeve as appendicular it be that we may best think of the core as to an erect-standing human being: namely,

36 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Thoughts on “Core” complex; 3) core as intrinsics vs. sleeve as III. necessary one? It was Rolf who coined the extrinsics; 4) core as visceral space. expression “core and sleeve”; what sense The intrinsics/extrinsics conception of does it make to use her coinage to denote Each of the four prevalent conceptions core is not apparently being promoted a different concept? The “core as visceral represents one of Rolf’s basic concepts much nowadays, though it still receives space” idea should be given another name (with the possible exception of the last one) acknowledgment. Nevertheless, it might – not “core.” This essay has attempted viz.: 1) a man is a something built around a have been Rolf’s original conception of to identify it with the widely recognized line; 2) independence of appendicular from core and sleeve: flexor/extensor classification. Rolf herself axial; 3) independence of intrinsics from saw this as a primary system of orientation extrinsics; 4) balance between flexors and If the head is too far forward, rotation for her work, but it is a classification that extensors. None of the writers reviewed is is done by the extrinsics because the is clearly distinct from her “core/sleeve as in complete agreement with any other. intrinsics then lack span and can’t function, but to the extent that this intrinsic/extrinsic” idea. Unfortunately the present essay has not happens, the normal patterning of Both Cottingham66 and Silverman, et al.,67 joined with any one of these writers; it adds the body is destroyed. The balanced have done research for which different yet another theory to the list. (One other core-and-sleeve pattern of the body core/sleeve relationships have been aspect of the confusion surrounding core 63 gets lost. identified on an intrinsic/extrinsic basis. and sleeve is the variety of ways that the Unfortunately, their sample sizes are ideas are framed; they are variously called Additionally, and most important of small and they do not provide precise models, or conceptions, or definitions, or all in humans – systems which are methodology for determining their theories. There are big differences among vertically organized and move in distinctions. Nevertheless, it appears these terms, however.) space – there is the intrinsic-extrinsic symmetry which is concerned with the possible to develop such a methodology, On the other hand, the present theory has relations between deep and superficial as Rolf hoped. Cottingham’s illustrations an advantage over the previous ones. It myofascial structures in the body.64 do seem in some way to illustrate the embraces, as it were, the “core as visceral categories he has put them in; even though space” theory, while it is also closely allied We have used intrinsic and its correlate, the system of classification is imprecise, it is with a distinction – the dorsal/ventral extrinsic, to denote, respectively, also the case that his distinctions are visible. division – that is already well recognized muscular elements that are invested Unfortunately, the work of these researchers by mainstream biologists. Therefore, it in the deepest fascial layers of the has been neither duplicated nor developed. both explains phenomena that Rolfers have body (intrinsics), and their paired It, like the elecromyographic studies of observed and also puts them in the context antagonists (or cooperators), the Dr. Hunt, remains an intriguing of what is already accepted. It also puts the extrinsics, which are more superficial, suggestion. “core as visceral space” theory into an easy occupy greater volume, and are more It would be very helpful to be able to say relationship with one of Rolf’s fundamental directly and obviously subject to the whether a given myofascial structure is concepts: the balance between flexors plastic changes of the integrative intrinsic or extrinsic, absolutely and not and extensors. Most importantly, it poses technique. [A basis for Deckebach’s relatively, or to have some other precise way “questions,” in Flury’s sense, that make it claim that traditionally Rolfers have of distinguishing one from another. Then a necessary theory. put more emphasis on the sleeve.] it would make sense to speak casually of a It is incompatible with the other three We have found it both convenient core and a sleeve. It might take some long definitions/theories/models, however. and logical to use this nomenclature time for the interest in and the recognition Incidentally, Maitland’s contention (or in describing what is a functional of the value of the work that would be rather, that of his unnamed sources) that rather than a descriptive parameter. necessary to clarify this distinction to be the core as visceral space reaching down Relatively little organized work has aroused in the scientific community, but the inside of the legs must also reach into been done mapping the unexplored that is no justification to continually be the cranium is not identical with the dorsal/ territory of fascial anatomy. Time and inventing new interpretations for the same ventral model presented here; though the research in the future will certainly terms. Only confusion can come from such adductors are ventral, the cranium is in define these terms more clearly as inventions. the dorsal half of the ancestral model (the scientific attention in the biological Unfortunately, Rolf herself seems to be pharynx, however, being ventral). field focuses on the dynamic rather than the static aspects of humans.65 responsible for confusion on this issue: “That emergent quality” could be due to The spine is the connecting rod of “giving more responsibility to extensors”; to This last paragraph is especially striking. the body, a segmented armature balancing flexors and extensors; to relieving It is clear that Rolf saw the difficulties resting in the pelvis. Its two polar the man of his “body pattern of anxiety”; to in the lack of precision in distinguishing terminals, embodied in pelvis and freeing the viscera from constriction; to the intrinsics from extrinsics. Furthermore, head, make the spine a vital core [!] advantage of their essential functions; or to her wording seems to imply that she that integrates the human with his a combination of all of these; or, indeed, to is thinking of discrete structures; her gravity environment.68 other additional factors. expectation, therefore, was that eventually each structure could be put into one or the In order to fit the smaller core [!] other category. of the cervical structure into the Isn’t this concept the primary and only larger overlying sleeve [!] of shoulder

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 37 Thoughts on “Core”

girdle and ribcage, a structural “gap” Notes 30. Ibid. between cervical and dorsal sections 31. Peter Schwind, “Preliminary of the spine must be bridged.69 1. Michael Salveson, et al., “Core: Structure and Function.” Rolf Lines, Jan. 1994, p. 27. Considerations for a Theory of Core.” Rolf

It is clear that in these quotations, Rolf is ® Lines, Fall 1992, p. 17. thinking of the core/sleeve distinction as 2. Ida P. Rolf, Ida Rolf Talks about Rolfing 32. Ibid. being equivalent to the axial/appendicular and Physical Reality, ed. Rosemary Fetis. Rochester, NY: Harper & Row, 1978), pp. distinction (the ribs would be included in 33. Salveson, et al. the appendicular skeleton, however). It is 211-212. 34. Schwind, p. 17. not surprising, then, that Feitis’ view, and 3. Ibid., loc. cit. On what basis are we to later Feitis and Schultz’, appear to be so assess this supposed “probability”? 35. Ibid. ambivalent; the ambiguity originates with 36. Ibid. Rolf herself. Even the “multiple personality” 4. Ibid. of Maitland’s several theories might have 5. Ibid. 37. Salveson, et al., p. 27. originated in the apparent ambiguity of Rolf’s talk and scanty written treatment of 6. Ibid., p. 208. 38. Ibid., p. 32. the subject. Sultan’s assertion that “I don’t 7. Salveson, et al., p. 27. 39. Schwind, p. 17. think we need to look any farther than Ida Rolf’s original formulation”70 now has 8. Louis Schultz, “Thoughts on Core and 40. Salveson, et al., p. 32. Sleeve.” Rolf Lines, Jan./Feb. 1988, p. 16. taken on a certain irony. Perhaps we need 41. Ibid., p. 31. What does “almost not look any further; but what was her 9. Louis Schultz and Rosemary Feitis, metaphysical” mean? original formulation? D.O., The Endless Web. Berkeley, CA: North 42. Jon Zahourek, Myologik Atlas Series, Atlantic Books, 1996, p. 36. Perhaps for her the concept did not deserve vol. 1. Loveland, CO: Zahourek Systems, the status of a theory or even to be associated 10. Ibid. Inc., 1996, p. 16. Of course, if this is taken with something particular. In these two literally, Zahourek is guilty of the so-called 11. Ibid. quotations, the core/sleeve metaphor “watchmaker fallacy”; namely, that if there is accompanied by other metaphors 12. Ibid., p. 37. is an “idea” there must also have been (“connecting rod,” “armature,” “gap,” someone to have had the idea – a god, for “bridge”) in a setting of colorful, imaginative 13. Jeffrey Maitland, Spacious Body: instance. It’s a seductive concept. language. Perhaps the metaphor of core Explorations in Somatic Ontology. Berkeley, and sleeve was congenial to her; and she CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995, p. 220. 43. Ibid. used it, unrigorously, in different contexts 14. Ibid. 44. Robert Schleip, “The Flexor-Extensor without it always having to signify the same Typology.” Rolf Lines, Nov, 1995, p. 10. physical objects or relationships, in much 15. Rolf, 1978, p. 211. My emphasis. the same way as she is using “bridge” here. 45. Zahourek, p. 16. 16. Maitland, p. 220. With so few examples of her thought on the 46. Ibid., p. 17. matter before us, it is difficult to know if that 17. Ibid., p. 181. is a reasonable interpretation or what the 47. Ibid.; see his excellent and evocative 18. Ibid. wisest choice between her two conflicting illustrations. Cf. also Schleip, p. 10. uses of the terms might be or, indeed, if it 19. Ibid., p. 60. 48. Schultz and Feitis, p. 23. is possible to make a choice. 21. Ibid., p. 180. 49. Ibid. If the quotation having to do with core/ 22. Ibid. sleeve as intrinsics/extrinsics (note 63 50. Zahourek, p. 17. above) seems more serious, the thinking 23. Ibid. Since when can a model “insist” 51. Rolf, 1978, p. 133; cf. also Rolf 1977. around the point more highly developed, on something? and her attention to it more focused, it 52. Ibid. 24. Ibid. could be because in speaking of intrinsics 53. Zahourek, p. 16. and extrinsics she was exploring territory in 25. Hubert Ritter, “Optimizing the Animal, which few if any researchers had been. The an Interview with Hans Flury (part two).” 54. Rolf. 1978, p. 69. possibility that there might be a boundary Rolf Lines, Winter 1997, p. 7. 55. Ibid., p. 158. Her use of terms is eccentric not only at the skin (between individual 26. John Deckebach, “The Core’s Role as (as is her use, not incidentally, of the terms and environment), but one also between the Causal in Structural Distortion.” Structural “intrinsic” and extrinsic”). outer myofasciae and the inner, was raised Integration, Feb. 2003, p. 17. perhaps originally by her. And perhaps for 56. Moshe Feldenkrais, Body and Mature the same reason we should call this division 27. Ibid. Behavior. NY: International Universities the one between core and sleeve and not Press, 1970, p. 21. any other. In any case, she was without any 28. Ibid. This is interesting news, of 57. Ibid., p. 83. doubt not talking about the visceral space, course. however defined, and we should therefore 29. Ibid. But why has he changed his 58. Rolf, 1978, p. 133. reject this definition. premise?

38 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Thoughts on “Core”

59. Ibid., p. 98. Feldenkrais, Moshe. Body and Mature Behavior. NY: International Universities 60. Feldenkrais, pp. 83-84. Chronaxie: Press, 1970. (Originally published 1949.) “The minimum interval of time necessary to electrically stimulate a muscle or nerve Maitland, Jeffrey. Spacious Body: Explorations fiber, using twice the minimum current in Somatic Ontology. Berkeley, CA: North needed to elicit a threshold response.” Atlantic Books, 1995. 61. Ibid., p. 92. Ritter, Hubert. “Optimizing the Animal, an Interview with Hans Flury (part two).” Rolf 62. Ibid., pp. 83 ff. Lines, Winter 1997. 63. Rolf, 1978, p. 188. Rolf , Ida P. Rolfing: The Integration of Human 64. Ida P. Rolf, Rolfing: The Integration o Structures. CA: Dennis-Landman, 1977. Human Structures. Dennis-Landman, 1977. Rolf, Ida P. Ida Rolf Talks About Rolfing p. 290. and Physical Reality, edited and with an 65. Ibid., p. 120n. Her comment to the effect introduction by Rosemary Feitis. Rochester, that the extrinsics “are more directly and NY: Harper & Row, 1978. obviously subject to the plastic changes of Salveson, Michael; Levine, Peter; Maitland, the integrative technique” may be what Jeffrey; Schwind, Peter; Sultan, Jan. “Core: Deckebach is talking about when he says Structure and Function: A Symposium.” that Rolfers give precedence to the sleeve. Rolf Lines, Jan. 1994. 66. John Cottingham, Healing through Touch: Schleip, Robert. “The Flexor-Extensor A History and a Review of the Physiological Typology.” Rolf Lines, Nov. 1995. Evidence. Boulder, CO: The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®, 1985, pp. 155-159. Schultz, Louis R. “Thoughts on Core and Sleeve.” Rolf Lines, Jan./Feb. 1988. 67. Julian Silverman, et al., “Stress, Stimulus Intensity Control and the Structural Schultz, Louis R. and Feitis, Rosemary. The Integration Technique.” Confinia Psychiatrica, Endless Web. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic vol. 16, 1973, Books, 1996. 68. Rolf. 1977, p. 175. Schwind, Peter. “Preliminary Considerations for a Theory of Core.” edited by Aline 69. Ibid., p. 194. Newton. Rolf Lines, 1992. 70. Cf. note 1. She has also been quoted as Silverman, Julian; Rappaport, Maurice; having said that “core is anything you can’t Hopkins, H. Kenneth; Ellman, George; do without.” And here she gets very close Hubbard, Richard; Belleza, Teodoro; to Peter Schwind’s “…different elements Baldwin, Theodore; Griffin, Ralph; Kling, of the body which are most significant for Robert. “Stress, Stimulus Intensity Control, the maintenance of the structure in time” and the Structural Integration Technique.” – except that she seems to be speaking Confinia Psychiatrica, vol. 16, 1973. in more general terms than specificaly structural. Zahourek, Jon. Myologik Atlas Series, vol. 1. Loveland, CO: Zahourek Systems, Inc. If’n I wanted to get to Pittsburgh, 1996. I wouldn’t start here.

Bibliography Deckebach, John. “The Core’s Role as Causal in Structural Distortion.” Structural Integration, Feb. 2003. Cottingham, John. Healing through Touch: A History and a Review of the Physiological Evidence. Boulder, CO: The Rolf Institute, 1985. Eaton, Theodore H., Jr. Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates, second edition. NY: Harper and Brothers, 1951.

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integrators, a strategy for restoring spinal stability – such as for rehabilitation from back injury – is to restore the ability of the transversus abdominus and multifidus to activate early. In other words, our job in structural integration can be viewed as Interview with Serge work to establish better motor control in terms of the timing of core muscles. Carolyn Richardson and Diane Lee have advocated Gracovetsky, Ph.D. working in a similar way. By Certified Advanced Rolfers™ Kevin McCoy and Kevin Frank It seems your spinal engine model pioneered this viewpoint, which now seems revolutionary. Was this something you were Editor’s Note: Serge Gracovetsky will be a keynote speaker at the 2008 Rolf Institute® Annual hoping for in your work? Meeting, The Art and Science of Fascia. His presentation, From Fish to Man: the Story of the SG: No. I looked at the problem from the Human Spine will be held on August 1, 2008. He is the author of The Spinal Engine and was point of view of a physicist. I was interested awarded “Best Paper Presentation” at the 2007 Fascia Research Congress. in constructing an animal that would walk efficiently on two feet. The spinal engine was a logical consequence of that premise. KM and KF: Thank you for taking the It was only after that work was published time to speak with us. Your work has clearly that vigorous unsolicited criticism began shifted current thinking about the nature to rain in on me and made me look more of the human spine and musculoskeletal closely for clinical applications such as function, which has impacted our work in spinoscopy to see if these theoretical ideas the field of structural integration. We would had any real use. like to use this interview to give Rolfers and I always thought that it was not for me to other structural integrators who are not make that discovery. Many other people at already familiar with your work a taste of that time were far more conversant with the your contributions. spine and they should have logically made First, your background is in computer the discovery. Perhaps the fact that I was science and yet you wrote a book about trained outside the influence of classical the evolution of movement and functional biomechanics allowed me total freedom anatomy that has revolutionized research in considering my options. In retrospect, I in biomechanics. How did your book The had nothing to defend, and I looked at the Spinal Engine come about? What made that problem without passion or prejudice. investigation interesting to you? KM and KF: What are your thoughts on SG: Actually my background is nuclear how / why human beings get low back physics. Physics is the application of pain? What do you see as opportunities for and supported. This has led to interesting people to improve spinal health? mathematics to natural sciences. During applications in our work. For example, my university years I had a painful back some Rolfing instructors have started to SG: It is estimated that 90% of low back problem. The physicians I consulted refer to the three pathways by which energy pain has a mechanical component. It can generated evasive and quite different is recycled from the feet and legs back into be shown that there are two main types of answers. I concluded that they did not the spine as “Gracovetsky’s chains.” These injury: once due to excessive compression know what I had and decided to do three “lines of transmission” are used as on the spine, and one due to excessive something about it. a template to help assess preferences in torsion. A compression injury is essentially KM and KF: It seems like you were coordinative strategy while a client walks. a fracture of the end plate (Smorld’s node). interested in modeling the problem and you This assessment is then used to devise The cancellous bone of the end plate heals investigated the different models already perceptual interventions that awaken fuller rapidly, and in a few weeks the patient is in use, and then when those were found expression in one or more of the three essentially fine. In contrast, a torsion injury lacking, you started to create your own. pathways of kinetic energy. is a collagenous injury where the multiple In The Spinal Engine you showed how the layers of the annulus fibrosus get damaged Your spinal engine model also shows how and delineated thereby opening a channel fish body action is, in the human spine, the transversus abdominus effects lateral converted into contralateral movement for the nuclear material to escape in the pull in the lumbar fascia, which stiffens that foramen or the canal. Collagenous injuries in walking. In a follow-up article you fascia. This stabilizes the spine for loading, describe how the feet and legs recycle the are notorious for taking a long time for in response to action of the psoas, and healing, and even then the scar material kinetic energy of walking back in to the helps (in conjunction with the multifidus) spine so that contralateral gait is amplified replacing the damaged collagen does not to hold the spine erect. For some structural have the same mechanical characteristics

40 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Research of the original collagen. Indeed, it takes unstable, and that is an evolutionary KM and KF: What aspects of biomechanical six weeks to recover 50% of the original advantage because proper motor control or fascial research look interesting to you, strength and six months to reach 80%. This becomes more vital. Is the implication that going forward? What is the role of fascia long process exposes the patient to the risk we humans had better understand how to in healthy functioning, and what does of re-injury. Hence one never really heals evoke healthy coordination if we wish to the role of fascia tell us about effective from a torsional injury, which is a prime avoid musculoskeletal problems? rehabilitation? candidate for chronicity. SG: Humans are not the only true biped. SG: The energy storage properties of the The problem is that both compression Many birds, including the now-defunct collagenous fascia are unclear to me. The and torsional injuries have similar dodo, are perfectly functional on two fascia is essential to explain function of symptomatology. It is therefore difficult feet. A lot of dinosaurs used that mode of the spine, and damage to the fascia will to separate the two, and close to 90% of locomotion for a much longer time than we definitely prevent full rehabilitation. the time the diagnosis is an unhelpful have on this planet. So the jury is still out on KM and KF: What are the implications “nonspecific low back pain.” Since the us. You cannot separate the control system of fascia storing energy? It seems that you course of each type of injury is different, from the system itself. A deconditioned have pointed to fascia as a means by which they cannot be lumped in one category. patient probably has a control system energy is transferred, but why should Hence the frustration in having some adapted to his lousy physical status. we want to know about energy storage? patients recovering in a month or so while Healthy coordination is a consequence of Certified Rolfers™ like to think that they others do not do so well and even become maintaining the musculoskeletal system assist with improvement in the quality or chronic. Spinal health means above all a in top shape. This is elementary system differentiation of the fascial planes, so we good understanding of the function of the integration. are curious what you consider to be damage spine and its limits. KM and KF: Do you have any thoughts to the fascia and how that would impede KM and KF: What are your thoughts on the force closure / form closure debate rehabilitation. What do you think can be about other contributions to low back pain regarding the sacroiliac (SI) joint? What done to assist rehabilitation of the fascia? such as muscle spasm, ligamentous strain, have you learned about the evolution of the SG: Storage and release of energy is and issues related to facet joints? What human SI joint and its vulnerabilities? inherently related to the efficiency of the about motor programming or the role of SG: The form / force closure debate is gait process. An appreciation as to how consciousness (e.g., feeling state, awareness, centered upon the hypothesis that the SI join this is done would help to understand the or attitude) as a contributing factor? You is flat, and therefore the SI join on its own process and quantify the disability that created “spinoscope” technology for will dislocate unless forced to remain closed. results from a loss of collagenous tissue. pinpointing spinal movement for patients That is incorrect. Cursory investigation of Damage to the fascia forces tasks to be as they move; does this assist in the the SI joint has demonstrated (since 1957) carried out by surrounding muscles at a cost diagnosis of spinal injury, or in assessing the warped surfaces of the joint and the of increased stress on the spine. how to treat spinal injury? very strong collagenous structures that I do not know how damaged fascia could SG: A diagnosis for low back pain is keep it as a unit. There is no need for a be rehabilitated. We know that the scar unknown in 90% of the cases. And there force closure / form closure argument to tissue that replaces damaged collagen has a is no reliable correlation between pain, close an already closed joint. Besides, it is different mechanical property, and therefore anatomy and function. So to assess the not unreasonable to consider the SI joint to the efficiency of the original system is condition of the patient you should measure be a particular form of a costovertebral join compromised for good. Hence, the only separately pain, anatomy and function. in which the vertebrae are fused (sacrum) thing rehabilitation can do is to stop the Spinoscopy was developed to assess and the ribs are also fused (pelvis). This patient from degrading any further, and function independently of pain or anatomy. representation unifies the spine function help him recover the best possible residual For instance, the patient may report pain, as a single machine extending from C1 to function given the amount of scar tissue that but have a perfectly normal spine from a the acetabulum. The SI join is fairly strong, has replaced the good collagen. functional point of view. and it takes quite a bit of abuse to bring it down. KM and KF: We are not sure how familiar KM and KF: Your work draws on evolution you are with the Rolfing / structural for explaining our human predicament. KM and KF: Given your description of integration as a profession, but we are What would you say is the difference the SI joint as inherently very stable, why is interested in what our work looks like to between primates and human beings in that so many people have discomfort there? you and how it fits into your understanding terms of musculoskeletal health? With the functioning you describe, is it still of human function. possible that proprioceptors send distress SG: Primates are quadruped. Humans are to the brain even if there is a tiny amount of SG: There is little doubt that the body biped. The use of the spine is different. misalignment? Or is it a matter of muscular functions as a unit driven by many factors, KM and KF: Yes, humans are the only true distress that we interpret to be subluxation including emotional factors. The problem biped. What changes in the movement of of the SI joint? that Rolfers encounter in their relation with the spine when we compare quadrupeds traditional medicine is rooted in the near SG: I do not know where the pain comes and bipeds? You stated in your presentation impossibility of assessing the factors Rolfers from, and I do not see how we can assess at the Fascial Congress in the fall of 2007 add to standard biomechanics in the design “tiny misalignment” of the SI joint in vivo that human bipedal structure is inherently of rehabilitation techniques. For instance, and relate that to pain.

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 41 Research we know that there is some correlation SG: On Friday evening, I will be presenting between reported low back pain and work on how the function of our spine came satisfaction. But how do you measure about. My approach follows the argument unhappiness in relation to an increase in of energy efficiency, in which each step of perceived pain, and how do you measure the evolutionary sequence from our fish the improvement in happiness following a ancestors represents an improvement in Rolfing® treatment? the ability of the animal to survive. Then in a breakout session on Saturday, I will be The concept of structural integration is showing that the diagnosis of low back pain probably correct but suffers from the is strongly dependant on reported pain. inability to quantify the very elements The clinician cannot statistically override that are to be modified to enhance the what the patient wants him to know; overall balance of the individual. And consequently, it is the patient who dictates it is precisely this inability to measure the outcome of the clinical examination in objectively the impact of Rolfing in a the majority of the cases. That does not bode controlled environment that opens up well for inserting nonmeasurable elements Rolfing to criticism. The way to go is to into the definition of the wellbeing of a test every hypothesis that forms the basis patient. of Rolfing, one at a time, using the time- honored techniques of blind studies with KM and KF: Thank you very much. control groups. This is, in my opinion, the SG: See you in August. price to pay if Rolfing is to gain acceptance in mainstream medicine. KM and KF: Our colleague Hubert Godard has begun to work with researchers who use motion capture to determine the timing and activation of movement within the body, pre- and post-intervention. It is also a feedback strategy that helps people learn to change their motor control. Some of us believe that it will be through evaluating pre-movement (i.e., preparation to move, which is an aspect of motor control) that structural integrators will ultimately prove the value of our work in a rigorous manner. In other words, our claim to change structure may be better validated through capturing changes in coordination than by trying to study changes in the physical structure, which appears somewhat elusive so far. Comments? SG: I will need to see the data published in a peer-reviewed journal such as Spine before I can offer any relevant comment. This being said, I have measured pre- movement in lifting and the changes in coordination associated with certain types of injury. That was the basis of the design of an automated diagnostic system, and its performance against [assessment by] real spine specialists was published in Spine almost ten years ago. This will be the subject of a breakout session in Boulder in August. KM and KF: That’s at the Rolf Institute’s® annual meeting, August 1-3, 2008, where you will also be the keynote speaker. Can you give our membership a little taste of what your presentations will be about?

42 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Research

Conference Report Fascia 2007: The First International Fascia Research Congress By Kim LeMoon

Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2008) ], 12, 3-6

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (2008) [12], pp. 3-6 and is reprinted with permission from Elsevier Publications at www. intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/jbmt . The 2nd International Fascia Research Congress Fascia Research Congress book, Fascia will be held at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 27-30, 2009. Research, by Tom Findley, M.D., Ph.D. Registration will begin by October 2008. The research abstract submission deadline is and Robert Schleip, Ph.D., eds. February 15, 2009. For more information go to http://www.fascia2007.com/fascia_ conference_2009_amsterdam.htm Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School played host to healthcare professionals from twenty-six countries The quality of the presented material, the questions raised, and the promise of collaboration yet to and forty U.S. states. The conference drew come as a result of this congress, was far beyond the expectations of all in attendance. interest from a wide variety of disciplines: –George Pellegrino, LMT, CMTPT, RMTI, Codirector of Myofascial Rehabilitation 75% of the participants were manual Center and Co-Founder of the American Institute for Myofascial Studies therapists or practitioners (chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, physical and massage therapists) while 25% were homas Findley, M.D., Ph.D., and publications in peer-reviewed journals medical physicians or scientists. This Robert Schleip, Ph.D., [both Certified collaborated, and along with a further 16 T diverse group assembled in Boston, eager Advanced Rolfers™] thought it was due key representatives from various clinical to learn about fascia in all its various forms time that the scientists that were studying disciplines, a multidisciplinary team was and functions. fascia meet with the clinicians that were formed that collaborated over a period of 2 treating it. They started to plan a gathering years to create a landmark event: The First Interest in the conference was greater where the finest researchers in the field International Fascia Research Congress (see than anyone could have expected. When would present the latest and best scientific Figure 1). the conference sold out nearly six months fascia research. Seventeen of the world’s before the event, state-of-the-art audio- On October 4 and 5, 2007, the stylish most eminent fascia researchers, who visual transmission was organized to allow modern glass building of the Joseph B. between them had published over 1500 presentations to be viewed from auxiliary rooms throughout the conference center. With enough material for three days and a conference center that was only available for two, the organizers decided to extend the conference hours to a twelve-hour program on the first day and a ten-hour program on the second. With everyone’s cooperation, this jam-packed agenda was amazingly able to run according to schedule. Mechanotransduction was the first of four main topics addressed: • Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D. started things off by discussing tensegrity and Figure 1 Thomas Findley, M.D., Figure 2 Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., mechanoregulation (see Figure 2). Ph.D., opening the proceedings of the describes the tensegrity model. Fascia Congress (photo credit: Hallie • Paul Standley, Ph.D., M.D., spoke Robbins, D.O.). about how human fibroblast cytokine

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 43 Research

expression is regulated by biomechanical a much higher contractile potential than Gracovetsky was later awarded the $2000 strain and suggested an in vitro model normal fibroblasts. The contribution Dr. Ida P. Rolf Award, sponsored by the for myofascial release. of myofibroblast contraction in wound Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®, for healing is well established; however, the best oral presentation. Who knew how • Helene Langevin, M.D., presented her more recent discoveries of the presence of funny fascia could be? findings on the dynamic connective myofibroblasts in other connective tissue, tissue fibroblast cytoskeletal response to Fascia pain mechanisms were the final main such as ligaments, tendons and broad tissue stretch and acupuncture. topic of the Fascia Research Congress, and fascial sheets has provided early evidence were of special interest to all the attending • Alan Grodzinsky talked about chondrocyte that connective tissue contractility is also an clinicians who treat people in pain. mechanobiology and its relevance to important factor in normal musculoskeletal matrix molecular mechanics and tissue dynamics. • Siegfried Mense, Ph.D., explored the remodeling. neuroanatomy and neurophysiology One of the problems with connective tissue involved in low back pain. • Frederick Grinnell, Ph.D., taught the research has been ambiguity about what is basics of fibroblast mechanics in three fascia and what is not. Frank Willard, Ph.D., • Jay Shah, M.D., shared his research dimensional collagen matrices. cleared up this confusion in his presentation using a novel microdialysis technique on the four layers of fascia in the first of that showed increases in the levels of Collectively, this segment of the event three main presentations on the anatomy chemicals associated with nociception, explained the role of mechanotransduction and biomechanics of fascia. He pointed out inflammation and muscle contraction in in cell culture systems, in tissues and in that ligaments, tendons and aponeuroses the area of myofascial trigger points. the entire living organism. The research are comprised of dense regular connective presented on mechanotransduction had • Geoffrey Bove, DC, Ph.D., reviewed the tissue and are technically not fascia. Fascia, exciting implications for bodyworkers, epiperineurial anatomy and reported or dense irregular connective tissue, can suggesting that the efficacy of manual how this nerve fascia can cause pain be understood as four concentric tubular- therapies may be explained as the action of symptoms in its own right. shaped layers made up of pannicular, axial, mechanical pressure being converted into visceral and meningeal fascia, within which • Partap Khalsa, DC, Ph.D., concluded chemical signals in the body. all organs systems of the body develop. the session with his insights into As the second featured topic of the the proprioceptive and nociceptive Peter Huijing, Ph.D.; Andry Vleeming, conference, Giulio Gabbiani, M.D., Ph.D., mechanisms of joint capsules. Ph.D. and Moshe Solomonow, Ph.D., James Tomasek, Ph.D., and Boris Hinz, continued the theme by explaining how In addition to his scientific contributions, MER, Ph.D., addressed the evolution, essential connective tissue is to force Khalsa also presented information on mechanoregulation, and contractile transmission and power, while Serge the funding program of NCCAM – the function of myofibroblasts. Myofibroblasts Gracovetsky, Ph.D., rounded out the panel National Center for Complementary and are atypical fibroblasts that combine in his presentation that asked, ‘‘Is the Alternative Medicine. Dr.Khalsa had good the ultra-structural features of both lumbodorsal fascia necessary?’’ Participants news for all of the budding researchers in fibroblasts and smooth muscle cells. Due laughed hard as he wove humor into attendance. Grant money is available for to their expression of stress fiber bundles his convincing demonstration of what fascia research projects and the funding containing alpha smooth muscle actin, the human body would be like without officers of the program are there to help and due to strengthened adhesion sites this large aponeurotic sheet of tissue. prepare proposals. on their membrane, these cells possess

Figure 3 Antonio Stecco, M.D., and Julie Ann Day, P.T., Figure 4 The Clinician–Educator/Scientist accept their award for the best poster from conference Panel. (photo credit: Hallie Robbins, D.O.). organizer Robert Schleip, Ph.D. (photo credit: Julie Day)

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Concurrent parallel sessions provided and, in particular, the lifetime of clinical Tom Myers, Certified Advanced Rolfer™; participants with a large array of choices research and study of our mentor, Luigi Diane Lee, PT and Michael Patterson, Ph.D.) to further explore their particular interests. Stecco, encourages us to continue in our asked questions of scientists (Langevin, The presenters included those whose efforts to comprehend the intricacies of the Shah, Huijing, and Solomonow). Langevin submitted abstracts were accepted for oral fascial system.” emphasized the dearth of evidence. To presentation as well as invited speakers. many of the posed questions, she humbly For Sue Hitzman, developer of MELT ‘‘Presenters from around the world brought answered, ‘‘We don’t know.’’ For many, (Myofascial Energetic Lengthening invaluable and unexpected insights into such apparently negative answers, were a Technique), one of the highlights was seeing fascial function and dysfunction. For justification of the intent of the session – to the movie “Strolling Under the Skin” by example, W.J. Fourie of South Africa inform scientists of what clinicians and J.C. Guimberteau, M.D. On the second day, showed that the fascia lata coordinates educators need to know (Figure 4). participants had the choice of attending the complex thigh muscular activity, with a Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation Inaugural For those who were unable to attend critical role played by the integrated vastus Address given by Richard and Alan the conference, a DVD recording of the medialis and fascia lata. This relatively Demmerle [Dr. Rolf’s sons]. proceedings was shown at nineteen U.S. minor insight immediately affected my and fourteen overseas locations around practice,’’ said Rena Margulis, developer Peter Lelean, a structural integrator and the world. In addition, a conference of Tandem Point Integrated Acupressure clinical masseur from Australia remarked, proceedings book was made available. Fascia therapy. ‘‘The principles of cellular tensegrity, Research: Basic Science and Implications covered by some of the main speakers, Forty-three of the accepted abstracts for Conventional and Complementary are directly translatable to the techniques were presented as posters and were Healthcare is a compilation of sixteen full- used to restore fascial function as part of available for viewing during the entire text articles written by the main speakers, structural integration on the macro level. conference. A $500 award for the best that also includes all of the abstracts that There is clearly much to be gained from poster, sponsored by the Fascia Research were accepted by the Scientific Review further interdisciplinary discussion.’’ Congress, was presented to Julie Ann Committee. This companion book, as well Day; Carla Stecco, M.D., and Antonio The existing body of research on connective as the DVD, are available for purchase Stecco, M.D., from Italy for their work tissue has generally focused on specialized through the congress website www. entitled “Fascial manipulation technique: genetic and molecular aspects of the fascia2007.com. Plans for the Second anatomical basis and clinical implications” extracellular matrix. However, the study International Fascia Research Congress are (see Figure 3). They reported that “The First of fascia as a function of support, as a already underway. Huijing has offered to International Fascia Research Congress contribution to human force potential host the next conference at Vrije Universiteit was an intensely exciting experience. and as a source of pain has been largely in Amsterdam in 2009. Extremely well organized, it was a true neglected. Kim LeMoon smorgasbord of information, with state-of- The congress generated many questions 727 Raritan Avenue the- art presentations of scientific research that have yet to be answered. During the Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA concerning the fascial system. We were final panel session, co-chaired by Partap E-mail address: [email protected] thrilled to have received the Best Poster Khalsa and Leon Chaitow, ND, DO, Award. This acknowledgement of our work clinician/educators (Joseph Ardette, M.D.;

The First International Fascia Research Congress was a great success. In fact, it was an important, interesting and fun occasion. Practitioners of every stripe were brought into contact with leading clinicians and bench scientists. Listening to people articulate their research was to have the momentary privilege of peering into brilliant minds. One of the delights were seeing how humor, patience, humility and graciousness could coexist with penetrating intelligence. Another was to realize how important thorough literature reviews, technical expertise and uncommon sense are in the research arena. Last of all, it was delightful to bathe in the sea of good will and euphoria that came from the interaction of practitioners and researchers at the top of their game. – John Hannon, D.C.

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Everyday Stretches: Lengthen and Loosen Your Body by Marcelo Coutinho, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ Reviewed by Robert McWilliams, Certified Rolfer™, BFA, MFA Dance

veryday Stretches: Lengthen and support. Marcelo Coutinho’s calm guidance ELoosen Your Body. Informed by the 10 and direction through the exercises help sessions of Rolfing® Structural Integration, ensure that most viewers will achieve a a new DVD, takes the viewer step-by-step more flowing, supported and expansive through simple stretches and movement movement experience. aimed at the connective tissue network. The program is appropriate for persons It is organized and presented by Marcelo of any fitness level, easy to follow, and Coutinho, a Certified Advanced Rolfer presented with precise verbal instruction and Rolf Movement Practitioner who has and detailed 3-D animation. To this a practice in New York City (which he reviewer, it seems a wonderful tool to use shared with the late Louis Schultz). Besides with Rolfing clients, to help them reinforce his Rolfing certifications, Coutinho holds and maintain their gains from the session a degree in physical education and has work. It is not meant as a complete guide an extensive background as a movement to Rolf Movement. It is very suitable as an coach and professional dancer. The DVD aid in the process of structural integration, presents gentle Rolf Movement-based and is also accessible to people interested routines, using basic props (yoga strap, in other movement and somatic disciplines block, and tennis ball) promote increased such as Pilates, yoga or Gyrotonics. flexibility, coordination, body awareness and improved body alignment. Coutinho The DVD includes a forty-five-minute total coaches two beautifully aligned models body routine, as well as three additional through the sequences as he offers basic short routines designed to focus on problem rules for safe and effective stretching and areas. The viewer can also pick and choose therapeutic movement. He has a warm, among the twenty individual routines pleasant voice and clear, comfortable to assemble his own workout. Everyday manner with the models that puts viewers Stretches: Lengthen and Loosen Your Body is at ease and keeps their attention. available on Amazon.com. Intended to reinforce and deepen lessons learned in the Rolfing Ten Series, the movement used will be familiar to those who have studied Rolf Movement. For example, slowly lifting and lowering the body with a tennis ball placed under forefoot, center and heel help to make the plantar fascia supple, as well as awaken kinesthetic awareness and righting reflex responses in the ankle area and lower limb. This increases sensitivity and sureness of bilateral support for the mover, a goal of session two in the Ten Series and a “sure-footed” reminder of the principle of

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cadaver studies. Some of this information is hard to make out with the grayscale used, and some of the graphics were not always the easiest to follow, but definitely worth the effort. Movement, Stability & This 2nd edition is significantly updated from the previous one, with new authors, and drawing on many studies as recent Lumbopelvic Pain: Integration as 2006. Though it seeks to be based on hard science, it is not monolithic. Several of Research and Therapy points of view are represented, and some of them conflict. For example, questions 2nd Edition, Edited by Andry Vleeming, about form closure versus force closure at the SI joint remain unresolved, in sum, by Vert Mooney and Rob Stoekart the array of varying ideas, dissections and By Robert McWilliams, Certified Rolfer™, BFA, MFA Dance kinematic studies presented. The work is full of amazing facts to ponder, such as “the degree of pain perceived from injury to the spinal ligaments is related to the speed of the injury and not to its extent” (Willard, ovement, Stability & Lumbopelvic Pain: referring to Olmarkrer et al., 1990). This MIntegration of Research and Therapy (2nd would speak to the trauma and problems Edition; Churchill Livingston, Elsevier 2007) caused by car accidents, and some of the is a compendium of articles on lumbopelvic difficulty treating them. function and pathology from over fifty In addition to sections on lumbar and sacral authors, including many hundreds of book anatomy, the book focuses on function, and study source citations. As the editors clinical experience, kinematics, theory of state in the preface, one individual author SIJ stability, instability, form and/or force could never put forward so many diverse closure, diagnostic methods including aspects of the anatomy, epidemiology, CAT, MRI and x-ray, and demonstrates clinical treatment experience and theory many manual tests for instability at the of this subject. All the material presented SIJ. In a photographed case study, Diane is “evidence based,” and as it doesn’t all Lee shows the clinical benefits of specific agree yet, the editors seek to help clinicians motor control retraining of the multifidi develop an “evidence informed” approach and associated stabilizers to ease lumbar to helping clients with lumbopelvic pain. pain. Levin presents tensegrity theory, For me, as a “non-scientist” and new and theories on the possible evolution of Rolfer, it was hard to get through some the pelvis from costovertebral joints are mechanics” work with clients. of it, because of the density and depth gently disputed within various articles of presentation. I have, however, found The opening chapter starts off describing throughout the work. I was intrigued the sections I persisted with to have paid the continuous ligamentous “stocking” by Serge Gracevotsky’s wide-ranging off. In practical terms, the work has given in which the lumbar vertebrae and discussion of “stability or controlled me a clearer sense of structures to free, sacrum are positioned as being a key to instability” that rolls through evolutionary connect and stabilize in order to achieve its support, stability and function through subjects, gait, “creep”, spinal coupling, a particular effect. It is an opportunity the “self-bracing mechanism” of the area. until concluding with the importance of a for Rolfers who are not yet familiar with It goes through a series of layer-by-layer ridge structure at the tip of the transverse the vocabulary employed by physical dissections, with clear descriptions of the processes of S1 and S3 that locks into the therapists, osteopaths and orthopedists, to interconnections of the fascial layers and innominates and “transfers the vertical become more so. Concepts ranging from the muscles affecting the whole region, ranging loads” that he considers to be weight- lumbopelvic “self-bracing mechanisms” of from the hamstrings to connections through bearing. form and force-closure, “moments of force” to the mid-thoracics. Much discussion is If there is a fault, it might be the decidedly in joint kinesiology, and coupling motion devoted to potential stabilizing and de- mechanistic slant of most of the articles, concepts in the spine with alterations stabilizing factors for the sacroiliac joint as if “lack of stability in structure X here depending on the center of rotation are (SIJ), and lumbars. I think most Rolfers is remedied by exercising muscle Y there,” detailed and explained. For example, a would find the images and discussion which is clearly limited as an approach. different center of rotation will create either contained in the first chapter enlightening, There is no real development of ideas a counterclockwise, clockwise or fixed as it includes clear imagery and concepts anywhere on psychosomatic pain in the position of a vertebral problem given the based on new information. The evidence lumbopelvic region. Many passages on same mix of lordosis and side-bend, a fact in the work is often based on porcine and which has definite implications in “spinal rehabilitative movement and exercise

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 47 Reviews contain no discussion of quality of motion. Anticipatory reflex action mechanisms and their importance in setting muscle tone are discussed in a fascinating article, “Motor Control in Chronic Pain: new ideas for effective intervention” by G. Lorimer Mosely. Diane Lee and Andry Vleeming are given the last word in “An integrated therapeutic approach to the treatment of pelvic girdle pain.” This article focuses on combining the physical and emotional/cognitive factors involved in influencing joint motion, termed a “functional integration” approach to detrimental motor and patterns. No Certified Rolfers® are quoted in the work, but some of the authors are probably already familiar to the Rolf community: Jean-Pierre Barral is cited; so are Serge Gracevotsky, author of The Spinal Engine, Diane Lee, an eminent clinician/author on pelvic pain, and Stephen M. Levin, MD, who writes here about the tensegral model. To me this begs the question: why no mention of Rolfing®? It would seem that Rolfing is completely off their radar. Because of the focus on fascial planes, functional “slings” and the interconnectedness and relatedness of structures in cases of dysfunction and pain, it would seem that the editors are looking for a general, holistic model. Perhaps some scientific minded Rolfer can present it to them in a way that is “evidence- based.”

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bodyworkers learn how and why breathing occurs, such as how the principle forces act differently with respect to variances in volume of breath during inhalation, exhalation, and apnea (breathing cessation). Calais-Germain analyzes the principle Review of Anatomy of Breathing types of breathing, such as diaphragmatic, costal, and paradoxical breathing. In helpful and The Female Pelvis call-out boxes, she lists the advantages and disadvantages of each variation. As a by Blandine Calais-Germain bodyworker, I can see the benefit of having a specific “how-to” guide for teaching clients susanna Baxter, Certified Rolfer™, LMP, LAMP, AKC, IKFF Advisor to find a new awareness of their breath. Following this more technical exploration of the anatomy of breathing, Calais-Germain n 1985, Blandine Calais-Germain both books, she meticulously details the includes a chapter of practice exercises that first released her French language I pertinent structures, starting at the skeletal could be done with the guided assistance of book, Anatomy of Movement, which lent level and working outward to muscles, a bodyworker or given to clients to be used a fresh face to traditional anatomy texts. ligaments, and organs. Despite having a at home between sessions. Of course, this Originally a dance instructor, Calais- relatively comprehensive understanding chapter is truly a bonus as the entire book Germain completed a course of studies of anatomical breathing structures, I is laced with useful exercises to increase in kinesiology and, at the behest of her certainly gleaned new knowledge from awareness. students, taught anatomy courses. It the anatomy pages of Anatomy of Breathing. became clear that a solid understanding First, Calais-Germain makes a distinction The Female Pelvis is similar in style to Calais- of functional anatomy is essential to between skeletal structures that move to Germain’s other two works. She begins the preventing physical injury and enhancing allow breathing and those that support book by clearly laying out the anatomy movement. In 1993, English speakers were this movement. The black and white of the pelvis. This book is definitely treated to a translated version of her work, illustrations are uncomplicated and show geared towards women who wish to better which replaced the standard anatomical the intricate network of ribs, sternum, understand their bodies before, during, and diagrams depicting musculature, bones, and spinal column. She then goes beyond after pregnancy as well as therapists who organs, and nerves in a microcosm of depicting structures of the thoracic cage and wish to work with women in this condition. attachment sites with simple, yet clear, includes the pelvis, noting that the pelvis Never having studied midwifery, I cannot illustrations of the musculoskeletal system and thoracic cage are linked by the lumbar say whether there are other works that and explanations of associated movements. vertebrae, and therefore movement of the approach the level of attention to detail Calais-Germain’s straightforward writing one affects the other. In today’s world of of Calais-Germain’s book. I can say that, made functional anatomy accessible to divide and conquer with respect to different having only a general background in the non-medical professionals, and her work areas of the body, it’s refreshing to see a subject, I found her anatomical depictions became a core text for any student of work that helps us remember that our enlightening. I also loved that she addressed bodywork. entire body functions interdependently as possible complications stemming from an integrated organism. pregnancy in a matter-of-fact manner. This In her latest works, Anatomy of Breathing book would be useful for a practitioner to and The Female Pelvis, Calais-Germain has After a thorough depiction of the organs refer to when relating to female clients. again cut through the medical jargon. In and muscles of respiration from the mouth Calais-Germain takes a subject that is often all the way difficult to broach – female fertility and through to sexuality – and brings it to an educational the pelvic and non-threatening level. floor, Calais- G e r m a i n Both Anatomy of Breathing and The Female d e l v e s Pelvis should reside on every bodyworker’s i n t o t h e bookshelf. After being read cover to cover, forces and they will continue to be a valuable source movements of information, illustration, and practice of breathing. exercises to help the practitioner connect T h e s e with clients. In addition, practitioners c h a p t e r s could easily recommend that clients read contain the either of these books on their own to further true value acquaint themselves with their functional of the book. anatomy as both books are written for the T h i s i s non-medical person. where we as

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 49 Reviews

move. It also explains why we all have the ability to “body read,” to empathize with another’s movement. This book covers a broad catalog of phenomena with a few delightful surprises. Reading about them may change how you think about fascia The Body Has a Mind of Its Own and structural integration. by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee The book was published at a poignant moment; it coincided with the first Fascia By Kevin Frank, Advanced Certified Rolfer® Research Congress in Boston in October and Rolf Movement Practitioner 2007. Out of many fascinating papers and presentations comes the impression that fascial networks link every cell of the body n the 1930s, a neuroscientist named Wilder together, mechanically and biochemically. IPenfield was able to map how each part Injury causes fascia to defend itself and of the brain’s sensory cortex corresponds skillful touch helps fascia restore itself. But to different sensory regions throughout the even if skillful touch helps fascia to heal, body. We all encountered a version of his how does fascial touch improve posture? map, called the “homunculus,” in anatomy How does touch change how bodies stand class. The hands, face, and feet are huge in and move over time? comparison to everything else because there is vastly more brain involved in registering Researcher and Rolfing instructor, Robert signals from those parts of the body. It Schleip made a number of contributions to makes for an amusing but logical picture the fascial conference. At one presentation, of a human body. he explained that where fascial planes intersect, we find the greatest number of Since Penfield’s era, neuroscientists have mechanoreceptors. These mechanoreceptors learned a lot more about our body’s way are a robust source of information for motor of mapping itself. For two decades, there control. A logical conclusion is that much, if has been an explosion in research about the not all, of the work a structural integrator function of the brain in relationship to motor does by making sensory contact with fascia control, including the function of body serves to update and inform the places maps, and their plastic nature. For example, in the brain that collect information for we know that the representation of body with it. Structural integrators help people movement: the body map. regions in the brain change proportionally revive function that has been impaired by in response to perceptual and behavioral Another major topic in The Body Has a faulty or missing places in their body map changes in a person’s life. There are also Mind of Its Own is a discussion of the body by differentiating fascia, and help people many body maps in the brain. Some involve schema/body image model, a historically differentiate their experience of their body conscious awareness; others work quietly durable and clinically useful construct in the and environment. behind the scenes. Some involve movement world of neuroscience. Briefly, body image or imagining movement, and some inform The Blakeslees (Matthew is Sandra’s son) is the part of motor control influenced by sense perception. These kinds of discoveries are third- and fourth-generation science our personal history. Body schema is the are the substance of The Body Has a Mind of journalists. We have come to know Sandra’s capacity of the body to respond through Its Own by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew writing through her articles in the New automatic coordination. The interplay of Blakeslee (Random House, 2007). York Times Tuesday Science Times section image and schema is a large part of what on topics like the “Enteric Brain,” “Cells structural integration is about. The body As structural integrators, we have many that Read Minds,” and “The Brain’s Moral image/body schema paradigm clarifies reasons to love this book. We are in a Center.” In this new book, the Blakeslee the process by which a new movement is position to benefit from knowledge about team surveys advances in neuroscience, learned: first, through body image, and then body maps and their plasticity, because with emphasis on recent discoveries, and later as it becomes part of body schema. Just this is where hard science shows how delivers a synthesis of what is most relevant as important, body image can be an obstacle structures in living beings can change. about how we perceive and move. Each to new movement acquisition, and you Postural structure is a form of coordination discovery is accompanied by creative, address body image to negotiate change of that is necessarily informed by body maps. practical examples that show how we learn, movement or change of posture. Work with Body maps include the space surrounding how we move, and what can go wrong in body image and schema is one feature that the body, as well as the body itself. The motor control. distinguishes structural integration from body and its immediate environment of other manual therapies. “peripersonal” space are represented in This book is a good source to find out the brain. When this body and space map about “mirror neuron” theory, a group Other topics covered in this book include: changes, such as after an accident, the way of discoveries that explain how we learn out-of-body experience, the mechanisms of a person stands and moves changes along to move through watching other people pain and perceptual strategies for alleviating

50 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Reviews pain, phantom-limb rehabilitation, and use of “proprioceptive underwear” to mitigate anorexic behavior. It’s an exciting read; each time I picked it up, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. As of now, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own deserves to be put alongside other essentials in a structural integrator’s education: books like those by Dr. Rolf, or The Thinking Body by Mabel Todd. Blakeslee and Blakeslee provide a window to research that validates the possibility of meaningful change in this body-mind.

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Practice (Churchill Livingstone, 2005) by Leon Chaitow is, by far, the best basic book I have read on the subject. To be sure there are others that come to mind. However, Chaitow’s survey on the subject is rigorous, overarching across disciplines, and sets a Three Books non-sectarian standard by pulling from the various schools of cranial manipulation to create a thorough basic exploration of on the Cranium the topic. His book is filled with research By Russell Stolzoff, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, references, clear descriptions of anatomy, Rolf Movement Practitioner functional rationale, and skill-building exercises. It is with reference to the high bar that Chaitow has set that I evaluate three books on the subject of cranial ll structural integration (SI) manipulation. Each of the three authors has Apractitioners must eventually confront written from a particular perspective on the the need to deepen their understanding and subject, and as such, the books reflect their ability to work with the cranium. There is a conceptual orientations to the cranium. notable lack of published material on topics such as the cranium, viscera, and nervous Of the three books, Alain Géhin’s Cranial system as they relate to the discipline of Osteopathic Biomechanics, Pathomechanics SI Basic and Advanced Rolfing® training and Diagnostics for Practitioners (Churchill don’t delve deeply into study of the Livingstone 2007) comes the closest to cranium. Thankfully, there are courses presenting material that Rolfers can becoming available to learn SI approaches directly use. I consider knowledge of his for the viscera and nervous system, but so biomechanical approach to be fundamental, far cranial SI continuing education is not like scales are for a musician. Without being taught or written about. For more this knowledge a complex subject like the than twenty years SI practitioners have cranium remains vague and treatment read and trained about the cranium outside haphazard. Géhin’s book is not easy to the SI discipline, and have digested and digest, but it will reward those who are imported the most relevant and useful willing to spend the necessary time it takes aspects of various cranial approaches into to understand it. their practices. Where Géhin chooses to shorten the Of all the cranial books that I have come discussion on the energetic component that across, Cranial Manipulation: Theory and all sensitive and effective cranial work must have, the energetic aspect of the cranial discussion is the primary view put forth

52 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Reviews by Roger Gilschrist in his book, Craniosacral cranial work. In a similar way, how can “…is a specific phenomenon operating in Therapy and the Energetic Body: An Overview parents and newly curious practitioners the core of our being, yet it is challenging of Craniosacral Biodynamics (North Atlantic, use such general instructions on infant to describe because it relates to the most 2006). However, the book’s accessibility cranial techniques combined as they are esoteric dimensions of experience…is will be compromised for anyone who is here with warnings on the dangers of doing mysterious and subtle, yet at the same uninitiated into the biodynamic system, or so without proper training? time concrete and palpable.” If this seems is unwilling to venture out on a limb. If the ambiguous, there’s more: Finally, I find it discrediting to his reputation reader can allow convoluted definitions as a leader in the craniosacral field that John The Breath of Life is believed to have and suspend judgment of beliefs stated as Upledger saw fit to write the foreword to a potency by which it conveys itself fact, this book has some wisdom about how this book. One can almost tell from the into each individual. This potency to sensitively witness and contact another half-hearted paragraph he mustered up that establishes the inherent ordering person with an energetic approach. he must have had been unable to say “no principle within the individual and Unfortunately, Craniosacral Therapy for thank you” to this one. Similarly, I had to organizes our life experience in Babies and Small Children (North Atlantic, wonder why North Atlantic books would relation to this core energy dynamic. 2006), by Etienne and Neeto Peirsman, even consider publishing a book that does The potency of the Breath of Life has neither the rigorous biomechanical not contain a proper bibliography or an causes the body to respond in all its approach, nor detailed descriptions of the index. activities. The development of the sensitive energetic approach that doing body, in the first place, is driven by North Atlantic also published Roger cranial work with babies requires. In fact, it the potency of the Breath of Life. The Gilchrist’s book Craniosacral Therapy and the is hard to say positive things about the book, continued functioning of the body Energetic Body, An Overview of Craniosacral except that it has beautiful color pictures throughout life, our physiology, is Biodynamics. This effort is serious and is a that ooze the author’s skillful contact and governed by the potency of the Breath worthwhile read on the topic of biodynamic presence. Otherwise, Craniosacral Therapy of Life. Our psychology and how we cranialsacral therapy. It proceeds logically for Babies and Small Children is written in respond to experiences in life are held according to the questionable internal logic such a choppy way that it even makes in the field of potency. The potency of the biodynamic framework. In the early reviewing it difficult. In one way it is a of the Breath of Life creates a vehicle chapters, Gilchrist presents a version of very general, opinionated discussion of for the expression of our spirit in this the history of cranialsacral therapy and why cranial manipulation is important for world. introduces the so-called Breath of Life. babies. In another way, it presents complex He follows this with valuable chapters This is only one of Gilchrist’s confusing information incompletely. Interspersed devoted to therapeutic presence and other definitions. Throughout the book there are are descriptions of some techniques that practitioner-oriented fundamentals for others. For example, Gilchrist’s definition of are accompanied by warnings that only being able to skillfully “negotiate space,” potency: “…it is a primary energy function very experienced practitioners should use create contact, and listen to the “tide.” acting through the cerebrospinal fluid in the the techniques. If you seek an intelligent Gilchrist then proceeds to discuss more core of the body”. On one level, it’s easy for methodical discussion of how, why, and esoteric aspects of the biodynamic work like one’s head to nod its way through the book when to perform cranial manipulation with “Layers of the Tide”, and “The Holographic in agreement. It would be so easy to say, babies, this book will disappoint you. Nature of the Tide.” Gilchrist concludes “so that’s what I’ve been feeling all these There are however some nicely presented with discussions on the applications of years!” On the other hand easy agreement tidbits. These are to be found in Chapter the work, case studies, and “The Spiritual with these concepts is the equivalent of 5: Guidelines for the Treatment of Mother Dimensions of Craniosacral Therapy.” blind faith. and Child after Birth, and Chapter 6: The It would be hard to say the biodynamic If you haven’t realized by now, Craniosacral Different Techniques. The few well-phrased orientation isn’t intriguing. Reading Therapy and the Energetic Body is not about pieces hardly make slogging through the Craniosacral Therapy and the Energetic structure and function. It surely won’t help book worthwhile. The rest of the book Body arouses awareness and sensitivity. you understand structural relationships is a bizarre amalgamation of hippiesque However, Gilchrist presents a theory of within the neural cranium, or do better expressions of love and appreciation for life and therapy that is more religious than mouth work. At various points Gilchrist the miracle of babies mixed with judgments factual. There is no argument over the conceptually touches on and acknowledges about how birthing has gone wrong in perceptual descriptions of the phenomena the importance of structure. But he quickly the modern world. If it weren’t so heavily that Gilchrist and others describe, but pivots and repeatedly relegates structure to biased it could be better read as a primer believing the biodynamic attribution of a level of importance somewhere below the for uninformed parents who are interested meaning and importance to the phenomena concept of potency. According to Gilchrist, in the natural way of birth. All this makes is difficult. Like religion, belief in the when potency becomes aberrant it forms for a confused presentation. Practitioners biodynamic rationale comes down to faith. inertial fulcrums, which are energetically who already understand the need for It can never be proven. Perhaps with the akin to structural strain patterns. At this cranial work for babies don’t need to know proper training and indoctrination into the point the thinking SI practitioner should the elementary arguments for the work, biodynamic faith, anyone could become a ask, “aren’t these phenomena different or to be thumped on the head again with believer in the Breath of Life. aspects of the same thing?” It is here that we the cultural conditions that sometimes can realize that the theories of biodynamic contribute to the need for babies to have According to Gilchrist, the Breath of Life craniosacral therapy are not holistic. Rather

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 53 they are reductionistic. While the theory working relationships of the cranium is no of Rolfing® has not yet clearly articulated small undertaking for any practitioner. the energetic domain encompassed within There are no clues or simple steps here for it, biodynamics, as presented by Gilchrist, how to import Géhin’s, Gilchrist’s, or even reduces all phenomena to a set of specious Chaitow’s work into the SI framework. interpretations. This said, even with all the However, thoughtful reading of these questionable “meaning-making,” the book authors provides a lot of food for thought is still worth checking out. But remember to and practice, which hopefully someday can keep your skepticism close by in a parallel bring us a step closer to a unique, detailed stream. SI perspective on the cranium. A quote from Chaitow is relevant here: The truth is that even after detailed assessment of the current research, when set against cranial beliefs, we will find that we are left with areas which remain ambiguous. This should not be seen to negate craniosacral therapy, but to offer a series of challenges which need to be met so that what, at present, is vague and unacceptable can be validated. In contrast to Gilchrist’s publication, Alain Géhin’s Cranial Osteopathic Biomechanics, Pathomechanics and Diagnostics for Practitioners is a breath of fresh structural/ functional air. While this book doesn’t have an index or a list of references, it does have a concise table of contents that reveals Géhin’s no-nonsense approach to the cranium. The book is full of further evidence that Géhin is one of today’s most cogent teachers of cranial theory and technique. The introductory section of the book discusses cranial anatomy, blood supply and circulation. The drawings here and throughout the book are unique, superb, and unlike any others I have encountered. Part One: Cranial Biomechanics details the complex movements of all cranial bones and the laws of cranial adaptation to strain. Part Two: Pathomechanics describes the concepts of “the cranial osteopathic lesion,” diagnosis, and basic categories of osteopathic techniques and the relevance of these techniques to treatment of cranial lesions. Part Three: The Therapeutic Tools describes the therapist’s posture. Here Géhin’s provides a simple yet excellent formulation of the client-practitioner interface, as well as brief descriptions of the concept of fulcrums, palpation, and “the art of uniting and separating.” Part Four: Manual Diagnosis delves deeply into the various holds that allow the practitioner to assess and treat lesions. The complexity of the drawings and diagrams that accompany the text of Géhin’s latest work reveals that understanding and being able to affect the

54 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Reviews

Volume 2: Resourcing & Breathing is geared toward “using the felt sense of the body to calm and center yourself in the midst of stress, anxiety, and ‘fight or flight’ and ‘freeze’ energies.” It offers a much broader spectrum of exercises, ranging How to Calm and Center Yourself from more work with the felt sense and identifying resources, going deeper into When You’re Stressed or Anxious: Levine’s work (tracks 1-5), to breath work from Somato Respiratory Integration and Buteyko Breathing (tracks 6-9), to sound A Neuro-Biological Approach exercises from Continuum (tracks 10-12), to an introduction “spiritual resources” (Volumes 1-3) (tracks 13-14) – which she defines non- theologically as being as simple as things By Julie DiJoseph, M.A., S.E.P. that “make you happy or grateful or … fill your heart with positive loving thoughts.” Reviewed by Anne F. Hoff, CertifiedA dvanced Rolfer™ Some of the sounding might be a bit strange and new for a straitlaced client, but the presentation is calm and sensible enough This is a set of three CDs by Julie DiJoseph, to be met with openness by most listeners. a somatic psychotherapist who credits Peter I can see recommending this CD to clients Levine (Somatic Experiencing®), Emily who are sincerely interested in homework Conrad and Susan Harper (Continuum), on the felt sense and understanding charge and Donald Epstein, DC (Network and discharge in their nervous systems. Spinal Analysis and Somato Respiratory Integration) as the primary sources and Volume 3: Boundaries and Safety also influences on her work. The common provides a full plate of exercises including base to all three volumes is awakening many that encourage contemplation and of the felt sense as a means to become exploration into understanding one’s more embodied and to gently discharge energetic boundaries – feeling them, noting trauma, a key underpinning of Levine’s where they are weak, and restore those work. The CDs bring basic concepts and that seem ruptured. I can see this being practices from Somatic Experiencing and particularly useful for clients with a trauma Continuum into a practical exercise format history, those who spin out energetically, useful for practitioners and – especially and those facing difficult interpersonal – our clients. relationships. Volume 1: Grounding and Releasing is the The CDs have excellent audio quality and simplest of the three. The CD is essentially are clearly well-planned and professionally two main practices – grounding while produced with appropriate musical bridges sitting and grounding while standing between tracks. DiJoseph’s voice is calm – each in two versions. On the first versions, and well-paced, yet authentic and natural. DiJoseph introduces concepts about the She displays a therapist’s training and care autonomic nervous system, charge and in her wording, which guides the listener to discharge, and the impact of the felt sense understand and accept whatever his or her on the brain, but in digestible pieces that do experience is in the moment. Through her not distract the listener from the process. voice and words she moderates the exercises The second version of each is streamlined to to encourage only gentle discharge, at a simple instructions for regular use once the level that can be managed. She is also clear listener is familiar with the exercise. I can that the CDs are not a substitute for one- see this CD being a useful recommendation on-one work with a trained practitioner, for certain types of clients: those who are so clients with an activated or unexplored too much in their heads, those who have trauma history are best sent to one-on-one trouble feeling and relating to the body work rather than referred to these CDs. kinesthetically, the frantically busy and The CDs are available from www. stressed, and clients who would like to juliedijoseph.com and cdbaby.com, where have a meditative practice but do not want there are a number of positive testimonials anything from a particular religious or from users. spiritual tradition.

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 55 Reviews

Fulford,” and “Adjunctive Modalities,” but the first two of these are ultimately disappointing. As Comeaux relates, “Fulford’s diagnostic principles and methods underwent constant change, often weekly, even up to the final days of his Robert Fulford, D.O. and life.”2 This, and Fulford’s tendency to speak little, mean that Comeaux can only give the Philosopher Physician a sketch view of sequences and common handholds that he observed; he cannot tell by Zachary Comeaux us what Fulford was really thinking and doing. Reviewed by Anne F. Hoff, CertifiedA dvanced Rolfer™ Perhaps because Fulford taught the use of the percussor, the section on the Foredom he back jacket to Robert Fulford, D.O. final presentation Percussion Vibrator (aka, percussor) in the Tand the Philosopher Physician (Eastland – to the 1997 chapter on “Adjunctive Modalities” offers Press, 2002) reads “Fulford (1905-1997) was c o n v e n t i o n more substance. Although relatively brief, an important, if enigmatic, figure in late of the Cranial it contains enough discussion of Fulford’s twentieth-century osteopathy.” Reading Academy – he pioneering work with the percussor to Zachary Comeaux’s book I’d certainly have demonstrated a clearly demonstrate that he did not apply to agree. In Fulford I see the same spirit of protocol based on it randomly or blindly. Instead, it was “an inquiry and the same mix of scientific acuity energy medicine. extension of his intention to intervene”3 to and intuitive brilliance that informed Ida A s C o m e a u x which he applied the same sensitivity and Rolf’s genius. relates: “He was focus that he was capable of with his hands asked, ‘Do you alone. He was all for devices and methods Fulford studied classical osteopathy under have to be an that augmented his ability to work while students of Andrew Taylor Still, graduating osteopath to do lessening the drain on his own energy. from the Kansas City School of Osteopathy this – this does not look very osteopathic?’ Again, I believe this offers useful food for and Surgery in 1941. Beginning in 1945, to which he responded, ‘If I weren’t an thought to the Rolfing® community as more he was closely associated with William osteopath, how would I know what to of our members incorporate percussors, Garner Sutherland. During his lifetime, he do?’”1 lasers and other tools to good effect while presented at both the American Academy still maintaining practices focused around I think there is something for the Rolfing® of Osteopathy and the Cranial Academy Rolfing. (he once served as president of the latter community to consider from this exchange, organization), and he was honored by given how various of our colleagues Part Four is Comeaux’s thoughts on the both after his death (the AAO dedicated have criticized other colleagues for work future of osteopathy, as it expands and its 1998 convocation to Fulford’s work, and that does not look exactly like classical integrates new ideas, as Fulford himself the Cranial Academy published a book of Rolfing. did. The appendices provide Comeaux’s his papers and speeches in 2003 entitled notes on Fulford’s final presentation to Comeaux, also an osteopathic physician, Are We On the Path?: The Collected Works of the Cranial Academy, selections from his studied with Fulford, and later was an Robert C. Fulford, DO, FCA). Although he case files (again, sketchy bits of info rather associate, exchanging treatments and ideas taught some during his life (particularly than a lot of substance), and his daily as well as working with him on patients. the percussor), he was largely a clinician, supplemental exercises for better health. In the months following Fulford’s death, and as the deficits of this book indicate, Comeaux had full access to Fulford’s books Despite its lack of robust substance on how the details of his clinical mastery left this and papers before they were distributed Fulford actually treated, Robert Fulford, D.O. world with him. according to his will. Despite this, and and the Philosopher Physician remains an Although his work and ideas were because Fulford seems to have been a interesting read for fans of osteopathy, its grounded fully in osteopathy, Fulford had a man of few words, Comeaux is often left history, and its leading lights. It is a worthy broad-ranging mind that explored religion, inferring what he believes Fulford was after tribute to the spirit of a man whose inquiring Eastern traditions, science, philosophy, and in his thinking and treatments. mind led him down wildly diverging paths the energetic dimensions of being. From in his endeavor to understand and treat the Parts One and Two of Robert Fulford, the latter, he developed and brought into whole person. D.O. and the Philosopher Physician provide his treatments what he called “twenty-first interesting biographical information century medicine”, drawing on research by NOTES (how Fulford came to osteopathy is quite scientists (including neurophysiologists H.S. interesting, as is the trajectory of his life) 1 Comeaux, Zachary, Robert Fulford, D.O. and Burr and Valerie Hunt; Robert Becker M.D.; and discuss Fulford’s influences. Part Three the Philosopher Physician. Seattle: Eastland Candace Pert) as well as treatment ideas on “Fulford’s Practice” sounds promising, Press, 2002, p. 10. put into practice by both energy healers with chapters entitled “Diagnosing with and fellow osteopath Randolph Stone 2 Ibid., p. 90. Dr. Fulford,” “Treating in the Style of Dr. (who developed Polarity Therapy). At his 3 Ibid., p. 131.

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John Lodge Filmography (source: IMDb.com) As an Actor 1. “Revenge is My Destiny” (1971) …. John Garbutt Lodge Lt. Craig 2. “The Jackie Gleason Show” (1970 1922 - 2008 TV episode “The Honeymooners: Operation Protest) 3. “The Witchmaker” (1969) …. Luther n The extraordinary artist and “Master the Berserk Rolfer” John Lodge completed his terrestrial 4. “Judy’s Little No-No” (1969) …. Dan journey on February 1, 2008, in Everett, Turner Washington, from complications related to 5. “Bonanza” …. (1968, TV episodes “In prostate cancer. Defense of Honor” and “The Crime John was born Jack Arthur Garbutt on of Johnny Mule” as the Deputy, and January 5, 1922 in Oakland, California, “The Thirteenth Man” as Terry) the son of a British father and Hungarian 6. “Garrison’s Gorillas” (1967 TV mother. John was a lifelong anglophile and episode “Friendly Enemies) …. Capt. claimed a strong affinity for “music, magic, Thompkins and mystery” from his Hungarian “Gypsy” 7. “Daniel Boone” (1967 TV episode ancestors. “The Fallow Land”) ….Harris During World War II, John served in the U.S. 8. “Riot on Sunset Strip” (1967) …. Air Force as a B-17 pilot based in England. Beverly Hills police officer He flew thirty-five missions over Nazi 9. “In Like Flint” (1967) …. Russian Germany, earning the Distinguished Flying agent Cross – American’s oldest military aviation 10. “The Road West” (1967 TV episode award – for heroism in flight. 1960s, most notably as the deputy sheriff on “Reap the Whirlwind”) …. Daniel While stationed in England in the 1940s, “Bonanza.” (Editor’s note: Additional credits Bethel John studied watercolor under the famed are shown in the sidebar.) 11. “Run for Your Life” (1966 TV episode British painter and architect Paul Earee. John’s artistic talents led him in a new “The Man Who Had No Enemies”) …. After the war, John returned to California direction in the 1970s when, at a fateful Neil Trotter and pursued his calling as an artist through dinner party on the Florida coast, he 12. “Out of Sight” (1966) …. John Stamp multiple mediums. He earned a Master met and later became a close personal 13. “Bob Hope Presents the Chrystler of Arts from the University of California associate of Dr. Ida Rolf. John illustrated Theatre” (1965 TV episode “The at Berkley, where he also served as an art the anatomical drawings for Dr. Rolf’s Admrial”) …. Henshaw instructor for two years. He then served as a book Rolfing®: The Integration of Human 14. “Convoy” (1965 TV episode “The professor of art at the University of Michigan Structures and later served on the faculty Assassin”) …. Doctor for seven years, and exhibited his work at galleries across the nation. Often 15. “Combat” (1965 TV episode exploring metaphysical themes in “Evasion”) …. Major Ramsey his watercolor paintings, John stated 16. “Dr. Kildare” (1965 TV episode “A “water media in this Aquarian Age Life for a Life”) …. Dr. Secaras became the key to my inner mind.” 17. “The Virginian” (1965 TV episode “Farewell to Honesty”) …. Doctor John’s tall stature and deep, articulate voice served him well as he also 18. “Kraft Suspense Theatre” (1965 TV pursued self-expression through episode “The Last Clear Chance”) …. acting in Hollywood, where he Wing Commander Tarns adopted the stage name John Lodge, 19. “Ben Casey” (TV episodes: 1964 “For by which he was known for the a Just Man Falleth Seven Times” and rest of his life. John played the title 1962 “Saturday, Surgery, and Stanley role in the cult classic horror film Schultz”) “The Witchmaker,” as well as roles As Himself in several other films such as “In Like Flint.” He appeared in many 1. “The Mike Douglas Show” (10 popular television series during the September 1964)

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 57 Memorial and board of directors of the Rolf Institute In the invaluable book Ida Rolf Talks About and demonstration of the first hour of the of Structural Integration®. Over the next Rolfing and Physical Reality, Rosemary Feitis Rolfing series. The weeks of class went well, thirty years, John brought pain relief and describes John’s infinite patience: “He’d with probably only a little more than the balance to the lives of thousands of clients work all night showing how a set of ribs normal amount of drama. But there was as a Rolfing practitioner in his Seattle-area articulated with the vertebral column, something different about a class with John private practice. only to have Ida say the one in the middle that was unlike any class I’d known with couldn’t be at that angle. So he’d correct Ida or Peter, Emmett or Stacy. It’s not easy to In later years, John continued to seek the it, working all night again to make a new capture, but imagine a charged atmosphere, “zen” in all the things he enjoyed in life, drawing, and the next morning he’d find the feeling of an incipient upheaval, like whether as an avid golfer, camping in out that the vertebra needed to be moved. hiking in the mountains and suddenly the mountains, or fishing in the Pacific The difficulty seemed to be that IPR could having the sense lightning was about to Northwest and the Great Lakes. With move the flesh, so she felt it only reasonable strike, or that you would turn a corner extraordinary stamina, he continued to ask that John move the bone. For John, and come face to face with a grizzly bear. both practicing Rolfing® and copiously it meant re-creating the whole drawing My hunch is that it had to do with John’s producing paintings until suffering a stroke each time – flesh is more amenable to struggle with his ego, the way he fought to in 2006. Even with diminished physical movement.” let go of his drive for perfection (that could abilities in his last year, his penetrating scare the hell out of any student), so that insight and intense curiosity never faded. John was a totally devoted Rolfer and he could clearly transmit the highest and All his life, John possessed an uncommon Rolfing teacher. He brought to his classes purest expression of Ida’s teachings. passion for art, for healing, for spirituality, the evangelical fervor of a biblical prophet for nature, and for love. His great, old soul spreading Ida’s gospel, and a sense of He was a man of great passions, and one of has now returned Home. absolute commitment ¬– which occasionally the greatest was for the vision and work Ida went a bit amiss. Peter Melchior told me Rolf had given him. I don’t remember any John Lodge Estate that John’s initial act at the beginning of of us on the faculty who ever viewed our his very first class was to introduce himself responsibilities casually, but John would n by suddenly stepping out from behind a openly speak of it as a sacred charge. When The first impression that pops up when I screen totally naked, announcing “Here others are being cool, that can seem a little think of John is: BIG! One just knew when I am. This is the real John Lodge.” While unsettling. he was in the area. True, he was a large man apparently his intention was to display The clearest memory I’m left with, though, physically, but it was more than that, much his commitment to be utterly open and is of John singing. During that class in more. His energy was truly substantial, and honest with his students, he displayed, of 1982, both of us were staying with Peter his great voice boomed across any room course, much more. Faced with the vision and Susan Melchior and their children in with enormous presence and enthusiasm. of a bear-like man with flowing silver hair the hills north of Lyons, above Boulder; If he was smiling, it was a huge smile, and and beard, completely nude, his massive, I had a small room on the main floor of when he was angry, it was a monumental hairy body accentuated here and there their house, and John had a larger room rage. John always seemed bigger than life, with unnerving, scarlet splotches of scaly in the basement. In the mornings, talking and he lived his life large, accomplishing psoriasis, the students were frozen in about class over coffee, Peter and Susan several careers (besides Rolfing) in one breathless, wide-eyed silence. Somehow, and I could practically feel John rumbling human span: he was a bomber pilot during everyone survived. When Peter heard about around down below us, reviewing his World War II (he didn’t like to talk about it); the dramatic entrance, he pulled John aside notes and preparing for the day. (He had he was an actor, and apparently played both and counseled a calmer, more orthodox large notebooks full of notes from his time bad guy and sheriff’s deputy on the series beginning in future classes. “Bonanza”; and he was a very talented with Ida, a treasure trove unlike any other artist, responsible for the illustrations in Dr. In the fall of 1982, I assisted John in teaching collection I’ve ever seen.) Some days he’d Rolf’s magnum opus, Rolfing: The Integration a Rolfing class in Boulder. He began that worry himself into a dark cloud – but we of Human Structures. class in a more conventional way: some knew it was going to be a pretty smooth ground rules and an excellent lecture on day in class when we heard John singing

John Lodge and Rolfing client in 2006.

58 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Memorial his favorite hymns, 19th century Protestant tried to build the learning process on a pain in six sessions, and John devoted classics such as “Shall We Gather At The large collection of quotes from Ida Rolf. himself to Rolfing as a life work. He taught River?,” or his apparent favorite, “Bringing However, we the students experienced for us for many years. Elisa was my friend in the Sheaves.” It can’t have been just the clearly that here was a person who added to at Esalen. acoustics of the room that set that booming the thinking of the founder of this approach John practiced in the Seattle area. I sent my voice to vibrating our chests and our coffee by his giftedness and the depth of his life daughter to him for her first ten sessions. He cups. I think John was determined to be a experience. John – the artist, the actor, the showed me some of his beautiful anatomy clear channel for Truth, and those hymns bomber pilot, and, finally, the exceptionally books and we happily talked shop. I were the mantras he chose to help him let talented manual practitioner – delivered received some wonderful work from him go of what he wanted, in his passion to the concept of structural integration in a when I first moved to Seattle in 2002. I could express something greater. And whatever way both inspiring and challenging for feel him finding his beloved anatomy. that was, it touched us as it would touch beginners. I still have a notebook from that his students: class, and whenever I teach a Rolfing class He was generous with his time and gave us I take this notebook with me. local folks a talk and demonstration of what Bringing in the sheaves, to do for carpal tunnel syndrome – arm bringing in the sheaves, Almost thirty years have passed since work that was quite fine. He termed himself We shall come rejoicing, then, and I never had the chance to meet a “Master Rolfer,” but it was no more than bringing in the sheaves, John Lodge again. But that first class with an accurate description. He was at peace Bringing in the sheaves, him has accompanied my work and that of with his life and his ability. bringing in the sheaves, some of the first European practitioners up We shall come rejoicing, to this very day. Sharon Hancoff bringing in the sheaves. Certified Advanced Rolfer™ Peter Schwind, Ph.D. Peace to his great big heart. Advanced Rolfing Instructor™ Nicholas French Certified Advanced Rolfer™ n He was a deep presence and a profound and elegant anatomical Rolfer. He spoke of the body as liquids awash in light-filled n It was a privilege for me to be a student gas in fibrous space. That we used light to in John Lodge’s Rolfing class during the work... summer of 1980 in Boulder. When we, the students, entered the Skylight Room He was an artist and an actor and was the walls were covered with impressive considered a shaman. I first got to know him sketches of possible variations of human when he was doing the drawings for Dr. structure. Those drawings were John’s Rolf’s book. He worked so hard doing over pre-studies for Ida Rolf’s book. John 600 drawings, some many times over, that was welcoming us with an enormous he damaged his eyesight. They used 200 of authenticity and presence. He would those fine drawings for Dr. Rolf’s book. communicate cordially, but at the same He was a lead pilot for the B-17s of WWII time there was an atmosphere of strong where he knew my father, who was a discipline in the room: class would start at bombardier pilot for the B-17s. To have seven o’clock in the morning; if a student survived the war flying B-17s is quite was late the doors were locked until the miraculous as life expectancy for the B-17 next coffee break. crews was three to seven missions. (My John had been preparing this class for one dad, who had some kind of luck, flew year. He had been collecting all the notes fifty missions, and his large yearbook for from Ida Rolf’s teachings, he had been officer’s training had almost everyone’ s dialoguing with colleagues to make the picture crossed off with a date of death resources for this teaching as complete and beside it. There were only a couple of guys concise as possible. When he demonstrated who survived from his graduating class out he worked with two models in this class. of many, many hundreds.) When he worked with model one doing a John said the reason he had gotten into first hour, and then followed with model Rolfing® was an episode in a B-17. They two doing a first hour two days later, we had an oil fire and had to jump. His realized that the ten sessions are not a series parachute would not open out and John of scheme-like strokes but rather a ritual landed on his head. He was in quite some that shows the same form while it is actually pain for quite some time. He met Elisa, his different each time it is happening. first wife, in Miami and got to know about John’s teaching emphasized the originality Rolfing. Dr. Rolf helped twenty years of of the structural integration approach. He

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 59 Institute News

Graduates

Unit II, December 14th 2007, Boulder, Colorado Front Row: Duffy Allen (Instructor). Second Row, Left to Right: Jonathan Pickett, Daryl Cooper, Audrey Goldberg, Mackenzie Sanderson, Kathy Pitts . Back Row, Left to Right: Michael Valenti, Ryan Goralski, Gian Gibson, Bethany Ward (Assistant Instructor), Travis Foster, Antonio Flores de la Rosa

Unit III, March, 19, 2008, Germany Front Row, Left to Right: Ferran Moreno, Amy Tan. Middle Row, Left to Right: Catherine Fong, Kalen Chia-Ling Hsu, Patrick Ward, Martin Wirth, Anise Smith, Christina Ziembinski, Theres Grau, Bärbel Dubler. Back Row, Left to Right: Andrea Clusen (Assistant Instructor), Mike Schmelzle, Raymond Smith, Ray McCall (Instructor), Jon Bowley, Samuele Serreli, Craig Eubank, Margarete Blankartz, Sonja Yount, Isabell Brand (Assistant), Miquel de Jong

60 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 Institute News

Part 2 / Fascial Perspectives - Understanding Structure 2008-2009 Class Schedule July 12 - 13, 2008 Instructor: Michael Stanborough BOULDER, COLORADO MUNICH, GERMANY Part 3 / Authentic Presence - Unit I: Foundations of Rolfing® Unit I: Foundations of Rolfing® Therapeutic Contact Structural Integration/ FORSI Structural Integration July 19 - 20, 2008 Instructor: Ashuan Seow August 25 – October 6, 2008 Intensive Training 2008 / 2009 Coordinator: Suzanne Picard Movement Week Sydney, Australia Unit I: Advanced Foundations of August 04 – August 8, 2008 Rolfing Structural Integration/ Instructor: Pierpaola Volpones Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & Rolf Movement Integration AFORSI Anatomy Week September 8 - October 30, 2008 July 13 – July 26, 2008 August 11 – August 15, 2008 Instructor: Suzanne Picard Instructor: Ashuan Seow Instructor: Conrad Obermeier Assistant: John Smith October 26 – November 8, 2008 Instructor: Juan David Velez Touch Week Unit III: Clinical Application of Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & August 18 – August 23, 2008 Rolfing Theory Instructor: Harvey Burns Rolf Movement Integration March 2 – April 24, 2009 Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & Instructor: Ray Mc Call October 13 – December 11, 2008 Assistant: John Smith Instructor: Jon Martine Rolf Movement Integration Principles Instructor: Carol Agneessens October 06 – November 28, 2008 Rolf Movement Certification Unit III: Clinical Application Instructor: Harvey Burns November 10 – 28, 2008 of Rolfing Theory Unit III: Clinical Application of Instructors: Monica Caspari and Ashuan Seow March 2 – Apr 24, 2009 August 18 – October 10, 2008 Rolfing Theory Instructor: Ray Mc Call Instructor: Libby Eason February 2 - March 25, 2009 Assistant: John Smith Anatomy Instructor: Juan David Velez Instructor: Monica Caspari October 13 – December 12, 2008 Instructor: Ray McCall Anatomy Instructor: John Schewe Italy/Germany KYOTO, JAPAN Rolfing Movement Certification Advanced Training 2008-2009 Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & Rolf Movement Integration August 4 – August 14, 2008 – Unit 1 September 28 – October 10, 2008 in Bologna, Italy January – March 2009 October 14 – October 24, 2008 – Unit 2 Principle: Leal Keen Instructors: Jane Harrington, Rebecca Carli- April 20 – May 06, 2009 Instructor: Jim Asher Mills and Kevin Frank in Munich, Germany Instructor: Peter Schwind Unit III: Clinical Application Assistant Instructor: Pierpaola Volpones CHARLES TOWN, WV of Rolfing Theory Advanced Training SPAIN September – October 2009 Instructor: TBA (Extended Format) Rolfing Movement Certification September 12, 13, 14 2008 November 21 – November 30 2008 October 10, 11, 12 2008 BRAZIL November 21, 22, 23 2008 May 21 – May 31 2009 Rolf Movement Certification January 9, 10, 11 2009 Instructors: Rita Geirola and France Hatt- February 6, 7, 8 2009 Arnold November 3 – November 27, 2008 March 6, 7, 8 2009 Instructor: Lael Katharine Keen Assistant Instructor: Kevin McCoy April 3, 4, 5 2009 Melbourne, Australia May 1, 2, 3 2009 Unit III: Clinical Application of Instructor: Tessy Brungardt Unit 1: Advanced Foundations of Rolfing Theory Co-instructor: Jane Harrington Rolfing Structural Integration October 6 - December 11, 2008 Part 1 / The RolfingT ouch - Instructors: Jan Sultan and Monica Caspari Myofascial Approaches July 5 - 6, 2008 Instructor: Michael Stanborough

Structural Integration / June 2008 www.rolf.org 61 CONTACTS

OFFICERS & EUROPEAN OFFICERS & Red River/USA BOARD OF DIRECTORS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sam Johnson Nathan Ingvalson (Chair) Mountain/USA Valerie Berg (Faculty/Board Chair) Andrea Clusen Bryan Devine, Chair 3751 Manchester Dr. NW Mattheus Els Albuquerque, NM 87107 Annika Sundell Heartland/USA (505) 341-1167 Dan Somers [email protected] AUSTRALIAN OFFICERS Southwestern/USA Peter Bolhuis (At-large/CFO) Bill LeGrave 14130 Whitney Circle & COMMITTEE Broomfield, CO 80020 Nicholas Barbousas, President N. California/USA Chris Howe, Treasurer (303) 449-2800 Douw Smith [email protected] Gary Hehir, Secretary Su Tindall, Committee Cascades/N. America Laura J. Curry (Eastern USA/Board Secretary) Fiona Wood, Committee Vacant The Rolfing® Studio John Smith, Committee 22 Woburn St. #26 Alaska/USA Reading, MA 01867 Ed Toal, Chair (781) 492-ROLF JAPANESE OFFICERS [email protected] & BOARD OF DIRECTORS Hawaii/USA Yoshitaka Koda, President Vacant Benjamin Eichenauer (At-large) Tsuguo Hirata, Vice President ANISHA - A Center for Holistic Health Kunikazu Miyazawa, Inspector 4031 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Madoka Ikeda, Director of Membership EUROPEAN REGIONAL Portland, OR 97214 Takayuki Watanabe, Membership Services CONTACTS (503) 280-5665 Assistant Austria [email protected] Eiko Mizobe, Director of Education Jasmin Mirfakhrai Gale Loveitt (Central USA) Yoshiko Ikejima, Foreign Liaison 40545 Sloop Circle Kazunori Kawakami, Shinnosuke Nakamura, Scandinavia/ Denmark Meeting Coordinator Steamboat Springs, CO 80487 Hans Gramstrup (970) 870-2888 Takayo Miyamoto, Director of Website [email protected] France Hubert Godard Kevin McCoy (Faculty) CANADIAN OFFICERS 3150 Iris Avenue, F-103 & DIRECTORS Italy Boulder, CO 80301 Kaj Devai Monica Marinelli Tara Detwiler (862) 202-2222 Spain [email protected] Jennifer Hayes Traugott Wahl Jeff W. Ryder (Western USA) 4004 S.W. Kelly, #201 STANDING BOARD Switzerland Portland, OR 97239 COMMITTEES Tina Collenberg (503) 250-3209 United Kingdom, Ireland [email protected] Academic Affairs Keith Graham Maria Helena Orlando (International /CID) Europe-Brazil and R. Itapeaçu, 108 - Sao Paulo - SP Countries in Development Brazil - Zip Code 05670-020 EDUCATION EXECUTIVE 5511 3819.0153 Finance COMMITTEE [email protected] Duffy Allen, Chair Membership Libby Eason Christoph Sommer (Europe) Public Relations Ray McCall In Motion, Praxisgemeinschaft Maya J. Gammon* Friedrichstr. 20 Law & Legislation Jim Jones* D-80801 München Michael Wm. Murphy Germany +49-89-330 79 664 Research ROLFING INSTRUCTORS Carol Agneessens [email protected] Tom Findley, M.D. Duffy Allen Valerie Berg EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OFFICERS OF Harvey Burns Peter Bolhuis MEETING REGIONS Monica Caspari Gale Loveitt Libby Eason Laura J. Curry Southeastern/USA Patrick Ellinwood Vacant Ellen Freed BRAZILIAN OFFICERS & Jane Harrington Mid-Atlantic/USA Lael Katharine Keen BOARD OF DIRECTORS Bill Morrow, Chair Sally Klemm Maria Helena Orlando, President Candace Frye, Sec’y-Treas. Jonathan Martine Marcia Cintra, Vice President Northeastern/N. America Paula Mattoli Alfeu Ruggi, Secretary Ray McCall Maria da Conceição da Costa, Director Dameron Midgette, Chair Kevin McCoy Monica Caspari, Educational Director Bill Short, Sec’y Jose Augusto Menegatti Sybille Cavalcanti, Executive Director

62 www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2008 CONTACTS

Michael Wm. Murphy Pierpaola Volpones THE ROLF INSTITUTE OF Pedro Prado, Ph.D. Maya J. Gammon* Cornelia Rossi Jim Jones* STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION® 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Robert Schleip, Ph.D. Student Evaluation Faculty Boulder, CO 80301 Peter Schwind, Ph.D. (303) 449-5903 Ashuan Seow North America (800) 530-8875 Michael Stanborough Suzanne Picard, Chair (303) 449-5978 fax Russell Stolzoff Duffy Allen [email protected] Marius Strydom Larry Koliha www.rolf.org Pierpaola Volpones Michael Polon Office Hours: Thomas Walker Jim Jones* Monday–Friday 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Continuing Education Committee ADVANCED ROLFING Lael Keen, Chair Australian Rolfing INSTRUCTORS Kevin McCoy Jim D. Asher Thomas Walker Association Marnie Fitzpatrick, Administrator Tessy Brungardt Maya J. Gammon* Suite 15, 3 Richmond Avenue Jeffrey Maitland, Ph.D. Teacher-in-Training Committee Sylvania Waters NSW 2224 Ray McCall Sally Klemm, Chair +61-2-9522 6770 Pedro Prado, Ph.D. Duffy Allen +61-2-9522 6756 fax Michael Salveson Ellen Freed www.rolfing.org.au Peter Schwind, Ph.D. Ashuan Seow [email protected] Jan Henry Sultan Michael Stanborough TEACHERS-IN-TRAINING Maya J. Gammon* Karen Lackritz (Rolfing) Brazilian Rolfing Curriculum Committee Association MOVEMENT INSTRUCTORS Thomas Walker, Chair Sybille Cavalcanti, Executive Director Jane Harrington, Chair Jane Harrington R. Cel. Arthur de Godoy, 83 Carol Agneessens Ray McCall Vila Mariana Mary Bond Maya J. Gammon* 04018-050-São Paulo-SP Rebecca Carli-Mills European Executive Committee Brazil Monica Caspari (11) 5574-5827 Pierpaola Volpones, Chair Hubert Godard (11) 5539-8075 Giovanni Felicioni France Hatt-Arnold [email protected] Nathan Ingvalson Vivian Jaye www.rolfing.com.br Markus Stettner* Lael Katherine Keen Office Hours: Paula Mattoli European FDRB (RFOC) Monday–Friday 8:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m. Jose Augusto Menegatti Pierpaola Volpones Pedro Prado, Ph.D. France Hatt-Arnold European Rolfing Pierpaola Volpones Jaques Rauscher Markus Stettner* Association e.V. Markus Stettner, Executive Director FASCIAL ANATOMY European Admissions Angelika Simon (on maternal leave until Sept. INSTRUCTORS Committeee 08) John Schewe, Chair Hans Gramstrup Martina Berger, Training Coordinator Luiz Fernando Bertolucci Isolde Specka Monika Lambacher, Sales and PR Paul Gordon, M.A. Jean-Pierre El-Rif Nymphenburgerstr. 86 Jonathan Martine D-80636 München Michael Wm. Murphy Research Committee Germany Cornelia Rossi Dr. Robert Schleip (Director), +49-89 54 37 09 40 Robert Schleip, Ph.D. Gertrud Meitzner (Advisor) +49-89 54 37 09 42 fax Juan David Velez www.rolfing.org [email protected] ROLF INSTITUTE STAFF FOUNDATIONS OF ROLFING Diana Yourell, Executive Director STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION Heidi Hauge, Membership Services Japanese Rolfing Coordinator Association FACULTY Jim Jones, Director of Education Sugimoto Bldg. 3rd Floor Michael Polon, Co-Chair Heather L. Walls, Admissions Counselor 3-3-11 Nishi-Shinjuku Suzanne Picard, Co-Chair Maya J. Gammon, Faculty Liaison Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023 Til Luchau Emily Thayer, Student Services Coordinator Japan Jonathan Martine Trace Scheidt, Office Manager Yoshiko Ikejima: [email protected] John Schewe Gena Rauschke, Accountant +81-3-5339-7285 fax Marius Strydom Susan Seecof, Publicist www.rolfing.or.jp Juan David Velez

FACULTY COMMITTEES Canadian Rolfing Association Faculty Development c/o Kaj Devai and Review Board 615 - 50 Governor’s Rd. Jeff Maitland, Chair Dundas, ONT L9H 5M3, Canada Ray McCall www.rolfingcanada.org Pedro Prado *Staff Representative [email protected]

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