Structural Integration THE JOURNAL OF THE ROLF INSTITUTE® JUNE 2009 Seeds of

® Rolfing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION: COLUMNS THE JOURNAL OF Ask the Faculty: Continuing Education 2 THE ROLF INSTITUTE® Ask the Movement Faculty: Shoulder Tension 3 June 2009 Vol. 37, No. 2 Practice Building: Private Practice to Business Practice 6

PUBLISHER In My Practice: Michel Ginoulhac & Pedro Prado 8 The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration® ROLFING® HISTORY 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 A Fift y-Year Perspective of Rolfi ng 12 Boulder, CO 80301 USA Gael Ohlgren (303) 449-5903 (303) 449-5978 Fax The Development of the Rolf Movement Work 16 (800) 530-8875 An Interview with Vivian Jaye and Jane Harrington Anne Hoff EDITORIAL BOARD Rolfi ng in Brazil 21 Sara Bayer Heidi Massa Eva Bucher Craig Ellis Why Ida Rolf Chose Boulder for the Rolf Institute® 24 Szaja Gott lieb An Interview with Jim Asher Anne F. Hoff , Editor-in-Chief Dave Sheldon Linda Loggins Heidi Massa Rob McWilliams PERSPECTIVES Deanna Melchynuk The Confl uence of Neuroscience and Structural Integration 26 John Schewe A Discussion with Sandra Blakeslee Susan Seecof, Managing Editor Kevin Frank Dave Sheldon Phenomenological Space 29 LAYOUT AND An Interview with Hubert Godard GRAPHIC DESIGN Caryn McHose Susan Winter Gett ing It 34 Jeff rey Maitland, Ph.D. Articles in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute® represent the views and opinions of the authors and REVIEWS do not necessarily represent the offi cial positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute Skin of Glass 38 of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute Reviewed by Mary Bond reserves the right, in its sole and absolute Integral Anatomy Series, Volume 4: Viscera and their Fasciae 40 discretion, to accept or reject any article Reviewed by Bruce Schonfeld for publication in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute. Deepening Musical Performance through Movement 41 Reviewed by Carolyn Pike Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute® (USPS 0005-122, ISSN 1538-3784) is published quarterly by the Rolf Institute, MEMORIALS 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, CO 80301. Periodicals Postage Paid at Ruth Mendelsohn 43 Boulder, Colorado. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute®, 5055 INSTITUTE NEWS Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, CO 80301. Graduates/Announcements 45 Copyright ©2009 Rolf Institute. All rights reserved. Duplication in whole or in part 2009 Class Schedule 46 in any form is prohibited without writt en 2010 Class Schedule 47 permission from the publisher. Contacts 48 Rolfi ng® is a service mark of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. COLUMNS

A You mention having heard that “Dr. Rolf said to focus on Rolfi ng only for a number of years.” I myself have heard her quoted diff erently, as having said that one should “stick to the Recipe” for several Ask the Faculty years. Perhaps she said both things – but they are very diff erent things, as Rolfi ng On Continuing Education is more than the Recipe, and Rolfers do employ tools and strategies beyond the Recipe while engaged in the practice of I’m a relatively new practitioner and I see many choices and options for continuing education Rolfi ng Structural Integration. In fact, as a Q (CE) to fulfi ll my manipulation and elective credits before advanced training. I have heard new practitioner, your basic training most that Dr. Rolf said to focus on Rolfi ng® only for a number of years, but I also hear so much about the likely included many tools complementary enhanced results that come from integrating spinal mechanics, cranial and visceral work, or trauma to Dr. Rolf’s classic Ten Series. With work into my practice. What advice do you have on choosing a CE curriculum? And how do I bring that in mind, I hope you don’t mind if I in knowledge from other disciplines and yet stay true to the practice of structural integration? interpret your question to ask, “When and how should I venture more deeply into, or even beyond, what I learned in my experienced carpenter told me “It takes fi ve basic training?” A Aft er twenty-fi ve years of practicing years to learn anything. It will take you fi ve In answer to that question, I certainly agree Rolfi ng, my advice would be to immerse years to know that that piece of wood you’re with Paul Gordon and Michael Salveson 13 yourself in your Rolfi ng practice, studying cutt ing is 27 inches, /16ths and not 27 and about taking your time and solidifying 7 with Rolfers, so that Rolfi ng becomes your /8ths. That’s how long it takes. Don’t rush through experience what you already know. framework for any additional studies and it.” When I fi rst trained as a Rolfer, I was Dr. Rolf said it takes about fi ve years of practices that you add to it. Further studies told something similar by my teacher. Aft er steady work to really get a sense of what are like adding spices to a magnificent thirty-some years in practice, I can now tell this work is about. It is my take that beyond culinary entrée. Rolfi ng is a brilliant work, you that both the carpenter and my teacher gathering experience, she was referring to where Dr. Rolf discovered the innate were defi nitely right. Take your time; it only embodying the concepts of integration and order of the human body. There are now gets bett er. aligning what you know with your personal incredible tools to assist and encourage Paul Gordon, M.A abilities and interests. that order, such as the osteopathic work of spinal mechanics, craniaosacral, visceral, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, Your basic training gave you a framework and neural release. I have been immersed Fascial Anatomy Instructor on which you may now organize your in a yoga practice that informs me that continued development. You can use CE to reinforce and build up what you already Rolfi ng is perhaps the bodywork of yoga. First and foremost, I would choose A know, like, and have a natural talent to do, Many have uncovered this mystery of how classes that continue the development and and it will serve you well. But CE is also the human body works, but Rolfi ng appears support and expansion of the techniques an opportunity to grow by exploring less to integrate all of these parts of the mystery. and viewpoint you have learned in your familiar or comfortable aspects of the work. Be true to this work of structural integration basic training. Get good at what you have You may use CE both to build on your by practicing it and gett ing to know it as it learned. It is very gratifying to master the strengths and challenge your weaknesses becomes a part of you. Dr. Rolf was asked basics and it will produce results that will and biases. Therefore, in selecting your CE, near the end of her life what it felt like to strengthen your practice. I always think you might ask yourself: have developed this signifi cant work of that Rolfers’ development follows their structural integration. She answered simply curiosity, and that a Rolfer’s curiosity grows • What do I really like? What excites me? that she was “pleased to have provided out of his or her practice. As you work with • What do I avoid exploring or deepening? meaningful work for so many people.” what you already know and get good at it, Choose what is meaningful to you. There you will discover something very pressing • Am I a “big picture” person or a “detail” is tremendous freedom within the brilliant that you absolutely must learn about. person? structure of Rolfing. Find subjects that Learn that. Don’t be in a hurry. Let your • Do I gravitate to the physical – or to the excite your mind, fi nd the teachers that practice lead you. To do that, you have metaphysical? speak to your heart, and practice in service to cultivate your practice, which you will to the people who come through the door. do by mastering the material you already Balance is the key in planning what to Karen Lackritz know, as you serve the clients who come study. Go with what you are already good Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, to you from your community. Good luck. at and what excites you, but also take the opportunity to challenge yourself. Also, Rolfi ng Teacher-in-Training Michael J. Salveson do not forget your framework. Follow Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, the logic of the “tenth hour”: As you seek Advanced Rolfi ng Instructor A I remember when I was in my twenties completion, always ask whether the new and was learning to build houses, a very knowledge can be integrated into the whole.

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Can you, in this moment, integrate the new help to refi ne his or her touch. Workshops viewpoint. Trainings like craniosacral, tool or technique into your framework for that focus on learning more about a specifi c Somatic Experiencing®, energy work, or Rolfi ng? In this moment, is there a place in part of the body from a Rolfi ng viewpoint visceral manipulation, to name a few, are your personal framework to put the tools – such as the shoulder girdle, the pelvic examples of workshops that Rolfers may of spinal mechanics, visceral manipulation girdle, and the spine – are workshops that take for elective credits. Workshops that or cranial work? If so, by all means explore may off er manipulation credit, as well as give elective credits are oft en taught by them. If not, put them aside for now and workshops that review the ten-session Rolfers who have studied in other areas explore them later. series. The teachers of these workshops are and wish to share their insights from these usually Rolf Institute faculty or people who studies with other Rolfers. Sometimes the Because Rolfing is a principle-based have been approved and recommended by teachers of elective-credit workshops are science, many tools and techniques may a member of the advanced faculty. The idea not Rolfers at all. be integrated within it, so long as you here is to refi ne knowledge from the Rolfi ng respect the principles. Do recognize that Dr. Rolf is quoted as having said that a point of view. many of these explorations represent Rolfer is not fully trained until he or she fi elds of inquiry in and of themselves, but Movement credits (three are required for has completed his advanced training. From you have the choice to integrate what you entrance into the advanced training) are this point of view, the intermediate years learn as tools for your Rolfing practice included in the CE program to assure that between the basic and advanced training without venturing into entirely diff erent the Rolfer’s understanding of function from are focused more on continuing to work paradigms. So, my advice to you would the viewpoint of Rolfi ng Movement, and with the information that was passed on be to stay within the paradigm of Rolfi ng how it aff ects structure, takes a step forward in the basic training and preparing for the for now, and study only that for which before he enters the advanced training. refinement and further deepening that you have “space” within the framework of The Rolfi ng Movement faculty teaches the occurs in the advanced training. I hope your current training and understanding workshops that give movement CE credits. this helps you, and I wish you an ever- of the work. fascinating and deepening exploration into Elective credits (six are required for Rolfi ng as you continue your career. Pedro Prado, Ph.D. entrance into the advanced training) are Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, meant to encompass disciplines that while Lael Katharine Keen Advanced Rolfi ng Instructor they are not specifically Rolfing, relate Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, to Rolfing and help the practitioner to Rolfi ng Instructor understand Rolfi ng bett er, from a diff erent A As chairperson of the continuing education committ ee, I’d like to add a few words about the “offi cial position” of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration® faculty on continuing education. The intention here is to help you understand Ask the Movement Faculty how the faculty as a whole has designed the CE program, and what the thinking is Shoulder Tension and behind this design. the Gestures of Daily Living In most professional organizations, continuing education is an ongoing By Mary Bond, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, requirement for membership in the Rolf Movement Faculty organization. At this moment in the Rolf Institute, continuing education is only required for the interval between the basic and advanced training, although we hope How can I use movement to help a client who has chronic shoulder tension? I remember learning that it stimulates a habit of continuing to Q “arm drops” in my training, but I haven’t seen much benefi t from that exercise. What are some other learn that the Rolfer will keep up for all of ways to use movement to help my client with the tension in her upper trapezius muscles? his or her professional life. In the interval between basic and advanced trainings, the main goal of continuing awareness of inhibitions around the education is to prepare the Rolfer for A In teaching Arm Drops during Rolf shoulder joint. You’ll fi nd a section about 1 the advanced training. This has led us embodiment classes, I’ve described the Arm Drops in my book Balancing Your Body, to require three different categories of intervention as a way of helping clients but I rarely teach that classical exercise continuing education credits: manipulation, fi nd a sense of connection and continuity by itself any more. I’ve found other ways movement, and elective. between the spine, scapula and arm, to address movements of the arms and and of finding central support for arm shoulders that are, I think, more interesting Manipulation credits (nine are required for movement. The purpose of the “drop” and more practical. entrance into the advanced training) refer is to insure that the new connection isn’t Clients’ problems with their arms and specifi cally to workshops that perfect the replaced by habitual patt erning when the shoulders have to do with what they’re practitioner’s understanding of Rolfi ng and arm is lowered. The drop also heightens

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 3 COLUMNS doing with their hands – how they’re impulse of the scapula into my hand. Once physically handling tools and other objects, that movement feels clear I move my hands or people – in their daily lives. There can be under the arm and forearm on that side, a world of meaning encoded in the way a instructing the client to let me have the person engages the world through touch. weight of her arm. Then, just as the client I think this is why the Arm Drop exercise initiates the movement of the scapula, I alone seems unfulfi lling – it doesn’t lead slightly raise the arm from the table. Aft er to a tangible way for the hand to relate to repeating this several times I have the client the world. experiment with the timing on her own. The goal is to raise the arm from the table The following is a broad introduction to by fi rst engaging the newly found support shoulder-girdle stabilization and hand of the scapula. As the client brings her arm use. I’ll describe a sequence I use oft en, up to a right angle with the shoulder, I use modifying it to suit individual clients’ my hand to invite the head of the humerus needs. I may introduce the sequence during to rest back into the shoulder socket. a Rolfi ng® session, teach parts of it during Mary Bond several sessions, or let it fill a session Up to this point, the work has been a devoted only to movement. variation on the classic Arm Drop exercise. helps the client feel what she needs During the supine work the client’s knees Step 1 – Finding the Scapulae to activate. may be bent, straight or supported over Many clients complain about their I believe it’s important for people who a bolster. It is important that as the client shoulders without having a clear sense overuse the upper trapezius and levator engages her scapulae she does not arch the of the component parts. I oft en start with scapulae muscles to become familiar with thoracic spine and puff the chest forward. simple anatomy, having the client touch his the precise sensation of recruiting the The spine should remain grounded and the own clavicles, scapulae and humeral heads. lower trapezius. The goal of the pulses sternum at rest. I assist the client to sense the scapulae by is to stimulate sensation and activity Once the shoulder engagement begins palpating around the edges and doing in this muscle so it can contribute to to feel familiar to the client, I ask her to some passive movement, pointing out the support of the scapula. If the upper raise her arm in a more habitual way. glide (or lack thereof) of the inside surface trapezius is strongly habituated, it can It’s important for the client to sense the of the blade against the back ribcage. For take time for it to disengage. Because lower diff erence between the two ways of moving. simplicity, I name the acromion process trapezius is frequently tight yet weak and Clients usually report that the old way “the outer corner” of the scapula, and uncoordinated, it can take time for it to makes the arm feel heavier or the neck the inferior angle “the bottom corner.” come alive. For some clients this may be more tense. Then I ask the client to move the scapulae all we do for one lesson. I assign scapula herself, noticing what happens to those pulses for client homework.2 Step 4 – Bridge to Practical Action two “corners.” In a similar way, I assist the client to With my client still resting supine, I Step 2 – Seated Work engage under-active rhomboids by invite her to play with the common action lightly tapping the outer corner of the of pointing at something. I might say, I briefl y explain that the shoulder blade scapula. As with lower trapezius, these “Imagine you’ve never seen a ceiling fan needs to be secured to the spine in order muscles are frequently tight, yet weak and before. Show it to me.” She points at the to provide leverage for the movements uncoordinated. I emphasize the rhomboid fan, experimenting with engaging the new of the arm. I invite the client to raise her or trapezius cues depending on the client’s patt ern of shoulder support while doing arm forward, noticing what part of her patt ern. Occasionally I use both. (While something practical. Then we compare the body she uses to lift the arm. Because most the activation of serratus anterior is critical feeling of doing it the new way with her clients complain of neck tension to some for balanced shoulder support, I usually habitual way of pointing at something. degree, awareness that she’s recruiting teach that in a separate lesson, relating it neck muscles to stabilize her arm provides to core support issues. It’s important not Step 5 – Bridge to Relationship incentive to explore bett er ways to secure to overwhelm the client with too much With the client still supine, I have the client the scapula. sensory information at once.) raise her hand in front of her shoulder, Touching the bott om corner of the scapula, elbow somewhat bent, and place her hand Step 3 — Supine Work I ask my client to draw it lightly down against my own. Then I invite her to push toward the tail and then release it without For the next step I like the client to rest in me away. I usually have a client explore engaging the upper shoulder muscles. the supine position so she can more readily this fi rst with eyes closed so she can sense Since it’s easy to forcibly thrust the scapulae focus on her sensations. I teach her to into the combined actions of stabilizing and down, the diffi culty of moving just a litt le initiate fl exion at the shoulder with a tiny pushing something. Then we work with can be surprising. The complete exercise movement of whichever scapula “corner” eyes open, and fi nally, when the action feels is to lightly and repeatedly “pulse” the has brought the best organization to the secure, with eye contact during the push. scapula toward the tail. Gentle tapping shoulder girdle in the earlier exploration. The action should occur without disturbing or massage of the lower trapezius muscle With my hand under the client’s scapula the body’s core. This action is the physical I lightly touch the corner, inviting a tiny equivalent of saying “stop.” The capacity to

4 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org COLUMNS make the gesture while remaining open occurring. To aid this process, I try to see she seldom registered the sensation of and self-supported contributes to the or to feel in my own body what aspect of touch. This important connection has capacity for sett ing personal boundaries. the movement is impeded. Is there a lack helped her gradually dismantle the chronic Some clients may be ready to bring this of aliveness in the hand? A failure to rest tension in her shoulders. For another client, emotional connection to consciousness; into the pelvis? Over-focus in the eyes? the feeling of shoulder support for pushing others may not, but will still benefi t from Depending on what I observe, I may work helped her refi ne certain arm-balancing the exercise. further with the arm motion, review sitt ing yoga asanas. Another woman found that and bending,4 spend some time enlivening engaging good shoulder support let her Step 6 – Moving with Gravity the tactile sense of the hands,5 or revisit soft en her sternum. “Oh,” she said, “to be Now the client is seated, facing the awareness of spatial orientation and body open means to be able to receive, not just table. I make sure she has good sitt ing weight. to give.” It’s the truth of a sentence like support.3 During some previous lesson I that one, fl owing straight out of a client’s Once the new way of reaching feels good will have introduced the experiences of physical experience, that keeps me showing to the client, we review her habitual way of omni-directional spatial orientation and up to do this work. reaching out for something, comparing the grounding, so my client has familiarity feel of the movement with that of the new with those resources before we begin patt ern. We also compare the emotional working with expression in the arms. NOTES: tones that may be associated with the two I invite the client to explore movements ways of moving. 1 Bond, Mary, Balancing Your Body: A Self- of the scapula, distinguishing them from Help Approach to Rolfi ng Movement. 1993, To work with the action of pushing away, thoracic flexion and extension. Many Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, pp. I sit beside the client and lightly place one people have historical voices in their 117-118. hand on her back to remind her of support heads saying, “shoulders back.” Usually of the scapula, while giving her my other 2 Bond, Mary, The New Rules of Posture; How the historical response is an exaggerated hand to push against. As with the supine to Sit, Stand and Move in the Modern World. movement of the scapulae combined with exploration, I may let the client fi rst explore 2006, Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, spinal extension. Most people will agree pushing without eye contact. As always, pp. 118-119. that such eff ort feels forced, inauthentic we explore the old and new ways of doing and unsustainable. Thoracic extension 3 Ibid., pp. 62-64. the action. Most clients readily observe that that thrusts the heart forward (as taught their usual way of pushing away involves 4 Ibid., p. 65. in many yoga classes) is not authentic pushing back (retracting and bracing the openness. Instead, a relaxed sternum heart area) rather than eff ectively signaling 5 Ibid., p. 131. combined with shoulder engagement “no” or “stop.” that distributes shoulder-girdle support behind the heart region allows space for I choose whether to focus on pushing both receptivity and generosity. or reaching depending on the client’s resources – if reaching is connected and Next I ask the client to reach for a small graceful, we might spend more time toy I’ve placed on the table. I watch for investigating pushing. If pushing is clear scapular stabilization of the arm gesture, and strong, we’ll spend more time with for participation of the hip joints in reaching out. The client’s occupation may bending forward, and for a sense of also infl uence my teaching emphasis. aliveness and receptivity in the hands. I also notice how the eyes are involved The action of showing or pointing at in reaching for the toy. The coordination something is another gesture that can be full of reaching out to obtain something is a of meaning for people. It invites a triangular complex kinetic orchestration of vision, relationship between staying home in hand awakening, hip flexion, spinal oneself while splitt ing att ention between extension, shoulder-girdle stabilization the object being shown and the person it and release, shoulder fl exion, and elbow, is being shown to. In any of these basic wrist and hand extension. These basic gestures, poor coordination in performing elements occur concurrently when the the actions may be a physical manifestation movement is unimpeded. Yet the rhythm of poor support for self-expression. When or timing of various parts will vary working with support for these simple depending on whether one is reaching gestures we may well be assisting the for the salt or reaching for a loved client to accrue physical sensations that one’s hand. Needless to say, the brain correspond to emotional support. can’t consciously track all of that, nor Clients seem to take away whatever they should it try. It’s not a matt er of gaining need from these upper-extremity and control over the movement, but rather shoulder sequences. During the reaching of releasing blockages that prevent the exploration, one of my clients discovered natural coordination of reaching out from that by being in haste to manipulate things

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you apart from others, and describing the clear and signifi cant value you add to help address your client’s specifi c issues. This will allow your referral network, those clients and providers who send you business, to understand who you are and Practice Building what you have to off er. Many management consultants actively promote the idea that From Private Practice to Business Practice: we as individuals are the presidents of our own companies: Me, Inc. In other words, it Developing Brand You is ultimately not being a Rolfer or structural integrator that will set you apart. It is By Cosper Scafi di, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ actively defi ning and actively participating in your business practice. Editor’s Note: With this issue we are introducing a new column on practice building, which we consider an especially relevant topic at this point in time. We welcome guest writers: a diversity of Creating personal brands is very much background and experience, ranging from more experienced Rolfers™ with thriving practices to like creating any brand. We must decide those just starting out, will serve well. What has worked for you, and why? What pitfalls should the brand elements, give meaning to be avoided? What are some important elements to focusing and re-focusing your practice? If you them, position them, communicate the feel that you have something to share on the subject of practice building, please contact column meaning, and then manage them over time. editor Robert McWilliams at [email protected]. An underlying assumption of personal branding philosophy is that each of us has unique gift s and a distinct purpose hen I initially trained at the Rolf would entail an analysis of how the various in life. What follows are some guidelines W Institute of Structural Integration® forms of structural integration, and Rolfi ng® for establishing and honing your business in 1980, the formal business training I in particular, position themselves against practice through personal branding. received was very simple: pay my quarterly other forms of bodywork. In the meantime, Refl ect on Who You Are taxes, get an accountant and remember to we need to make a living. Many aspects of pay my dues to the Institute. Yet, we were business practice that I coach colleagues on Personal brands are a direct refl ection on entering into being small business owners range from budgeting and public speaking you. To identify our personal brands we responsible for a number of activities to offi ce design and marketing principles. must ask ourselves, What do I do that that included marketing, accounting, However, I believe that understanding and makes me diff erent than other bodywork or negotiations, real estate/office space mastering personal branding is one aspect CAM professionals? You must identify your acquisition, developing referral networks that each one of us could begin to develop greatest strengths and noteworthy personal and brand development to name but a that will help energize our collective traits and technical resources. Do you have few. This is the fi rst in a series of articles movement and practices. training, such as a psychological or physical that will investigate aspects of business medicine background, that qualifi es you Branding can be described many ways, practice to help you discover how to be to treat within a structural integration but I think of it as a promise: a promise more successful at running your personal context? Have you pursued osteopathic of the value of the service; a promise that small business. trainings, cranial-visceral-biomechanical the service is somehow better than the or movement work that has changed your In 1980, those of us entering into the various competitors; a promise that must approach to “the Recipe”? Did you grow bodywork field through the conduit of be delivered to be successful. Branding up in the community where you practice? structural integration found litt le in the develops an image – with results to match. All of these elements help define you. way of competition. Massage therapy It is the combination of tangible and One’s personal brand then emerges from was still developing as a distinct field. intangible qualities that create a unique the search for identity and meaning, out There were other somatic practices, but brand. Historically, branding was targeted of which comes an awareness of personal the practitioners were few. Contrast at products. BMW, Nike, IBM, and Rolex are strengths and talents. It also involves that to the crowded marketplace for examples. However, branding isn’t just for determining one’s brand elements – making somatic services today. Craniosacral- products anymore. Think of Oprah, Tiger, conscious choices about the colleagues you biodynamic-biomechanical-myofascial- Schwab, or Bono. One word and most of us associate with, your personal appearance, somatic-movement-(etc.) integration know who they are. your diet, the location and style of your specialists surround us in the marketplace. Branding, or self-branding, since we are offi ce, your way of speaking in public and Even within “Rolf world,” as I like to call talking about us as individual practitioners, in private, etc. It is telling the world about it, we have numerous claims to Dr. Rolf’s is essential to developing your private yourself through visible cues. legacy. So, how do we compete in the practice through the application of business at-times-muddy waters of the somatic Ultimately, who you are will determine the principles. It helps defi ne who you are, complementary and alternative medicine type of clients you att ract. For example, I how you are special and distinct, and (CAM) fi eld? How do we stand out and work in the city of my birth, Alexandria, why clients should work with you. It is discover our niche? At one level, this is a Virginia, an affluent and conservative your reputation. It is about creating a public awareness/relations question, and suburb of Washington, DC. I became name for yourself, highlighting what sets

6 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org COLUMNS interested in dealing with pain issues early articulate this message to my clients and Your accomplishments and the continual in my career partly as a result of nagging colleagues? My suggestion is to have two refi nement of your clinical resources are sports injuries and an apprenticeship at a to three “personal living brochures” – that the foundation of your personal brand. It local hospital. I also realized that to aff ord is, messages of fi ft een to thirty seconds is a way to continually add value to your to live in the expensive DC area I needed to apiece that verbally introduce what you practice by noting the value you have added make an above-average living, so I needed do and who are. I tailor mine separately to yourself as opposed to just listing more to position myself to members of the for clients with pain, for those interested services that you provide. For example, professional community that could aff ord more generally in Rolfing, and for in my practice, my clients and colleagues Rolfing. The demographics of northern professional colleagues. know I have a strong commitment to Virginia combined with my personal continuing education. I announce my While promoting brand You, everything interest caused me to focus my personal training schedule in advance. Clients wait- that you do or do not do communicates business strategy and vision. Developing list to get in aft er my return, so that they the value and character of the brand. that business vision determined my practice can fi nd out what I have learned. Consider the way you handle phone calls location, offi ce logistics and decor, personal and messages, email messages, or the way To remain competitive and ultimately presentation, professional affi liations and you conduct your sessions as part of the expand your business, you need to exceed training orientation. larger message that is sent about a personal being merely adequate. Refining your Identify What You Do brand. Are you on time? Do you allow skills and spotlighting your experience time for your clients to share their stories, are critical for your ongoing consequence I know we oft en think we know exactly both clinical and personal? Just as is true in the marketplace. In att aining Rolfi ng what Rolfing® is and how we practice for products and services, good personal certification, a minimum amount of it. However, it is helpful to actually brands stand apart from others and create education is necessary. However, to write down your area of most profound strong, favorable and unique associations. excel in your practice, you will need to professional interest. This refl ects the nature The aim of every personal brand is to be complete additional education, training, or of work one wants to do in life. It involves clear, distinctive, and easily understood. certifi cations. Gett ing additional education asking the questions “What do I do that You want it to express a unique, compelling can greatly enhance your brand. If you are adds clear and signifi cant value that can be benefi t that your clients can be anchored to, unsure if you need more education – and measured?” and “What am I proud of?” It is resulting in a relationship with you that is you probably do – seek out a mentor, useful to have examples from your practice sustainable over time. someone highly respected in our or perhaps that illustrate the value you generate. You another fi eld (who has branded himself or want to be able to say these to your clients, Personal Brand Management herself well), and ask for counsel. colleagues and yourself. The development of referral networks and I have found great support using a business However, personal branding is not creating strategies is an article in and of itself. One coach. A business coach can work with you a false image. It is realizing your values, important piece of any personal branding as both a consultant and a mentor. S/he can and learning to make those values relevant campaign is word-of-mouth marketing. help you identify the diff erence between to your (potential and existing) clients and This refers to your network of friends, what you say you want and how you professional referral sources. In my practice, colleagues, and clients. Many consultants actually live it. S/he can work to motivate many of my clients present complex pain believe it is the most important and you to become a participant in the business issues. I do not necessarily push the benefi ts ultimately most reliable marketing vehicle you say you want to create. of the Recipe philosophically. I speak to that your personal brand can achieve. their desire to feel bett er and how Rolfi ng What these folks say about you is what the Self-Promotion can interface with both their problems and market will ultimately determine as your You can have an amazing brand, but if the other clinicians in their health-care value. The personal brand must establish no one knows about it, you are not going world. This has the eff ect of creating trust a place of trust and relevance in the minds to have much success with your practice with the client and referral-source clinicians of your referral networks. The more it is development. And no one has more who understand you are cognizant of your believed by people, the more it will spread reasons than you to promote your brand. interface in the “treatment” equation. throughout the market without pushing. Yet most of us are much more comfortable To evaluate how brand You is doing, it is Positioning Yourself learning new techniques or perfecting our critical to obtain honest, direct feedback on in the Marketplace theoretical understandings than talking your performance. The next step is to work about ourselves and what we do. Does Now that you have refl ected inwardly, it is to close the gap between who you are now that mean you have to throw modesty out time to gaze out to the marketplace. Can you and how you want to be perceived by others the window? Of course not! There is a fi ne identify the qualities or characteristics that in the future. line between bragging and promoting, and make you distinct from your competitors Continually Add Value you would benefi t from learning it. And, it’s or colleagues? This can create a positioning Through Training or Coaching always bett er to err on the side of promoting for you. Ask yourself, what have I done your brand than not. An expression my fi rst to make myself stand out? What would Building your brand begins with business coach taught me was, “if people my colleagues or my clients say is my reviewing your past accomplishments are not speaking about you, you do not greatest strength? How do I address my and gaining strategically important new exist for them.” clients’ problems that creates a niche experiences, whether through education, that is sustainable in the long term? Do I mentoring or personal development.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 7 COLUMNS

Don’t forget to promote your brand in your site where you can publish your articles Concluding Thoughts offi ce with colleagues, friends and family. and speeches. Once you identify and build your brand, We often assume our clients know our Build Relationships remember to continue to strengthen and accomplishments, but oft en times they do protect it. There will always be competitors not. At year’s end, have a list of all you have As I mentioned earlier, nothing in marketing ready to discover and fulfi ll new markets achieved in the past year. Consider fi nding is more powerful than a promotion tool needs. You are the founder and CEO of your ways to let your clients know about your called word-of-mouth marketing, or what brand, Me, Inc., and the more you do to successes throughout the year. This can be people say about you. Thus, nothing is cultivate it, the more successful you’ll be in included in a newslett er, web site or posted more powerful in building your brand having the level of practice and professional in your offi ce. than what your network of contacts – your success you want. friends, colleagues, clients (current and Be an Expert former) – say about you and your set of We are very fortunate to be able to pursue There are few things that build credibility in skills, education, and accomplishments. structural integration as a career. I believe it a brand more than establishing yourself as Keeping your network strong requires is our responsibility to tell the world about an expert in your fi eld. There are a number ongoing, conscious relationship-building. the power of what we do. As we refi ne our of ways to do this. You could start by writing Keep in good contact with your network personal business models and personal an article that showcases your knowledge and be sure they know of your most recent brands, we will help seed the ground for and getting it published (ideally) in a successes. But the best brand-builders don’t our respective organizations to cultivate noteworthy media or professional outlet. stop with their current network; they are in greater public awareness of the work of Consider self-publishing. This can lead constant network-building mode. Search Dr. Rolf. If we wait, as we have historically, to opportunities to do additional articles out new professional associations as well as for any of our organizations to fully in the future. Seek out conferences and the growing number of online networking promote and market Rolfi ng or structural meetings where you can give speeches and communities. Look for communities that integration in the world, we will hand off presentations. Play up awards and other might have listings for your work: churches our personal responsibility to others. This recognition that can help identify you as and spiritual communities, hospitals and is our work and our time. an expert. Publish a monthly ezine and/or medical schools, and trade associations. newslett er targeted to a professional group Look around you and solicit ideas from or your clients. Get quoted by off ering your people who know your work. Be willing to thoughts, ideas, and opinions to journalists think diff erently. and reporters. Construct a professional web

I was not too impressed by the results at first, and it took me several months to In My Practice embody and perceive the changes I had gone through. Since I thought nothing was wrong with me to begin with, I needed the A Not-So-Straight Line of Work experience of daily life to progressively realize that I was looking at the world By Michel Ginoulhac, M.D., Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, through a whole different body and Rolf Movement Practitioner ™ diff erent eyes. The amazement came slowly Editor’s Note: In this issue, in keeping with the history theme, we profi le two early Rolfers who and steadily and has not stopped since. helped carry the torch overseas – Michel Ginoulhac, who works between Mallorca, Spain and Having undergone the process without the Southern France, and Pedro Prado in São Paulo, Brazil. faintest idea of what was going on, I was eager to get some rational explanation of this bizarre technique. t was the summer of 1972 when I paid Ia visit to my sister, Véronique, who My curiosity had been suffi ciently ignited had recently moved to San Francisco. In that I went back the following summer, those days, when Esalen, est, Gestalt and this time to Boulder where Véronique was encounter groups were the trendy things training with the famous Ida! In those to do, I gave myself a tour of all I could days Ida was making it tough for women put my hands on in the fi eld of personal to get into the training. You needed solid development. Naturally Rolfi ng® was high hands plus a good support structure and on the list that Veronique had prepared for serious guts to get in front of her piercing me, since she was already determined to eyes! But for myself, as a young doctor-in- study it herself. (Indebted forever to you for training from a European country, it was a that, V!) So I went to see Michael Salveson formality to be accepted by the Old Lady. I across the Bay Bridge in Berkeley on my wrote my essay in a few days (thanks to my litt le Kawasaki – blissfully ignorant that I freshly acquired knowledge and passion had no right to drive on the freeway, so I for anatomy) and went through what was was never caught! probably one of the fastest applications

8 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org COLUMNS processes ever – a big piece of luck when I it had been one of the directions of Ida’s career: managing a vineyard and making later saw how much eff ort and work most explorations, I felt it had not been given its organic wines. This was a seriously tough of my colleagues had to put into it! (You proper place and was sorely missing in the job where I learnt a lot of things, including know this kind of situation: sometimes body of information that was transmitt ed the fact that I was not particularly gift ed when you are not expecting diffi culties, at the time. I am very happy to see that at it! I quit aft er eight years, but persisted things come easy.) I quickly went off to over the years this body of knowledge has somehow in the same fi eld: due to a lifetime my fi rst training. Richard Demmerle had a being woven into the very fabric of our challenge with fibromyalgia, Véronique reputation as a rigorous and tough teacher. work, thanks to the advances of Jean-Pierre had to quit Rolfing; she had developed He did nothing to disprove it, but I liked Barral into visceral and fascial manipulation an importing business for our wines, and his insistence on anatomy. Then Emmett for instance. I met Peter Schwind during needed help to maintain it. In any case, it Hutchins wildly expanded my horizons, one of my advanced Rolfi ng trainings in took me ten years to digest the separation introducing concepts I had always been Boulder – the start of a long friendship – and another fi ve to resurface emotionally. hungry for, and I was hooked! and have been impressed ever since with Coming up to present time, it is rather his dedication to master and teach the I believe Véronique and I were the fi rst of funny to feel I have jumped from being fundamentals of such a subtle method. a new generation of European Rolfers (Ida among the youngest Rolfers to being one of having taught informally to a number of Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is the dinosaurs (hopefully not quite extinct English chiropractors and osteopaths years another such major pillar of understanding yet). Where did all that time fl y? When before). Back in France I started practicing that I believe is a must for every professional the journal asked me to write about my my new skills on my unsuspecting friends in the teaching/therapeutic fi elds. I have to practice I thought: “Oh no! Not me with my and acquaintances. Boy! Did they cry! Not say that meeting John Grinder (one of ridiculous practice. What do you want me loud enough, though, to distract me from the developers) and following his classes to say? I must be gett ing really old that you the changes that I was seeing happening for a good while was an exhilarating and are interested in gett ing my impressions in front of my eyes. In the meantime, the humbling experience. A genius in his own before I disappear!” I guess I have to look pursuit of my medical studies proved more right! Brilliant but understated. Seeing at myself in the mirror. and more painful, aware as I was of the total him handling masterfully all the channels Well, the good thing about Rolfi ng only on divide between the two approaches. I kept of communication at work in a group of the side for all these years, while engaged in at it simply because I did not want to lose people simultaneously was appropriately the wine business, is that I fi nd myself with the many years already invested. However, stunning! I learnt the crucial difference a renewed desire to get into it again. I used I knew that I was never going to use my title between context and content and other to go with the wind, developing temporary in a conventional way, even as a trained communication concepts that I tried to use practices in Paris, Geneva, or Reunion homeopath as I had originally thought. This and transmit when I organized the fi rst Island. Now I alternate between Mallorca ordeal fi nally ended with a thesis on Rolfi ng Rolfi ng training in France with Michael (in Spain) and Southern France and wonder in 1983 – an improbable subject in the eyes Salveson in 1982. how to connect with the potential clientele. of the medical faculty, that I was only able Around that time I had become aware of There is no doubt in my mind about the to stuff down their throats thanks to the my limited understanding of the body benefi ts of Rolfi ng, but everything seems helping hand of my grandfather, Pierre in movement and soon grabbed the to need more marketing savvy than ever Fabre, a then-retired professor of medicine. opportunity to be among the fi rst Rolfers to these days. I work on demand, but with Hey, but I did it aft er all! follow the Rolf Movement™ classes. Seeing more time on my hands now I will be on Over the years my style had soft ened up, the likes of Megan James, Heather Starsong, the lookout for opportunities. Despite the to the relief of my clients. I had the usual Jane Harrington and Gael Ohlgren decipher certainty that I’ve lost a good chunk of encounters with yoga, tai chi, qi gong, a body and transform its relationship to my knowledge, I’m amazed that I am still martial arts, refl exology, connective-tissue gravity with simple cues and exercises witnessing surprising results when I put my work, auriculomedicine, Eutonie, energy gave the proper humility to my classic hands on a client. I use the word “witness” balancing, Gestalt, Feldenkrais, and many structural approach! because I am not sure how much of me is others I am forgett ing. In brief, the stuff that left in the process. Not that I have reached I later became involved in a relationship every Rolfer is bound to fi nd on his road a blissful Zen-like state of being, nor left with a fellow Rolfer, and we travelled to understanding (!) how the body works. completely aside my inquisitive mind, and taught together for what will remain Oh! – and in 1977 I had gone to India and but rather that I trust that something of the best fi ve years of my life. Working in became Prem Vandan under the guidance my inner organization is communicated Berkeley or teaching around the world at of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a story that and elevates the other’s (unfortunately I her side was a fulfi lment I thought would deserves a book on its own. Meditation suppose not higher than my own!), like never end. It did, unfortunately, and the techniques and encounter groups were all instruments coming into resonance. And breakup turned me away from the work. the rage then at the ashram in Poona and this as much in spite of me as because of Since I was aware of the importance of quickly spread to the West. my brilliance, no doubt… the “fi eld,” (as Valerie Hunt beautifully Some approaches stood out for me and describes), I was unwilling to impart to my I am still in awe of the method that Ida has I studied them a bit more seriously. I clients the depression and heaviness I felt in magically transmitt ed to me, still wondering trained several years in general and my heart. Feeling like a mediocre therapist how on earth the changes take place, but cranial osteopathy, which I advocated to if I could not even take myself out of my very satisfi ed and grateful to be given the the Rolfi ng faculty back in 1978. Although own slump, I digressed into a very diff erent opportunity to see them fi rst hand. What

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 9 COLUMNS a blessing! I fi nd I have an interesting mix deterring him from pursuing his Rolfi ng and enormously stimulating. Our body of pride and certainty that the work will career!) of knowledge is vastly increasing, and produce visible results, and a humility keeping up with its rate of expansion is a There is a real demand in France among because I have scant understanding of the lost batt le, however titillating. Nonetheless, health professionals who genuinely seek mechanisms of these changes. At fi ft y-eight, in the face of exceedingly refined and to understand and learn the principles of with my fair share of disappointments and precise perceptions and new techniques, Rolfi ng. But the French system makes it betrayals received and given, with a litany I’d like to caution against fascination with quasi-impossible for them to pursue Rolfi ng of false starts and failures, with friends and the detail, the symptom, the local event, and training as currently off ered because of time family disappearing through death and remind us that the essence of our work is to and money constraints (leaving a practice att rition, with litt le to show apart from a relate, harmonize and integrate a content to for two months at a time and switching superb thirteen-year-old son, it is extremely a larger context of many structures, some a clientele over to Rolfi ng are not simple comforting to be able to engage a client’s invisible or evading clear defi nition. It is propositions). So there is a serious risk body and soul in a loving fi eld and know our ability to reconnect the human being that Rolfi ng in France could completely that together we will win a batt le against to these subtle realms that sets us apart, disappear from sight or only resurface in entropy and come out a bit ahead of the more than the capacity to solve tricky bits and pieces through various “avatars” game every time! situations. What I have gradually lost in (i.e., reinventions of the method through pure knowledge and technical ability, I Since 1975 the playing fi eld has radically diff erent approaches that may or may not have apparently made up with presence, changed. Gone are the days of experimenting claim affi liation to the original). I have no compassion and the wisdom of my clients’ freely with new approaches. The public is ready-made answer to this, but it would be and my own limitations. Armed with a tad more educated and demanding. The nice to fi nd a way to satisfy that demand the intelligence of the body (like in the current economic crisis does not provide a without compromising the value and image art of linking things together, inter-ligere) supportive background for a technique like of Rolfi ng – a bit of a challenge! imparted by the genius of Ida, I am still able Rolfi ng, a bit outdated in its format. People At the last annual meeting of the European to elicit and marvel at the Aha! moments have less time and money and the Ten Series Rolfi ng Association I was particularly happy and the transformations that this good old would be more palatable to many people in to listen to Robert Schleip’s presentation Recipe churns out day in and day out. Ida, a format of twenty forty-minute sessions of the latest fascia research: fascinating you are the best, I bow to the Master! at half the price per session, for instance. I hate to lower my session fee below 100 Euros, but it has become a considerable ® amount for the average person these days. I Rolfi ng : Over Time . . . love to take my time to combine movement awareness, and my sessions can easily Across Continents Through Generations reach ninety minutes. I feel both client and By Pedro Prado, Ph.D., Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ therapist need time to really go deep into the meaning of the process. That is part or me, clinical practice is the most of the luxury of this approach. However, satisfying part of being a Rolfer. As I may have to change strategy to adapt to F much as I enjoy teaching, writing, interacting the changing times. with colleagues, and participating in the Another question lingers in my country: development and evolution of the Rolf Rolfi ng is almost invisible in France. The Institute of Structural Integration® and the main issue is a legal one, since only medical ABR (Brazilian Rolfi ng Association), there is practitioners (namely M.D.s and physical something precious about my contact with therapists) are allowed to lay their hands individual clients – participating in and on patients here. It’s a scam, but legally facilitating their processes – that especially enforced! With the fi erce competition and enlivens and inspires me. Something in this the development of alternative techniques private and intimate encounter is magic. like osteopathy going mainstream (i.e., I have been practicing Rolfi ng for twenty- being acknowledged and sanctioned in eight years. Four to fi ve days each week, medical schools), there is no doubt that it I fi nd the energy to att end to six to eight would be more diffi cult than ever to set up It is there that all my interests coalesce, and clients daily. This shows me that seeing shop without potential harassment from I can make a humanistic synthesis of my clients nourishes me spiritually and established medical practitioners. Hubert lines of inquiry to help people directly. It is physically. Even aft er having worked with Godard is our main visible representative, always a great adventure. more than 2000 people (besides post-ten, but he works in a framework that keeps advanced or continuous-process clients), him out of trouble, as a university teacher. Perhaps because I started my professional there is no repetition; every session presents Years ago I was his Rolfer and gave him his life as a clinical psychologist, my clinical its own unique challenge. In all my years fi rst movement cues, a good example of the work as a Rolfer is process-oriented. It was of Rolfi ng – despite constant travel and old saying about the student surpassing the in this perspective that I was fi rst trained, extensive teaching – I have made it a master. (Well, guys, you owe me for not and I brought it to my Rolfi ng practice. priority to keep my clinical practice vibrant.

10 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org COLUMNS

Working from a client and process-oriented experiences, and I realize how much I have I did not remain the only Rolfer in Brazil perspective is, for me, essential. What are overworked, and how hard I have worked for long. Welcoming, mentoring and the client’s stated goals? What unspoken before. But now I hear, “People say Rolfi ng encouraging new colleagues, and fostering goals might I infer? How can I navigate hurts a lot, but I have not experienced a exchange among us, helped us all. I truly the work around the various points of bit of pain.” This leaves me wondering believe in community. I also know that my the Circle of Being? How is the client’s whether I am not working hard enough – own practice developed as successfully as it consciousness aff ecting the process? What or if instead my touch has simply become did over the years in part because I did not level of consciousness is available to the more refi ned . . . . isolate myself or seek to maintain my own client? Questions like these guide my position by competing with others. Physical pain and pain on other levels has session planning and help me to track the taught me a lot. Many clients seek Rolfi ng Second, I have had the privilege of working client’s process as it unfolds. Still, I am because of pain. Others experience pain in diff erent countries and cultures. When I frequently caught by surprise and have during Rolfi ng. In general, I use a process was in the U.S. at the start of my preparation to change course or adjust my strategy to approach rather than a fi x-it approach. But to become a Rolfing instructor, Louis stay on top of what is happening. It feels when a client presents with acute physical Schultz invited me to take over his practice a bit like adjusting the gears of a bicycle – pain, I do try to determine its cause and to in New York City for two months. (Louis tighter or looser, more or less talk, slower treat it, keeping in mind that the pain is only was to teach with Stacey Mills in Florida or faster touching. Sometimes it is about one aspect, one manifestation, of the client’s and needed someone to take care of both formulating just the right question that will reality at that moment and in the client’s life his clients and his cats.) Practicing in a bring the client’s awareness to the multi- as a whole. However, my “good heart” has very different environment and culture layered nature of the experience, and help produced its fallacies when, while wanting made me really stretch myself to live up to the client perceive the connections among to alleviate an episode of acute pain, I fail Louis’s excellent reputation. Having come experience within the body itself and other to do so and only bring frustration to all. from a third-world country, I arrived with layers of experience. At other times, it is just Although the study of biomechanics has something of an “inferiority complex” – but fi nding and fl owing in the correct layer of made my work more precise, I also fi nd that experience bolstered my self-esteem. tissue, tracking the self-regulatory wisdom that simply honoring clients’ pain with As they say of New York, “If you can make of the unconscious body. empathy and compassion while accepting it here, you’ll make it anywhere!” It proved In hindsight, I can confirm the benefits my technical limitations has helped many true for me. Aft er that, I started my own of certain practice protocols. First, I have clients ford the torrent of their miseries to New York practice, which I maintained for photographed most of my clients. The reach the other bank. seven years by commuting to New York photos are useful not only during the several times each year. Thanks to the Two other circumstances have left their process, but also for retrospective refl ection. relative strength of the dollar in those years, marks on my practice. First, I was the fi rst Second, I interview the client at the start to the New York practice fi nanced my training Rolfer in Brazil. This meant I had to explain set the tone and establish the goals of the as a Rolfi ng instructor. Rolfi ng to anyone and everyone in whatever process. Third, I make time for closure – words they could understand. From I also taught the fi rst two Italian Rolfi ng either during the last session or in a separate being asked (let’s say at an art opening) classes (1992 and 1995), and had many post-series interview. Finally, I take lots the “What’s your profession?,” to att ending Italian students in other classes I taught time for movement education and patt ern psychology conferences where I gave around the world. This reconnected me recognition. If the client becomes aware lectures on the principles and techniques to my Italian roots, and for family reasons of and able to att end to the meaning of of Rolfi ng, to writing articles and giving I started and continue to practice in Italy. a patt ern, then the client can come back media interviews, I have had to tailor the and look at photos from maybe as long as From this cosmopolitan experience, I have message to the audience. I received many twenty years ago and perceive signifi cance had the pleasure to see that although questions – oft en from persons who viewed in the life journey. the cultural layer must be perceived and our work with suspicion. I have accepted addressed, Rolfing is a truly universal Practicing for nearly three decades has all such questions as legitimate and done approach. The power of the work is beyond allowed me to study trans-generational my best to answer them with equanimity. culture. patt erns. Clients will bring their children Another important step to bringing Rolfi ng – and sometimes their parents. Then I am grateful to Ida P. Rolf for having laid the to Brazil was building a respectable image maybe the original client’s children bring foundation of this work; to my colleagues for our profession, which can only be their own children. I have worked with who have helped it to evolve; and to my done if “we walk our talk” and behave four generations – and occasionally fi ve. clients, who have been instrumental in my with integrity and respect toward clients, A privilege! own evolution – accepting my mistakes, colleagues and other professionals. I always suggesting ways for me to grow, and As my work has evolved from struggling tried to contact practitioners in other fi elds teaching me. to do the “right thing” to perceiving what and discuss the cases we had in common. would be appropriate for this person in this This helped get a “foot in the door” and moment of life, it has gradually become build a solid and respectable reputation more economical. I have experienced for the work. the truth of the dictate “less is more.” I But, as we say in Portuguese, “Just one bird oft en meet with clients who recall their does not a summer make.” Fortunately, initial meaningful – but painful – Rolfi ng

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 11 ROLFING® HISTORY

past programming in order to distill the individual towards a truer expression of self. It is startling to recall that “hands on” therapy basically did not exist at that time. There was a bit of Swedish massage, a bit A Fifty-Year Perspective of chiropractic, a few doctors of osteopathy who were dying out in the U.S., and there ® was the “red light” district. That was it. In of Rolfing a lecture that Dr. Rolf gave in 1971, she was saying that each major organ in the body had its own energy fi eld and that one’s By Gael Ohlgren, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ wellbeing came from a summation of those energies. Then she paused to say that just twenty years before, in the 1950s, people Editor’s Note: This is an adaptation of a talk presented at the 2008 annual meeting of The European were imprisoned for saying such things. Rolfi ng Association®. As unbelievable as this seems now, it was not that long ago. Although we do not need met and started studying with Dr. Rolf bit later. However, the baby boomers of to worry about persecution for our beliefs Iin 1968. My perspective now covers forty this country decided to fi ght that concept, about the body, there are still concepts in years. During that time I have witnessed a kicking and screaming, and it is that our work that are neither understood nor silent revolution in our collective fi eld of generation that made the health and beauty accepted by the general populace. inquiry. industry big business. With an awareness that I am speaking to What is a human body? What are its Meanwhile, other new ideas were the choir, I am going to name the most possibilities for change? beginning to come into cultural awareness. major components that make up the vision It was during the 1960s that words Although these questions are not the called Rolfi ng. like “environmental,” “holistic,” and headlines in our news, there has been a “tensegrity” began to be at play in the 1. Gravity can only give lift to a structure radical shift in the ontology of human vernacular. These concepts, along with that is in alignment and has the principle physicality. Contributions have come from the interest in remaining youthful, made of tensegrity at play. many vectors, from the understanding the public more receptive to Dr. Rolf’s of bio-nutrients and how they aff ect our First I want to acknowledge Dr. Rolf’s message. At that time, places like the Esalen physiology, to many holistic approaches enormous compassion for the suff ering that Institute became laboratories for what that help heal the mind/body/emotional was largely taken for granted. Her vision became known as the human potential split. What has opened before us is a was born from a belief that a portion of movement. The premise behind this trend hitherto unrecognized potential for repair life’s misery was unnecessary if we could was that regular, functional folk can be and regeneration. Taken from the long only understand and embody a simple entangled with the past in ways that impair view, this trend is leading us toward a law of nature. Underlying all of her other their potential for a full expression of who concept of the body that is far less fi xed, perceptions, “random bodies,” as she called they truly are or could become. A desire far less destined for decrepitude than was them, could only be dragged downward ignited in mainstream culture: to fl ourish formerly expected. over time due to the force of gravity. at all levels. Rather than merely gett ing Inevitably this caused compression and Cultures change rapidly; so rapidly that ahead, there was an interest in achieving further imbalance. This not only impaired one generation can’t understand another, so fuller expressions of health and happiness the muscular/skeletal system but also rapidly that twenty-year-old movies seem without years of classic therapy. Since compromised the viscera as well as the out of sync with the rhythms and manners then, many books as well as group and general well-being and lightheartedness of speech. It is hard for us to imagine the individual processes have proposed various of an individual. environment that shaped and infl uenced techniques that augment self-awareness Ida Rolf’s thoughts, the early 1900s. Looking in order to change habitual perceptions 2. Humanity is still evolving. back to the past is necessary, however, in and response patt erns. All of them point The norm of function and structure that order to imagine the social environment to the possibility of being freed from the we typically observe does not necessarily in which Dr. Rolf worked and struggled to baggage of the past in order to become more demonstrate the potential that we are communicate her premises. My purpose uniquely and creatively oneself. hoping to evoke. Like seeing two lines on a is to refl ect on how much her ideas have This environment became Dr. Rolf’s proving paper and then imagining the convergence infl uenced our current time, whether or not ground. There were other human potential of those lines somewhere out in space, Rolfi ng is a household word. techniques that focused on the body as we need to be able to envision something Previous to the 1960s Rolfing was not a viable portal for personal change. But, beyond what is exhibited in the body in gaining much acceptance. Fifty years as far as I know, Dr. Rolf stood alone in front of us. Dr. Rolf believed that this is an ago, the general expectation was that proposing a “hands on” therapy as a means instinct that is developed. It does not come physical decline began just past the thirtieth for relieving the body from the fett ers of from the head but from the gut, from a birthday, with mental decline following a sense of knowing when something looks

12 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY and feels more right. As our reputation has forms of therapy that are called deep- quality of life over time is an indicator, then grown for our ability to resolve discomfort, tissue, myofascial, or connective-tissue I guess we can observe general progress. it is sometimes easy to forget this aspect massage, scientifi c research into the nature 3. The body is not a closed system. of the work. We base our success on the and function of connective tissue is only tangible results, but if we become too intent now confi rming and elaborating Dr. Rolf’s Outside of the Rolf community and the on fi xing fl at tires, it is easy to forget the theory. Here are some of the points that Continuum community, I don’t fi nd that larger goal of evoking a more effi cient and Dr. Rolf made about connective tissue in this is on anyone’s mind. Yet, the work of intelligent vehicle. her day. Hubert Godard, Susan Harper, and Emilie Conrad continue to bring this from the 3. A body is not a closed system. a) It is tougher than the joint membranes theoretical to the experiential and practical of the body and therefore crucial in If you ask me, we are still the only system realm. So, the vision is still alive within our holding the body together. Its makeup of bodywork that has any awareness of community. is a combination of tough fi bers in a gel- this. Osteopathy increases inherent motion like substance; something like rebar steel 4. The dramatization of emotional stances within the structure. Physical therapists and in concrete that is in the gel state (before aff ects physical structure and function. other somatic practitioners climb into the it sets). Without it, joints would be torn box to fi x the problem within the box. As This perspective has really come along. apart too easily when the structure Dr. Rolf put it, “If you want new answers, The number of somatic-based therapies endures stress and strain. pose new questions.” A receptive client can that teach the value of listening to the receive new answers from a therapist, but b) That gel-like substance is a bed in which subtle sensations of the body as a mode of Rolfi ng takes it a step further. Can we help nerves, organs, muscles, and bones rest healing continues to grow. Fift y years ago, it the individual to become more intelligent with support. seemed that only ancient esoteric traditions when he or she leaves the treatment? Dr. understood this. Now it is looking plausible c) Connective tissue is able to orchestrate Rolf answered “Yes!” – provided that that our war veterans might be able to movement between all layers of the a client leaves with a greater range of receive this kind of therapy. If so, this will body from superfi cial to deep and from responses and more fl uid awareness, not be an enormous step. head to toe. only of self, but also of earth, sky, and other. 5. Connective tissue is brilliant, moldable, The body as an open system is participatory d) Connective tissue is an organ of shape. and worth our att ention. and responsive to the environment. The Because connective tissue connects ability to respond, adapt, and change is everything to everything, it is crucial for Although this is not in the news, connective the key to greater health from the world of our internal sense of spatial orientation; tissue has caught the eye of scientific the cell to the world of functional human it lets us know where and how we are research now and we can expect the news interactions. When a closed system, such organized in space. to spread. In any case, the idea that bodies as a machine, has only its own resources can be relieved of tension by hands-on It is important to note that Dr. Rolf’s vision available, by rote programming, entropy techniques seems to be here to stay. of a more evolved human was not only is the only possible outcome over time. We, about better alignment. She envisioned So how has this silent revolution changed too, become restricted in our ability to cope a more fluid, efficient movement that our culture in the past forty years? And how if we no longer can adapt and respond to the translated across joints via the connective have these changes aff ected our profession? demands of our environment. Regeneration tissue as opposed to a muscular lever/ and healing require creativity. Aging: Some years ago there was a bumper pulley model of segments. sticker that said, “He who dies with the 4. The dramatization of an emotional Revisiting basic tenets of Rolfing, it is most toys, wins.” If I were to update that stance in life will, over time, aff ect structure interesting to examine where these values bumper sticker to fit U.S. culture now, and function, causing dysfunction and a have colored our current culture and where I would say, “She who dies looking the closed structure. they have not. youngest for her age, wins.” Far from going Some of this dramatization has been gracefully into old age, the fi ght is on to 1. Alignment and symmetry are hallmarks learned and copied unconsciously. To free maintain vitality to the very end. We have of a more organized body. a body from the restrictions that were many role models for this. Although this caused by emotional stances allows a body From Pilates to yoga to fi tness trainings gets all mixed up with cosmetic surgery to choose wisely and well-being is oft en the of all sorts, this statement is generally and the replacement or amplifi cation of more att ractive option. accepted. From my observation, the posture parts, there is still much more openness of the general population has improved, to the possibility that an aging body has 5. The body is a plastic medium that can be yet there seems to be a plot to get rid of the a potential to move to a higher state of changed by touch. curves in the spine. And symmetry is oft en health or order. Aging is not completely It is hard to remember that this was a radical imposed, rather than revealed through synonymous with devolving. and questionable premise fi ft y years ago. reducing structural confl ict. Exercise: Twenty-fi ve years ago, one could This concept is universally assumed so 2. Humanity is still evolving. hardly give away movement classes to the that it is no longer discussed in schools of general public. Now exercise is considered physical manipulation. No credit is given Some might make more of an argument an essential ingredient to health. Science to the originator or original spokesperson for our devolvement as a species. Statistics has proven that it benefi ts not only physical for this idea, Dr. Rolf. In spite of many continue to be equally dire and hopeful. If health but mental health as well. The “use

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 13 ROLFING® HISTORY it or lose it” approach to movement has diagnosed in this country alone; autism is repetitively. There isn’t an animal out there affected most every sector of society. I on a sharp increase with no understanding that moves in this fashion. realize that other cultures may be diff erent why; depression, obesity, suicide, and mass Since aging is mostly a process of stagnation in this department, never having been as murder seem to be gett ing more rampant. and the breakdown of communication sedentary nor as obsessed as Americans, And standing up straighter is going to and nutrient flow between systems, it but from the perspective of my practice change any of this? Come on! doesn’t seem like a good idea to practice and my clients, almost everyone has some At her most visionary, Ida Rolf was hoping density and fragmentation. Furthermore, routine for physical self-care, and they are that humanity could become less self- in my observations of bodies in trouble, interested in learning more. These days old centered, defensive, and war-like. For her, the confl icts that show up create a lack dogs do want to learn new tricks. This was the physical manifestation of this was a of space. One force pulls the body right, not the norm even twenty-fi ve years ago. human that could fi nd center from the heart another force pulls it left . This robs the Hands-on therapy: In the past ten years, while being present to earth (a relationship body of territory. Like the Middle East, it is massage has been one of the fastest to our planet), sky (higher intelligence a fi ght over territory. We, as Rolfers, open growing professions in the U.S. Rolfi ng has or energies not manifest in the material up the tissue to resolve these confl icts. But moved from being a suspicious modality world), self, and other (beings, human our culture believes that contraction is the audaciously claiming to improve well- and otherwise). only way to strength. being to being lost in the crowd. The The evolution that Dr. Rolf was hoping Most of what is called core strength is proliferation of manipulation techniques Rolfi ng would help evoke was not totally another version of practicing “the Line.” I is so rampant that I can no longer keep about physical ease and beauty. We Homo don’t wish to step on any toes here in terms abreast with the marketplace. For almost sapiens have been evolving the neocortex of modalities that have served your process, every system in the body that we can name lately. Unfortunately, the neocortex is but most core strength training does not there is a modality to address it, from lymph capable of operating in a completely self- understand the distinction between phasic to nerves to viscera to craniosacral, etc. serving way. In other words, a neocortex and tonic function (or “extrinsic” and Sometimes I feel as if I began as a pioneer that is not integrated with the limbic “intrinsic” as Dr. Rolf used to call it). The striking out into the wilderness and now system (or, said slightly differently, a clients that I see who use this exploration as fi nd myself living in the suburbs. And yet, mind that is disconnected from the heart) their main form of staying fi t have tangled this expansion of knowledge has brought creates a very dangerous beast, capable these two very diff erent muscular systems. greater understanding and precision of mass destruction. Dr. Rolf’s use of the Phasic and tonic muscular systems mirror to Rolfi ng. words “earth,” “sky,” and “other” were the sympathetic and parasympathetic Trauma resolution: Peter Levine, who not simply symbols for “the Line.” They nervous system. They have a very diff erent studied with Dr. Rolf when I did, broke were indicating emotional intelligence, metabolism. When the abdominus rectus, ground in our community by bringing the ability to care about and for something psoas, and transverse abdominus are our attention to the long-term psycho/ beyond self. Humanity needs to expand worked in phasic rhythms they lose physiological aff ects of unresolved trauma. from a tribal consciousness to a global independent function. I question the long- His map for understanding what constitutes consciousness if we are to survive as a term benefi t of this focus on a static core trauma and what is needed for its resolution species. And our energy crisis bespeaks strength. The analogy for this practice, has changed our school’s approach. Rather of a need to grow up in relationship to from my point of view, would be to than the “more is bett er” style of the 1960s planet earth. practice hypervigilence as the key to safety. and 1970s, Rolfi ng is now taught with much Since most injuries occur from sudden It is satisfying to help people out of pain, but more sophistication of touch and pacing. and unexpected divergences from center, at the deeper levels, the vision is still what Stephen Porges, Ph.D., Stanley Rosenberg, the practice of staying close to center in drives me. I see blind spots in my culture and others continue to create a strong a dependable form or even a reclining and in most of the somatic fi eld. To follow is interface between our fi eld and these new position does not necessarily create a more a commentary that is personal and does not developments. adaptable structure. Does one become necessarily represent the collective views of a more resilient traveler by practicing Gadgets: Electromagnetic tools are only a the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®. staying home? few years old. Various tools for healing from The fitness/exercise industry is still in cold lasers to bio-mats are just arriving on This brings back the subject of the body the lever/pulley muscular model that the scene. It will be very interesting to see as an open system. As you recall, I see experiences a polarity of the muscular what develops and how this trend aff ects litt le evidence of this value in our culture. system that is either contracted, extended our profession. Much of physical fitness is a numbing or released. Bulk and density are considered practice relating self to self and self to Here’s my rant. the hallmarks of strength. Connective machine in a completely determined and tissue may have entered the massage In spite of these huge progressive steps, I dependable fashion. This is a tricky subject field in a cursory fashion but, as yet, it am still fi red by an urgent sense of mission. because clearly there are health benefi ts to has not touched the fi tness fi eld. Stability The human race is still a questionable almost any form of movement. We need, and fl exibility are prized but mutability is species. Are we destined to annihilate though, to keep the question alive: Is ignored. Strength is practiced by stabilizing ourselves and much of the life on this exercise creating a more intelligent being? one segment and mobilizing another, planet? The statistics in the U.S. aren’t Alienation and isolation are the by-products looking good: 800,000 bipolar children are of a closed system and the underpinning of

14 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY depression, suicide, and the other ills that I cells, watch nature, observe living fascia. by them. The best way to free oneself named earlier. The code is in movement, not in the culture. from the trance of cultural programming is to develop a biosphere identity that is Now that there is a belief in the body’s Why am I jumping up and down about as predominant as our ego and cultural ability to change, our current culture is this? In 1971, I heard Dr. Rolf say that once identity. The biosphere speaks in the fl ow enamored with looking good. Perfect nervous tissue has atrophied, we can help of ever-changing relationships, not the position, symmetry, and form are sought a body to feel more comfortable but we will perfect and predictable placement of parts. sometimes at the price of quality of life. not be able to aff ect the atrophied tissue. I hope to witness a change in my lifetime in Ideal alignment does nothing for the However, in Emilie Conrad’s Continuum which there is a deeper understanding of intelligence of an organism. Rolfing’s classes I have witnessed the innovation the healing capacity of movement. original vision was an inquiry that posed of movement through tissue that was the question “Could we become more self- atrophied and paralyzed for many years. In summation this is what I have learned referential while also being more att uned This came about through participation in in forty years: to others and our environment?” This is open-ended, non-patterned movement. 1. The body changes so much more easily limbic resonance – at the core of emotional This self-healing occurred by tapping into a than we originally imagined. The more intelligence. It is a feeling state, not regenerative, fl uid force that was alive and that we collectively understand this, the an appearance. well within the injured body. Along with the easier change occurs. Belief systems, release of paralysis came the resurrection of Rolfi ng simultaneously improves position blind spots, illusions, and habit patt erns sensation; in other words, the innovation of and communication. Our tensegrity are the harder aspects of change. new neural tissue. model seeks the spanning of tissue on the 2. Pleasure and interest are the most scaff old of a structure that is open to its This other quality of movement, living side underestimated ingredients of healing environment. Condensed tissue causes by side with utilitarian movement patt erns, and self-care. stagnation on every level from lymph, represents the language of the biosphere. nutrients, and waste material to neural Habituated, patterned movement is 3. Liquid movement, whether intense or information. Repetitive use of muscles necessary and handy but is also a limited gentle, is the body’s language of love coupled with speed causes a coalescing of vocabulary for neurological possibilities. and relationship. It is also the hidden tissue: in other words, density. To increase Staying in our usual up/down, forward ingredient of strength and resiliency. the conductivity of tissue Rolfers lateralize momentum orientation will block other 4. Valuing and att ending to sensation are tissue. One way or the other, whatever the informing through movement. essential to the process of allowing our technique, we open tissue, which reduces To develop a global consciousness we organism to reorganize at higher levels its density, increases its conductivity, and need to live in our respective cultures of order. thereby increases the fl ow of information. without being bound and programmed Our current cultural paradigm of exercise mostly works against this model. How would our culture be diff erent if the goal of exercise was to increase the flow of SM information and refresh neurology rather Certi fi cati on Exam for Structural Integrati on than to fatigue muscles? Dr. Rolf would point to the quality of July 31, 2009, Boulder, CO movement that demonstrated this quest. in conjuncti on with the Freshly Rolfed bodies oft en demonstrate Rolf Insti tute® Membership Conference movement that fl ows through the connective tissue rather than appearing segmented at Boulderado Hotel ~ Sign-in at 11am ~ Exam 12-3pm the joints. I would like to suggest that a critical key to emotional intelligence is Oct. 31, 2009, Amsterdam encoded in fl uid movement. This is our primordial connection to all of life. When in conjuncti on with the movement fl ows through the connective Fascia Research Congress tissue we are looking at the intelligence of water, which functions as a “resonant organ Certi fi cati on is the defi niti ve means of of intelligence.” authenti cati ng your professional standards If we want to access our potentials for of excellence. healing and regeneration, we definitely need to go to the source – the matrix of Refer to www.siexam.org for the life and its mastery for recycling energy applicati on, cost, details, and additi onal from one form to another. What does the exam dates and locati ons. biosphere have to teach us about the dance IASI grandfathered members can take the exam of life? Look at embryology, look at the for free through December 2009.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 15 ROLFING® HISTORY

JH: What’s interesting is in our first training we spent the mornings in a Rolfi ng class. So we had the lecture and demonstration for the basic series. Peter Melchior was our instructor and David The Development of the Hoac was the assistant. VJ: We were actually called “auditors.” ® JH: In the afternoon the movement Rolf Movement Work auditors would meet separately and work with the functional aspect of each session. It was an amazing training. An Interview with Vivian Jaye AH: So it was very tied in with the ten- and Jane Harrington session series? VJ: Yes.

By Anne F. Hoff, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ JH: Absolutely. AH: At that point in time, if I understand right, people who trained in movement did Editor’s Note: Vivian Jaye and Jane Harrington are both Rolf Movement Practitioners™ and Rolf not also train in the structural work, it was Movement faculty. Jane is also a Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer and Rolfi ng® Instructor, while Vivian was a whole separate category. given the title Honorary Rolfer in 1999. Vivian is now retired and living in Monterey, California, while Jane maintains a practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico and frequent travels to teach. The VJ: That’s true. interview was conducted in January 2009 while Jane was spending time with Vivian in Monterey. JH: [Before you called for this interview,] Vivian and Jane were instrumental in the third phase of the development of Rolf Movement work, we were just sitt ing here talking and in our and its subsequent place in the curriculum allowing the work to be available in all Rolf trainings. memory of those early classes we can only (The fi rst phase of the movement work was represented by Ida Rolf and Judith Aston; the second think of one person who was a structural was represented by Heather Starsong, Megan James, Annie Duggan and Janie French. This was Rolfer who initially trained in movement. described by Heather Starsong in “Receiving, Learning, Teaching, Becoming…,” her contribution to the “In My Practice” column in the March 2009 issue of Structural Integration.) VJ: And she was not in the fi rst class. AH: So what kinds of people were coming Anne Hoff: Vivian and Jane, when into those early movement trainings? I approached you with the idea of an VJ: There were fi ve or six of us, Jane? interview on the history and development of the Rolf Movement work, you had JH: I think there were eight of us . . . particular reasons for wanting to do the Vivian’s shaking her head . . . We don’t interview together. What are those reasons? know how many people were in our class! There were some people like myself Jane Harrington: We were students who were retired dancers, a number of in the very first movement class at the people were educators, we had some ® Rolf Institute of Structural Integration psychotherapists . . . . that Heather Starsong and Megan James taught together beginning in 1979. That VJ: We had a couple of massage therapists . . . . class started with a five-day interview/ JH: And so on. selection, and we became friends at that time. We were roommates through our VJ: I think one of the things that probably whole training, and we learned the work Vivian Jaye and Jane Harrington drew [Jane and me] together is that we were together, developed our friendship through in the late spring of 1991 during a both ex-teachers, we were both basically the work, and our development of teaching movement certification training. educators. and moving forward started right there. JH: For both of us, our bachelor’s degrees explorations); and we assisted clients with AH: What was the movement work like at were in education. application to daily activity. that early stage? AH: That obviously has had an Vivian Jaye: Ida’s Yoga was the sequences JH: The movement work in those early important role. Now it’s “Rolf Movement we all know: “arm rotations,” “toes up, toes days was relatively limited in its scope. It Practitioners,” but in the early days you down,” and other related material. involved movement analysis (in walking were called “Rolf Movement Teachers,” and activities); work with what is oft en AH: What was the relationship at that right? called “Ida’s Yoga” (her sequencing point between the movement work and the JH: That’s true. structural work?

16 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY

AH: So the educational aspect was very AH: Can you talk about that a bit? the last twenty years – not only in terms clearly acknowledged in the title. of motility in the body but the unwinding JH: Let me say something here. When we of the joints… we can get more into those VJ: It was [also] more emphasized in the fi rst trained, the touch we were being taught technical qualities if you want. But the hands-on part of our work, the structural was more of a guiding touch, much as I’ve second thing is, and we probably want work. seen Judith Aston use. Megan James added to bring this up, in those early days what in a touch that was more of an invitation JH: Part of it too is Ida always talked about was happening is the movement work was for change and options. In that touch, we this work being an education process. evolving into a body of work of its own. In always held the body between our hands. other words, movement people were being AH: I think that can sometimes get lost in So both hands were always on the body certifi ed within the Institute to practice only the structural work. Ideally it’s there, but it’s and we were working with relationships. the movement aspect of Rolfi ng. easier for it to get lost in the structural work. This touch and the expansion of it is one of the aspects of the work we developed in JH: So in our practices we did only the VJ: Absolutely. To a certain degree the our explorations. functional part of the work. Vivian never movement work was looked at as the trained as a structural Rolfer, and I had been educational component. Just parenthetically, AH: Can you give an example, to contrast doing just straight movement functional we had also a practitioning phase of what that guiding touch would look like work for ten years before I trained as a our training, which involved watching compared to the inviting touch? structural Rolfer. movement lecture/demos with Megan JH: [In the inviting touch,] the two hands and Heather and then having clients – I VJ: That presented a kind of territory for us were always contacting in a way that invited can’t remember quite how many, but more to explore at great length [laughs]. awareness of dimension and relationships. than one… For example, one hand might be in the front AH: What was the trajectory from you two JH: We had three . . . . of the body at the sternum, the other hand being in that class together to eventually at the lower thoracic / upper lumbar in the being key people in the furthering of the VJ: Whom we did a series of fi ve sessions back. We were working with that diagonal movement work? with . . . . angle, assisting the client in fi nding that JH: Several things happened at that time. JH: We did more than five with those inner space, shape, dimension… Part of what happened is a lot of people left people, Vivian, we did eight. VJ: And movement – or motility as we [the Institute]. Megan passed away, Heather VJ: [laughs] Okay, we did eight! would call it now. began to get involved more in the structural work, Annie Duggan and Janie French left JH: One of the things I was so surprised AH: Was there a sort of “recipe” to those the Institute to develop their own work . . . . by when I went, in the early/mid-80s, to an eight, or was it open-ended? It all happened right around the same time. Upledger [craniosacral] training, was when We had concepts, goals and an intent The other thing that was happening – I JH: he introduced what he called “unwinding” for each session that we covered; it roughly don’t remember if there were three or fi ve because that was a big component of that followed the sequencing of the Rolfing classes of movement people trained as we touch that I had learned through Megan series. We followed it conceptually, not in were trained, movement practitioners were and then we had developed. terms of parts of the body, necessarily. We certifi ed in movement, not being certifi ed worked the concepts and goals through AH: In contrast, what was the guiding as structural Rolfers . . . . the eight sessions. There wasn’t a recipe; it touch like? VJ: . . . I can remember three . . . . was never as clear as the structural work JH: The guiding touch would be more like around a recipe. JH: What happened is there was beginning placing one hand . . . . to be some confusion, or at least perceived VJ: In a way our analysis was always very VJ: One surface . . . . confusion in the public’s eye, of these people client-oriented in the sense of looking at being called “Rolfers,” being trained by the JH: . . . to bring awareness to . . . . that particular client, analyzing what the Institute, but not doing what the public needs were, and developing a process based VJ: . . . a specifi c area. viewed as Rolfi ng. So the trend was going on those needs, as Jane says. Concepts away from training separately. I think we [like] “how are we going to support those AH: So it was less dimensional, less of a full were at a junction – and this would have changes” – you know, all of the rest of what inner awareness? been mid-80s – where there was a good we think of as [Rolfi ng] Principles, except JH: Exactly. chance that movement work would have we didn’t call them “principles” then. It was just faded away. It’s hard to say. What always client-based: “What are we going AH: From here we could go on here with happened is Vivian and I were best friends to do with this client (based on what the more about the touch, or go more linearly and we wanted to see each other more and client presented to us)?,” rather than “This with what you two developed in the wanted to teach together. So that was an is Session One, what are we going to do?” movement work history. Which way would impulse. Vivian went in front of the Rolf Although it began to take on some form, you like to go? faculty and made a request that we teach obviously. VJ: Well, a couple of things come to my movement continuing ed certification I think another component of the early mind at this moment. One is certainly for Rolfers. We were approved almost training was the introduction of a the touch is an important part of the entrepreneurially: “Great, if you all want “movement touch.” development of the movement work in

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 17 ROLFING® HISTORY to do it, have a ball.” And we did it. Vivian a Movement instructor through that whole AH: Does it seem to you that people who can probably add more. training. There were probably fi ve or six of come out of the Combined Studies format, those taught. That format is what developed or the Brazilian format, go about both their VJ: It was based on a decision that we into the Brazilian format. structural and movement work, or either were not going to take the work out of the one, in a diff erent way from people who Institute. We already had begun to establish VJ: It’s important to know that the do the structural work and then some years a work that we both practiced – neither Combined Studies did not lead to later pick up the movement work? one of us was structurally trained at the certifi cation in movement. It was a rather time. With what was going on within the peculiar deal in that the first phase of JH: Yes, because they learned them Institute, we were faced with a decision of Combined Studies focused on both together. A very key component that “do we take this work out of the Institute, movement and structure . . . . happened in the late 80s and early 90s is or do we leave it in the Institute and fi nd the Advanced Faculty [at that time] – Jeff JH: . . . it was much like our initial training. a place for ourselves?” We chose the latt er. Maitland, Jan Sultan, and Michael Salveson For each session, the students were given That was a rather conscious decision we – developed the Principles of Intervention the information in structure, and then they made. I think this is basically why, at for Rolfi ng. Those principles allowed us also worked with it in function. These least in terms of us personally, it stayed to take the work into concepts rather than trainings went on forever. in the Institute. We made that choice, techniques. “These are the principles, these and we got some support for that choice. VJ: These students would give and receive are the intents, and the technique could We had allies in the faculty – Jan Sultan with each other ten structural sessions and be a structural [one], a functional [one] or comes immediately to mind, and I think ten movement sessions. They were long a blend. That was a big shift . I remember Tom [Wing] was still on faculty and was [laughs]. teaching a Combined Studies with Jeff a supporter; Jim Asher and Jeff Maitland around this time and working with him JH: …And expensive to run. were as well. So we had allies who saw in terms of “If these are the principles, value in the work and supported us in VJ: The second part of Combined Studies how will we apply them structurally trying to keep it within the Institute. was primarily focused on practitioning in and/or functionally.” structure. AH: Do you think people left in the past VJ: Now the movement work had always because value was not seen in the work, or AH: And then if students wanted movement operated prett y much on a conceptual or they just went in a diff erent direction from certifi cation they would do another piece principles basis. So for movement work, the Rolfi ng paradigm? aft er that? that was a very freeing element. It made all of the Rolfi ng practitioners in terms of JH: I don’t know. Heather would be the JH: Exactly. the way we work more congruent with person to ask about that. The people who each other. So the structural or functional actually left and taught elsewhere were VJ: So the Brazilian project developed work, whatever decisions you made with Judith and Janie and Annie. in a form that wanted to confer dual certifi cation. That was the intent of that. So a client, were based on principles, not so AH: So the faculty gave you their blessing, we created a litt le bit of this and a litt le bit much on “these are the techniques I use in but it sounds like they didn’t have a very of that and devised a program over time this session.” That was a huge thing that clear plan at that point. that resulted in a dual certifi cation. happened in terms of the ability to blend the work. VJ: Well, the idea was “go out and see AH: At this point had the training if the market will support what you are developed significantly from what you AH: What has led to the work being so wanting to do.” learned, or it was similar? blended in Brazil, but no longer so much that way in the U.S. with the ending of the JH: “Will Rolfers sign up for this?” JH: That first part, where they were Combined Studies format? As I remember giving and receiving both structural and VJ: And they did. from my training in the mid-90s, in the U.S. movement sessions, that started out with there’s the lead-in week to Unit II where you Initially we taught a series of six- JH: similarities to our training, and then over introduce movement, and some elements day classes that resulted in movement time it shift ed. I think one of the key things of movement in the structural training, certifi cation. If I remember right there were that emerged out of this – one of the pieces but aft er structural certifi cation whether four of them. The fourth one worked with that’s very much apparent in the Institute you pursue movement certifi cation or not group work. These classes were only open right now – is that the way we worked with is completely up to the Rolfer. to Certifi ed Rolfers. At the end, they were it allowed more blending. [also] certifi ed in movement work. We did JH: Vivian talked about Brazil because she VJ: I would add to that also a deeper quite of few of these in the Institute in the and Pedro Prado did extensive development layer of embodiment of sessions, because mid to late 80s into the early 90s. Out of that of the Brazilian format. In terms of the U.S. there was that congruence of not only we developed with Heather, Gael Ohlgren curriculum right now, there is a strong delivering and experiencing structural . . . it seems a fi ft h person was there . . . it movement component in Units I, II, and III. work but also experiencing and delivering may have been Megan . . . we developed It’s carried all the way through. It’s gott en functional work simultaneously. There was the Combined Studies program. In the more clear, especially with the curriculum an emphasis on the embodiment of the Combined Studies program people trained work that’s been done in the past three to work, which does come out of the original in the structural and functional work four years, so the curriculum is much more movement training. together. There was a Rolfi ng instructor and organized sequentially in terms of what is

18 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY taught in each unit of the trainings. Anyone outside when a patt ern changes, and how JH: The other piece is that some clients who has been certifi ed as Rolfi ng faculty in do I fi nd that bridge between the familiar fi nd it easier to have internal proprioceptive I’d say the last eight years – maybe longer habitual and the new?” This is key for my awareness, some clients fi nd it easier to than that – is required to be movement sense of the work and when I’m teaching work with perception in space. It takes a certifi ed. So it’s really changed. and working with students. I’m really skill and an understanding from the Rolfer interested in how the inner sensation relates to know which one is going to be the way VJ: Speaking to it in a litt le more detail, – is it congruent with the presentation in the to access for that client, and then how do Unit II has its components of being an world? For me personally that’s probably you add the missing component. I think embodiment phase (that’s what it’s called), the thing that most fascinates me. a lot of it’s the skill of the Rolfer because so it has that same feel about it, while Unit most of us, if we are not conscious about it, III is the clinical application phase. What VJ: I think that I would underline the sense will simply work from our habitual way – happened in Brazil was a conscious decision of an inner reference that we always take and the clients we get success with are the that people would be dually certifi ed. I with us, and for that to be retrievable for the people [whose] habitual matches ours. So don’t know what’s happening in Brazil client. So in other words let’s use the touch it’s a knowing of how to language sense in now, it’s been fi ve years or longer since I’ve example that we gave you of one hand on space and also sense inside. been down there, but the intent was that the sternum and the other on the lumbars the function and structure work together to – that shape and space that the person can VJ: Let me tell you a story. I had a gal create a full Rolfer and that people would experience inside – [I’m concerned] that come to me who owned horses and trained be dually certifi ed and dually trained. So that particular reference is retrievable for them. She had this horse she couldn’t get the intention of the training was diff erent the client, can be taken in gravity to sitt ing, to go straight. She was sure there was than it was in the United States. Europe has to walking, to playing golf, whatever. That something wrong with the horse, so my fi rst picked up some of that intention. I’m really [the client has] a sense of [himself] inside impression was to send her to a practitioner not familiar with what’s currently going on that is retrievable in terms of taking it to who worked on horses. But then I said, in Europe. I know they are incorporating a [his] outer activities, to [his] life. “I don’t know anything about training good deal of this but perhaps in a diff erent horses, but I’m willing to watch you ride AH: This brings up two things. One is that form. The United States is moving more the horse.” What I saw in her relationship what you are talking about is what Ida in a direction of integration between the to that horse was that she was riding it Rolf considered the evolutionary potential structural and functional work, but not in crooked and sett ing the horse off . So there in Rolfi ng. any sense requiring that people be dual- was this incredible opportunity, if you will, certifi ed. But I think it’s important to note VJ: Absolutely. to demonstrate that what was going on was that new faculty members are required to not about the horse, it was about how she AH: It also seems that whether you can be certifi ed in both. was sitt ing on the horse, which came to achieve this with the client represents that be a proprioceptive awareness. This also AH: So it sounds like there’s less segregation edge that determines whether the client opened up to a whole piece about how she than there used to be. It went from structural has the big Aha with Rolfi ng and it sticks, was afraid of that particular horse. and functional practices being completely or whether it’s just that things felt good, his diff erent domains to being very blended. neck felt bett er, but he maybe doesn’t know AH: As you are talking, I’m feeling a how to move with it into an evolutionary resonance with Peter Levine’s work here JH: What’s interesting is with the new place. too: the inner sense you are describing students, I’d say in the last three years, seems related to the felt sense that he talks when I teach a Unit II or a Unit III students VJ: That’s exactly correct. In fact one of about, which is necessary to come out of a come in valuing the functional aspect the articles that I used to love to hand out trauma vortex and into the present moment. of the work and understanding that the to students on this theme is Ida’s article What you are talking about sounds very functional piece has to be there for the on the vertical. I don’t even know if that congruent with that. structure to hold. This is now a given, it article is [still] available. But yes, you are has been years since I’ve walked into a class absolutely correct. The proprioceptive VJ: Yes, and the whole languaging you are and had students question the value of the sense of dimension, of span, of space – talking about in terms of the “felt sense” functional work. It’s a nice shift . whatever word you want to use for that. was a big part of the languaging of Megan Yes, absolutely. James actually. There were many, many AH: What else do you want to talk about? people who were traveling in the same AH: What is it, do you think, that some JH: I’m not quite sure how to frame this; territory at the same time, and we were clients get this so easily and some don’t? we were trained to value the interruption of among them. And yes, that’s absolutely habitual patt erns, those patt erns of response VJ: [laughter] true. that get repeated in the structure. I’m not JH: I think part of it is the Rolfer’s skill – is AH: Where do you see the movement saying we’re the only ones who value this, the Rolfer embodied in himself enough to work going now? Vivian, you are offi cially but it was part of how we were trained. For understand it? That’s key. retired, is that correct? those patt erns to be interrupted, part of what has to happen is the client has to have VJ: That’s paramount for me. And that’s VJ: Absolutely! the ability to sense [his] own awareness – the underlying reason for the emphasis on AH: It sounds like you’re happy about that. the embodiment piece – the ability to sense embodiment in the training. “what happens to my shape both inside and

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VJ: Yeah, I have bailed like all the others! many Rolf Movement instructors don’t do work has emerged out of the classic Ten I’m a happy observer. I think Jane really separate movement sessions, rather the Series, which students must understand to needs to answer that question for you. focus is on wonderful discrete work and be good Rolfers. application. JH: I really suspect we are going to AH: Thank you both very much, for this see the work more integrated, and less AH: Is there anything else either of you interview and for your contributions to differentiation between structure and wants to add? our work. Vivian, with you retired now, I function. It seems to be where we are going. especially want us to remember what your VJ: I’m thinking about it. Is there anything There’s interest currently in using – I don’t role was and express our appreciation. else you’d like to ask? know the word I’m looking for – props VJ: I’m very grateful. [I have such] and things. We are understanding much AH: It seems the movement work really has gratitude [to Rolfing] in terms of what more about open- versus closed-chain an ability to morph. The structural work has has emerged as my embodiment of the function, and the neurological aspects. We that ability, but it becomes hotly contested work. What it has enabled me to do is not have always in movement work integrated when it morphs because there are some only successfully integrate what has been the work that was done in the body of the people who feel we have to do only what considerable outside [medical] intervention session into activity and daily activities, Dr. Rolf did. into my body, [and] to embody the changes, because that is where people anchor. Now VJ: We were lucky – we didn’t have a but the embodiment of Rolfi ng has [also] I see the work is going more into moving “recipe.” We were always principle- or given me the opportunity to access in a through space and less of that internal concept-based. So that can morph. If way that is deeply learned inside of me – I [sense]. That’s the current trend; we’ll see we look at the [Ten Series] Recipe as a don’t have to reach for it. I don’t have to try what happens. teaching technique – and it’s a wonderful to understand acupuncture, I don’t have to AH: Where does the piece that Hubert technology for teaching, actually – and try to understand cardiac surgery. There is Godard brings in fi t into all of this? are more principle-based in terms of a way I can embody this and work with it our practice, then [there’s] morphing of in terms of my own healing that I am just JH: The piece I just talked about is an Rolfi ng structural and functional [to be] incredibly grateful for. I am constantly in aspect of Hubert’s work. Hubert has more the same. But if we look at the Recipe awe of the breadth of our principles, and brought in a lot about perception. In the as we have, as a marketing technique, it the description of the reality of the physical time I’ve taught and worked with [Hubert], gets locked in a diff erent way – and has body. he tends to do movement segments rather historically. My sense from the outside – as than full sessions, and I think that is a piece JH: I hear Vivian talking about her ability I look at it in terms of practitioners in my of where the work is headed. to access functional Rolfi ng. I believe this own community – is that the principle-base is because we did only the functional AH: What do you mean by a segment rather to the series work has helped enormously. work for many years, so we view Rolf than a session? It’s taking on a more client-need base, the Movement as a body of work that stands willingness of Rolfers to incorporate other JH: Rolfers are required to have fi ve private on its own. You asked about what we see teachings. movement sessions to become certifi ed in happening currently and in the future with Rolfi ng; it’s one of the prerequisites. So JH: In my view, we want to teach the the movement work. One of the shift s I see we still teach a fi ve-session stand-alone ten-session series so that students learn a is that the work is being blended more and movement series. My experience is that classic series. All of the evolution in our more with the structural Rolfing rather than standing alone. I have mixed feelings about it. AH: It’s interesting, because they started To the Rolf Community: out so separate and now you are saying they are going some place where they This summer, I am doing a pilot study with Stanford University are so blended. Just in having a situation Medical School on Rolfi ng® for children with cerebral palsy. If where you have to be a Rolfer to train in movement, there’s probably a whole anyone has worked with children with CP please contact me as demographic that may no longer come soon as you can. into the work.

I’ll keep you posted on the results. VJ: As we’ve spent time together over the last several days, we’ve talked about that. Thanks, JH: We were approached many times and Karen Price many places by non-Rolfers to train them, and part of the conscious choice we made Advanced Certifi ed Rolfer™ to stay in the Institute was that we would Palo Alto,CA 94306 not train non-Rolfers. rolfi [email protected] 650-324-8863 AH: The Rolfi ng community has certainly benefited from your staying. Thank you again.

20 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY

ONE STUDENT’S JOURNEY By Miriam Pessoa Braga Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ Brasilia ® In 1981, I was living in Recife and working Rolfing in Brazil as a psychologist. I had already had some exposure to Gestalt therapy, psychodrama, group dynamics, Bioenergetics and somatic Individual Perseverance therapy with Gaiarsa. I had created with other psychotherapists in Recife a and Community Spirit therapeutic community called Libertas, which still exists today, and we put together Compiled and edited by Heidi Massa, a conference in Olinda. At this conference, I Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement Practitioner ™ did not necessarily follow everything said in the lectures, but we would gather together with the presenters in the evenings at cafes Editor’s Note: The following recollections were adapted and translated from material originally for conversations. The discussion was published in the special Twenty-Year Anniversary Edition of Rolfi ng Brasil, the professional about integration. Talking with presenter journal of the Brazilian Rolfi ng Association (ABR). [Selected articles from Rolfi ng Brasil Pedro Prado, who had completed Rolfi ng are available on line – in Portuguese – at the Ida P. Rolf Library of Structural Integration training, I realized that Rolfi ng might be (www.pedroprado.com.br).] Taken together, they express many qualities of the community of very helpful to me personally, as I had Brazilian Rolfers. As individuals, they are as hard-working and ceaselessly striving, as one can been breast-feeding my baby for about a imagine. They are whole-heartedly and fearlessly dedicated to the realization and continued year. I relocated temporarily to São Paulo to development of Ida Rolf’s vision. But, true to their culture, they actualize themselves in the undergo the process, through which I came community of their colleagues. As Pedro Prado says, “None of us can be well unless all of us are well.” The Brazilians operate under circumstances and constraints that might seem daunting in the U.S. or Europe, but they persevere, create, and improvise in a milieu where, fundamentally, anything is possible. As one oft en hears in Brazil, “You can’t do that – unless, of course, you have to, in which case . . . .”

IN THE BEGINNING… By Lucia Merlino, Editor, Rolfi ng Brasil Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement Practitioner™ São Paulo Twenty years ago, in 1988, a group of thirteen united to organize and facilitate the study of a new [to Brazil] and fascinating somatic approach: Rolfi ng. But let us return to understand that it was truly as much of a to an even earlier time… In the 1970s, a somatic, body-oriented discipline as I might Brazilian traveler recounted to Jose Angelo fi nd to make my own profession. Gaiarsa, an icon of somatic approaches in Brazil, his experience of going through the Preparing for the Rolfing training was ® ten sessions of Rolfing. Gaiarsa, restive quite a challenge! First, the Rolf Institute’s and curious, brought Rolfer Jim Hrisikos brochure was in English. Dr. Rolf’s book to his clinic. Pedro Prado received the was in English. Everything was in English! ten sessions from Jim, and the experience We needed to fi nd someone to make the was so transformative that Pedro went to translations. The translator we found Boulder for training in 1980. He returned was the husband of our friend Marcia, as the fi rst Rolfer in Brazil, with his sleeves who had just completed her training as a ® rolled up to introduce the work here. Bit by Feldenkrais practitioner. We also needed bit, Pedro’s passion was contagious to his to deepen our understanding of anatomy. clients, some of whom started along their Because here in Brazil we could not take own paths to becoming Rolfers. university classes outside the context of a degree program, we hired an anatomy professor from the University of Sorocaba to develop a special cadaver class for us. He furnished the laboratory equipment, books, and everything.

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Having already extended by another six Elections Now movement in opposition months my stay in São Paulo, I had to to the dictatorship. The latt er sought to decide: return to Recife, or go to the United bring about immediate direct election of States to take the Rolfi ng training. As I had the President of the republic. The military gone to a French school, my English was regime was losing its force . . . . In 1985, precarious, which would prejudice me in Tancredo Neves was elected President of the Rolfi ng training. I resolved to embark Brazil by indirect balllot; however, he died for the U.S. to enroll in an English class for before taking offi ce. Vice President Jose foreigners at the University of Colorado, Sarney assumed the offi ce, which brought Boulder. Aft er three months, I was allowed an end to the military dictatorship in our to participate in the selection process for the country. In that same year, climatologists Rolfi ng training. identifi ed the hole in the ozone layer. Three others made the same choice as I did I myself experienced Rolfi ng in 1984 and to enroll in the Boulder training of March believed it to be a powerful method. As 1983: Neuza Araujo, Nilce Broadway (Nilce editor of the publishing company Summus Silveira) and Nelson Cotinho. All of us consistent in this milieu: the more alive the Editorial, I proposed to Pedro Prado that went to the same training because none of body is, the more vivid is one’s perception we publish books about Rolfing here us wanted to be the fi rst to go – yet each of the world, and the more active one’s in Brazil. It was a way both to establish of us wanted to be the one “aft er Pedro.” response to it will be. As it was articulated understanding and to publicize the method. Nelsinho, as we called him, fi nished with a at that time, the exaggerated emphasis Summus secured the contract for the group diff erent from ours . . . . However, we on the role of our mental constructs and publication of Ida Rolf Talks, compiled by share a picturesque story from this era: the symbols blinds us to the life of the body Rosemary Feitis, the fi rst Brazilian edition Americans had trouble distinguishing the and its feelings. It is the body that merges of which appeared in 1986. As the editors sounds of the names “Nelson,” “Nilce,” and in love; the body that immobilizes us with of the publication, we sensed the need of an “Neuza.” One person asked whether they fear or convulses us with rage; and the body organization to bring together the Rolfers all had the same name! So it was at least that is the foundation of human longing that were already here. Distribution of the helpful to them that there was a “Miriam.” and desire. book required more effi cient support, and But, when they found out that the next The work and approaches of Wilhelm those interested in the method needed Brazilian candidate to go to training was Reich, Alexander Lowen (Bioenergetics), someone to turn to for information and called “Marion,” they went nuts! Moshe Feldenkrais (Awareness through guidance. At the same time, the Rolfers also Movement), and Fritz Perls (Gestalt felt the need of a more formal organization, therapy), among others, were gaining not only to bring information to persons who sought to become Rolfers, but also ROLFING IN BRAZIL: infl uence. Publications about these new approaches had a sure audience among to strengthen the dialogue between the HISTORY WITHIN HISTORY ® various professionals in the area, as well Rolf Institute and its representatives here By Vera Sene, ABR as among an interested general public. in Brazil. President (1993-1997 and 2001-2003) Everything that happened at Esalen (in The year 1988 was an historic moment for São Paulo the U.S.) garnered the curiosity of most of us in Brazil: it was the year in which our our psychotherapists. It was at Esalen, at Twenty years of ABR! To discuss either new constitution was established. The new the end of the 1960s and throughout the the ABR or Rolfi ng in Brazil, I must revisit constitution enlarged and strengthened 1970s, that Rolfi ng gained visibility and the historical context of the 1970s and the guarantees of individual rights and launched itself to the world. The profound 1980s. During the 1970s, we Brazilians public liberties; established direct elections; respect that Fritz Perls nurtured for Ida lived under the repression of an abusive and secured the independence of the Rolf’s work, his accolades and tributes military dictatorship. Small and isolated executive, legislative and judicial branches regarding her personality and Rolfi ng itself, anti-repressive movements arose from of government. It comprised 245 articles woke our psychotherapists up to the need various groups of political idealists, and 70 provisional measures, and was a to understand this work. intellectuals, musicians, writers, artists, big step in the evolution of our country. professors, student leaders, journalists In the 1980s, Rolfi ng offi cially arrived in Coincidentally, because 1988 was the year and others – some would have called them Brazil. Many events mark this decade, in which the ABR was lawfully constituted, communists or terrorists – many of whom which brought many changes – some it was a historically and developmentally eventually became exiled, and others of fundamental and others not so important . . . . important moment for Rolfi ng, as well. whom managed to stay. In 1980, the Workers’ Party was founded In these fi rst years of ABR, the entire group in Santo Andre, SP; and in 1981, the fi rst A new kind of anti-repressive worked hard, with tenacity and creativity, Brazilian Rolfer completed his training movement arose within the practices of dodging the obstacles, until the Association at the Rolf Institute in Boulder. In 1983, psychotherapists. New approaches in was settled and achieved depth and when there were nine Brazilian Rolfers, psychotherapy arrived in our country with refi nement. It continues to evolve through Apple launched the Macintosh computer. a bang! Most of these approaches engaged the eff orts of those bringing fresh ideas The year 1984 brought the birth of both the mainly the body, instead of only the mind. within a new historical context. fi rst Brazilian test-tube baby and the Direct They refl ected a belief, that became more

22 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY

EIGHTEEN YEARS AT THE ABR and completed their training in 1992 in Belo more foreign students. It was a period of Horizonte with Bill Smythe. Itatiba was our lots of work, with two trainings per year. By Sybille Cavalcanti fi rst experience with a residential training. Even the instructor and assistants had to ABR Executive Director It took place on a beautiful rural estate, with help with everything, from cleaning up São Paulo twelve students (including four foreigners); and moving everything from one place I take great pride in having been a part and despite how we got it wrong and got to another, to the actual teaching of the of the development of Rolfi ng in Brazil. it right, considering the complaints with class. We had to furnish the houses, and I joined the ABR in July 1990. It was a the compliments, it was a very gratifying we borrowed from friends the refrigerator, politically turbulent time, because it was result for our eff orts. Itatiba was also Pedro’s the oven, beds for the students to sleep then that what became the Guild for maiden voyage as an instructor for the basic on, carpets – everything! The involvement Structural Integration split from the Rolf training, under the supervision and with of everyone to make things happen was Institute of Structural Integration (RISI). At the approval of Tom Wing. The conclusion incredible! Friends joined the circle, with that time, the ABR had already conducted of the Itatiba training was a victory for the Maria Helena collecting instructors and two Rolfi ng trainings – with Stacey Mills ABR, because at that point the Rolf Institute students at the airport and bring them in 1987 and 1989. Previously, anyone who faculty included a native Brazilian. to the class sites. Friends – and friends of friends – volunteered as class models wanted to become a Rolfer went to Boulder. We adopted the residential training model for the instructors and students. Huge But during that time, it was RISI policy that to att ract foreign students and to facilitate caravans traveled to the class sites. If only part of one’s training had to be done in the the training of Brazilians from states distant it wouldn’t rain – because if it rained, the U.S. In 1990, there were seventeen Rolfers from São Paulo. The training locations ground transport of everyone would get in Brazil; but with the split, there came to were always very pleasant and comfortable stuck in the mud. be only fourteen. places on the outskirts of São Paulo – rural The ABR offi ce was in a small room in a estates, beaches, etc. . . . The classes included Then came e-mail, in a totally different house on Rua Honduras – a house that both auditors and practitioners, and both form than we know it today. At that time, brought together the practices of several Brazilians and foreigners. It was always a one had to take a class to learn how to use Rolfers and the offi ce of the ABR. We had a unique experience for the foreign students it; but communication became much faster typewriter and a telephone. (At that time, and instructors, all of whom thoroughly and more effi cient. enjoyed it. We made a video to promote phone lines were very expensive, costing Still at the house on Rua Honduras, other our Brazil Rolfi ng trainings, which Pedro $5000 – as much money as we made on Brazilian Rolfers had started their training and I presented at an RISI annual meeting the 1989 training!) Eventually we got a to join the RISI faculty. The first Brazil in the U.S. We were carrying the fl ag for the fax machine, which revolutionized our advanced training was in 2003, with Jan importance of exchange among cultures. communications. Our computer was the Sultan and Pedro Prado. one I had at home. In 1994, we moved to the house on Rua For the ABR to establish itself, it took a Maria Figueiredo (escaping because the great deal of creativity and tenacity on mayor of São Paulo decided to “clean the part of everyone involved, and that is up” the residential area of Jardins (the what happened. We conducted extensive Rua Honduras neighborhood)! For the negotiations to get the RISI to authorize us ABR, the move was progress: we had two to conduct an entire basic Rolfi ng training rooms for our administrative offi ces and here in Brazil. a larger room for pre-trainings, which In this phase, most of our energy was was also the first location for NAPER directed to education on two fronts: (which, in the beginning, was called the promoting workshops here in Brazil with Rolfi ng Ambulatory Clinic.) The premises foreign instructors, and explaining Rolfi ng, also housed the clinical practices of which was a new thing here, to the general several Rolfers. public. There were magazine articles, TV It was a very busy time: constant programs, and presentations to professional meetings, structuring of the school and and academic gatherings. Still, we needed We were growing, and we changed to a the membership association, and deepening everything – furniture, lett erhead paper larger space – a two-car garage that had of our relationship with the RISI. It was and a logo. The fi rst ABR logo was created been subdivided into a storage area for our a confl uence that will never come again: by Pedro’s sister Ana, in black and white – big heavy Rolfi ng tables, a reception room, technological advances, along with our later changed to yellow and grey by Mario and work area. Still at Rua Honduras, we awareness of and preoccupation with Cafeiro. This original layout remained the bought our fi rst computer. Our workshops telling “our story” to promote Rolfing, same until, under the administration of and introductory classes were conducted which was our top priority. This was when Lena Orlando, we revised the image of in Pedro’s studio, which was adjacent to we created our fi rst web site. the ABR. the garage. Our house was becoming too small for us, The fi rst group to complete both phases of With that effort, we were maturing (in because we had to have space for our fi rst the basic training here in Brazil began their an organic way, as Pedro was fond of Myofascial Release (“LMF”) training [the training in 1991 in Itatiba with Pedro Prado, saying), such that each training att racted pre-training for our Rolfing trainings],

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 23 ROLFING® HISTORY and this necessitated another move to a bigger house. Fate drove us from Rua Maria Figueiredo: the neighbors were starting construction, and the vibrations literally shook the house. At that point, we separated the ABR offi ces from the practices of various individual Rolfers. We said Why Ida Rolf goodbye to Pedro, Fernando, Lucia, Marcia, Helena, Vera, Vivian and Paulo Marcelo – and went to Alameda Casa Branca. In Chose Boulder for this fi rst house of our own, NAPER and LMF could coexist in harmony; and we, ® the ABR, could continue to mature and the Rolf Institute make ourselves more effi cient. And I got a bigger offi ce! At this same time we were developing a An Interview with Jim Asher modular Rolfi ng training, and once again By Dave Sheldon, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ our house became too small, and we moved to our current location. It is this place that most Brazilian Rolfers know, that allows ® us to off er classes and workshops for more Editor’s Note: Jim Asher, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer and Advanced Rolfi ng Instructor, carries students. It is this house that has captured a wealth of knowledge on our history from many years of studying with and assisting Ida Rolf. our hearts! Here, Jim shares his insights into why Boulder, Colorado was chosen for the Rolf Institute’s fi rst permanent location. We continue to fi nd our own stride, within our possibilities and limitations, and Dave Sheldon: Jim, what is the history always with a great deal of guidance and of the fi rst few Boulder classes? collaboration from our instructors, our board of directors, and our many Rolfers Jim Asher: The first class in Boulder and administrative staff members. Today got organized in 1973 because Emmett the ABR has six employees, 131 Rolfers, six Hutchins was practicing in Boulder, wanted Rolfi ng instructors, and six LMF teachers. to teach there, and also thought Ida would enjoy the town. So, Ida came out to teach Since 1995, we have managed to elect and I was the assistant. Emmett found Brazilians to the RISI Board of Directors, models at the college and we held class at as representatives of Countries in the Highlander Hotel on 28th St. In those Development (CID). This position is days, east of 28th was totally undeveloped, coming to be known as the International so some of the students would camp out Seat. The fi rst Brazilian representative was behind the hotel. (Editor’s note: 28th St. is Deanna Lanfranco, who died in office. now a main thoroughfare.) The hotel was Pedro Prado encouraged me to run for the happy to have us and actually gave us a Jim Asher and Ida Rolf seat: I sent my platform statement and was sweet deal on rent. Remember, back then elected! Subsequent representatives have Boulder was a small college town without DS: What role did Boulder’s natural been Cornelia Rossi and Lena Orlando. too much going on. environment have on the decision? We, the ABR, have registered our presence JA: Ida loved the outdoors! And she loved and secured our position. I believe that A few months later Peter Melchior and the mountains. She also loved hott ubs, but our participation has been and continues Emmett also taught a class at the Highlander. that’s another story. I would take her for to be essential to both the furtherance of Peter and Susan Melchior soon moved to rides on the weekend in my Volvo wagon. the ABR’s interests and the development Boulder and Ida really liked this – in a way, She liked going with me because I didn’t of Rolfing in countries beyond the U.S. it kind of sealed the Boulder deal for her. bother her, I wouldn’t ask her Rolfing and Europe. In the summer of 1974, Ida came back questions as we were riding along. She and taught an advanced class. For this, knew that if she wanted to be quiet she we rented out a fraternity house for ten could be quiet, and if she wanted to talk, weeks – it was a great place to have class. she could talk. From Boulder, you could Aft erward, we started looking at property be out in the mountains in fi ve minutes. to buy. Real estate was super cheap back Sometimes she’d talk about Walter, her late then, and the low prices were also a factor husband, and the time they used to spend to start in Boulder. We ended up buying in the Canadian Rockies. Those memories what is now the Solstice Center on Pearl were very important to her. And when we St. and 3rd. weren’t driving in the mountains, Ida could

24 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org ROLFING® HISTORY go on hikes and walks around Boulder. had to off er. At Esalen, Ida would drive oriented. Boulder would be in-between, Occasionally, she’d rent a litt le four-speeder herself down dirt roads, and when the road a combination of science and psychology. and drive herself into the hills. stopped, she’d just park and go for a litt le So anyway, we all got together for a walk into the woods. Spending time with her grandchildren in meeting. It was Ida, me, Emmett , Peter, the outdoors was also extremely important DS: How was the decision to choose Michael Salveson, Caroline Widmer, and to Ida. She’d slap her hands and say, “I’ve Boulder offi cially made? a secretary, Jane Hale. There were also got to spend more time with my grandkids.” two psychics there, Wayne and Bella from JA: At the time, Ida was hoping to get three She really liked the idea that she could enjoy California. Ida liked to get physic readings schools started. Something in Florida and the outdoors with her grandkids in the occasionally, and liked Wayne and Bella. California, and something in the middle same town she was teaching in. This was a They came into town and Emmett set that turned out to be Boulder. In California, huge thing for Ida, she used to rave about it, them up with clients. They did a reading Ida had been teaching at Esalen and in how she got to enjoy the mountains around and said Boulder would be a great place to San Francisco. She thought this California Boulder with her grandkids! start the school, that the mountains would school would be more psychologically be a source of positive energy. But for Ida, DS: Who was living in Boulder back then? oriented. In Florida the first class was this information was secondary to Boulder Did the population infl uence the decision? sponsored by the University of Miami. In being so close to nature, having a healthy exchange, Ida would give an open lecture JA: When Ida came to Boulder, she saw community, being the home of both Emmett at the science auditorium and doctors lots of people hiking and riding their bikes, and Peter, and being a wonderful place for were given permission to occasionally sit and felt that it was a healthy community. her grandkids. in on classroom lectures. Ida also allowed Alfalfa’s Market had just opened and you medical students to study the changes the So, we had this meeting and Ida said, could get your vitamins and homeopathics classroom models experienced from Rolfi ng “Well, what do you think?” She wanted to in Boulder. She viewed this as diff erent as part of their Ph.D.s. She thought that include the whole faculty in the decision from the California drug scene. But don’t a Florida school would be more research and invited us all to speak our minds. I get me wrong, she loved what Californian thought, “What’s not to like?”

The Second International Fascia Research Congress will continue to bring the latest and best scientific fascia research to the forefront of discussions and presentations. The Amsterdam Congress, hosted at Vrije Universiteit, will be from October 27-30, 2009, followed by an additional day of post-conference clinical workshops.

This year’s extended schedule will add new dimensions – presentation of the clinical practices, both in lecture/demonstrations and in small group sessions, and integration with academic faculty conducting rehabilitation research.

For more information and to register, visit www.fasciacongress.org/2009/index.htm.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 25 PERSPECTIVES

know that your brain has maps of your body right?” “Yes, of course. That was discovered in the 1940s by Wilder Penfi eld,” I said. “Your brain contains swaths of tissue that literally The Confluence of hold point-to-point maps of each body part – hands, fi ngers, tongue, arms, legs. Everything from the top of your head to Neuroscience and the bott om of your feet is mapped in your brain. One map is based on touch. Another on movement.” Structural Integration Dr. Farne thrust both arms forward. “Well, you also map the space around your body,” he said, waving his arms up, down, and all A Discussion with Sandra Blakeslee around his body. “Your brain maps every point in this space, out to the ends of your By Kevin Frank, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™, fi ngertips.” Rolf Movement Faculty I was stunned. I’d never heard of peripersonal space – much less that it was literally mapped somewhere in the brain. Editor’s Note: Sandra Blakeslee will be one of the keynote speakers at the 2009 Membership Then Dr. Farne held a pen four-feet away Conference of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®. from my body and started moving it slowly toward my forearm. “When the tip of this Kevin Frank: On behalf of the Rolf pen enters the envelope of space around community, I want to thank you both your body, cells that see and anticipate the for your upcoming presentation to our pen moving toward your skin will start 2009 annual meeting and for taking time fi ring,” he said. “Bzzzz. Bzzzzz. Bzzzz.” for this conversation. I hope we can give The pen moved closer. “Bzzzz. Those cells readers a sense of the overlap between are fi ring more rapidly the closer this object your interviews with the stars of the gets,” he said. neuroscience world and the work we do as structural integrators. Let’s fi rst fi nd out I felt like I was a litt le girl, convulsing with how you ended up writing about science laughter, as my Dad moved his tickling for The New York Times and what led you fi ngers closer and closer and closer. “Really? to write your books. Can you give us some There’s a map in my brain of all the space background? around my body?” Sandra Blakeslee: Sure, I come from a “Yes,” replied the Italian. “And it expands family of science writers. My grandfather, with tool use. Every time you get in your Although I am primarily a newspaper Howard, was one of the first science car, the map includes the space around your reporter, I have co-authored seven books. journalists in the country, beginning in the body as it extends to the boundaries of your Four, writt en with Dr. Judith Wallerstein, 1920s. My father, Alton, followed in his car. If you learned to operate a crane, your are primarily about the long-term eff ects footsteps. Both worked for the Associated body map would extend out to the tip of of divorce on children. But my fi rst love Press as the top science editors and writers. the crane’s shovel.” is science. I helped the brilliant V.S. Aft er a stint in the Peace Corps, in Sarawak, Ramachandran write Phantoms in the Brain I was enchanted. The idea that the we I began my career at the United Nations and the equally brilliant Jeff Hawkins write hold mental maps of our bodies and Bureau of The New York Times in 1967 as On Intelligence. the space around our bodies; that these a lowly news assistant. I had no plans or maps expand and contract as we use desire to be a science writer. When a year The idea for The Body Has a Mind of Its everyday objects; and that these maps later the newspaper off ered me a position Own came from a casual encounter with a can be affected by mental imagery, by in the science department, I resisted. They researcher at the Society for Neuroscience physical practice, by illness or disease, said, “Oh, come on. Try it. You might like meeting in 2000. The scientist stood in front or, as I was to learn, by what culture we it.” That was over forty years ago, and I of his poster titled “Unilateral Extinction grow up in, is nothing short of miraculous. have loved writing about science ever since. and Bimodal Neurons in Peripersonal Moreover, very litt le was known about the I can’t believe I get paid to do this job. My Space.” I was intrigued. What was phenomenon. The creation of these body son, Matt , is now following the Blakeslee peripersonal space? The scientist, an maps is so seamless, so automatic, so fl uid tradition. Trained in neuroscience, he is irrepressibly enthusiastic Italian named and engrained that we humans don’t even a fabulous writer and translator of the Alesandro Farne, smiled and said, “You recognize it is happening, much less that it brain sciences. poses an absorbing scientifi c puzzle. Like

26 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES consciousness, the neural representation and coordination. Godard’s synthesis led fascia and its associated mechanoreceptors of our bodies just is. to a model of structural integration he may be directly linked to the “movement calls Tonic Function.” Tonic refers to the brain,” as I like to call it. In which case, I decided to fi nd out what scientists know tonic system that automatically keeps us part of our task is to learn more about how about body maps, body image, body upright in gravity and is a background we can speak to the “movement brains” of schema and how they change throughout for all our actions. Godard’s exercises give our clients. I am curious, given all the time each day and over a lifetime. Is this why us new ways of thinking about our work you have spent with these neuroscience people get so upset in a fender bender based on gravity response. Godard isn’t the specialists, whether this relationship I am accident? Is this what riders mean when only one, but he has been a major source. describing looks plausible to you. they say they’re “one” with the horse? Do Others contribute to this inquiry: people pilots extend their peripersonal space out SB: The relationship you describe makes like Robert Schleip, a German Rolfer, and to the wingtips of a 747? What happens perfect sense. Let me fi rst give an overview there are now quite a few Rolfi ng teachers to our peripersonal space when we make of body maps and then unpack them, one referencing perception and neuroscience. love with another person? What happens by one, as each relates to the work you do to our body schema aft er an injury or from The material Godard has pointed us to in structural integration. In writing our chronically poor posture? includes some of the discoveries you book, Matt came up with a nice phrase that write about in The Body Has a Mind of captures the complexity of the body maps in Moreover, what are the wider implications Its Own: things like the mirror neuron our brains: a mandala. In Eastern traditions, of this knowledge? How is it being used by phenomenon, body image and body a mandala is a geometric patt ern of images those who design simulators for training schema, and Ramachandran’s work with that symbolically maps out the universe pilots and athletes, by teachers, by the phantom limbs. I was excited that you and from a human perspective. Similarly, your military, by computer engineers and game your son produced a book about all this. It’s brain contains a network of patt erns, or designers? How will our body maps an accessible source from which structural maps, that create your embodied, feeling enter virtual realities and brain-machine integration practitioners can learn about the sense of selfhood. Some maps are built interfaces? Will our children, as they enter relevant neuroscience. The research papers from patt erns that enter your brain from cyberspace at ever more tender ages, are sometimes a bit dense. the outside world. (Note: your brain does be different from us in terms of body not contain sights or sounds. It is dark in brain mapping? The research you present goes a long there. It is silent. All your brain’s activity, way toward explaining why and how To help me on this journey, I enlisted my aside from neurochemical aspects, is built structural integration works. For fi ft y years, son, Matt , to co-write The Body Has a Mind on patt erns of nerves fi ring.) Thus visual we thought in terms of Dr. Rolf’s model of Its Own. Published in September 2007, it scenes enter your retina and are turned into that says structural integration is about has been well received by many audiences, patt erns that travel up the optic nerve to de-gluing the fascial adhesions between including one that we did not anticipate – eventually form a network of visual maps. muscles. It’s not proven we do this, but it you, the structural integration community. Sounds enter your ear and are turned into is att ractive because it feels as though that’s Why we did not see the close match patt erns that form a network of auditory what is happening under our hands. Now between the science we describe and the maps. When your skin senses external we have a new way to look at the process, methods of structural integration escapes pressure or vibration, patt erns travel up and it seems to be connected to the plasticity me. I suppose it’s because neither Matt your spine and into a network of primary of body maps and how that may revive nor I had ever been exposed to structural touch maps. The same goes for smell and our ability to move and stand normally. In integration other than to have heard the taste. These maps are created in response essence, our work may be more about the term. (I have since rectifi ed the situation to external stimuli. They are exteroceptive. body’s motor control than we previously and underwent ten Rolfi ng® sessions with thought. The maps you care most about as structural Jill Gerber in Santa Fe this spring.) integrators are built from patt erns that come Your title, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, KF: Great. I hope you enjoyed the Rolfi ng from the body itself. They are interoceptive. says essentially that a very intelligent sessions. We will be interested in how you Thus your brain builds a map of your body system is in charge of how we perceive, interpret the experience in light of your schema – its “held” position in space – from feel and move. Structural integrators (as own body maps. Over the years I have proprioceptors in muscle, bone and tendon. well as other body/mind therapies) must become convinced that body maps explain Your brain also contains a sprawling web aff ect this system in a number of ways. a lot about what we do. I’d like to start of connections that give rise to your body Structural integration practitioners are that discussion by describing what these image, defi ned as the deeply rooted beliefs skilled at connective-tissue manipulation. two domains (structural integration and you have about your body. The body image They also learn ways to evoke changes neuroscience) might have in common from is not so much a map as it is an atlas of your in coordination using perception. The this Rolfer’s point of view and then ask you life’s experiences. perception part can be trickier to learn if you think we are on the right track. since it isn’t something most people are KF: I love your description. Just to say For about eighteen years, one of our used to. Your book helps us all appreciate that historically structural integrators have colleagues, a French Rolfer named Hubert what a big deal this perceptive system is. primarily addressed interoception and Godard, has educated the structural And how does our fascial work aff ect the proprioception. Our public image shows integration community about scientific body’s “mind”? Is it possible that working us pushing on fascia. At the same time, research relevant to structural integration. on fascia may directly aff ect our body map structural integration practitioners have Much of this research is about perception as much as it frees the musculature? The also worked with hearing, seeing, smell

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 27 PERSPECTIVES and taste, as well as the skin. This work SB: Yes, I understand that structural sorts of movements the room’s contents has gained ground with the introduction of integrators sometimes use imagery with will support – the aff ordances within the the tonic function model. When we address clients. Our book tells some interesting room. Or if we pick up even an unfamiliar the three aspects of body perception, stories about how motor imagery – tool, our body senses how it might use it. the eff ect seems to be the best for lasting imagining playing the piano, for example Like schema and image these ideas take change in posture and movement. But – literally increases the size of a person’s time to sink in, but they add an important please continue. finger maps in the brain. Athletes can new dimension to our work. It points to improve their motor skills by imagining something invisible but huge in terms of SB: You are correct that Rolfi ng aff ects familiar movements used in their sport. facilitating change. exteroceptive maps, including basic sensations of touch, but these tend to be KF: And tonic function? Is that related to Structural integrators are oft en consulted related to conscious awareness. My point is body maps? when people are in pain. There are many that structural integration primarily works sources of pain but one seems to be SB: I think so. Your inner ear contains a on interoceptive and proprioceptive aspects abnormal plasticity. What can you say special set of sensors that tell your body of brain function which for the most part about that? where you are in relation to gravity. This operate unconsciously. Your interoceptive information is sent to a region called the SB: Excellent question. Body maps are laid brain also has a so-called vestibular map parietal lobe, which is packed with multi- down in response to normal experiences. that tells you where you are with respect sensory neurons. Such neurons collect When there is an injury, particularly a to gravity. It maps all your movements and patt erns of information from more than repetitive injury or failure to rehabilitate an intentions to move, as well as the actions of one sense. Thus, some combine hearing old injury, body maps can become “frozen.” others via a mirror system. Your brain maps and touch. Others combine balance, vision They are stuck in an abnormal patt ern that feelings from your body – itch, tickle, cold, and muscle stretch. And so on. By bringing can reverberate into other body systems. heat, sensual touch and pain – via special a person’s attention to their vestibular Skilled manipulation can inform the brain receptors in your skin that travel to a region processes – which almost always operate that the held patt ern is deleterious. It can of the brain called the insula. The insula out of consciousness – it is conceivable that release the constriction. But remember – the also maps sensations from your heart, liver, changes could be brought to the mandala. problem is not in the periphery. It is not in lungs, intestines – all your internal organs the sore knee, bad back, aching shoulder. – to give you an overall, ongoing report of KF: That ties synesthesia or the inter- The problem is central, in body maps in “how do I feel?” Your social emotions are sensorial phenomena to our gravity system. the brain. built from this map – lust, disgust, pride, Great. What about fascia? humiliation, shame, love, hate and so on. KF: Yes, our clients come in convinced we SB: I think freeing the fascia might help Finally, there is the body map that keeps need to fi x the part they are pointing to. reorganize muscle which would then your autonomic nervous system in balance, And, in addition to some palliative work in reorganize the brain’s motor regions. Again, which promotes homeostasis. Rolfers tap the area that bothers them, we try to enroll the mandala changes. The person changes. directly into this system when manipulation them in the idea that coordination, the body The same goes for manipulations aimed at releases deeply held emotions. system, is what needs help – their body the body schema. When the body receives needs bett er information. For example, the One final key point about these maps. a new set of experiences, it can remap body may have forgott en that it has joints They are plastic. They change under the rapidly. When people lose limbs, their in the foot, and with a litt le work there a infl uence of experience. Amazingly, some body maps reorganize in minutes. When tight hip lets go. I am beginning to think of them also change under the infl uence you reorganize the body schema, the body that what we are doing is reminding the of mental imagery. They are also amenable image is also likely to open itself to change. body map of its articulations – articulations to change from the effects of attention. KF: Does peripersonal space undergo that usage patt erns have blurred or erased Paying att ention to the body is a key factor remapping? to some degree. Does that seem plausible in facilitating change. When these maps to you? operate in synchrony, you have the illusion SB: Probably. There are plenty of of being a whole, sentient, embodied Self. neurological conditions that perturb the SB: Absolutely. When the maps fall out of synchrony mapped space around the body. One KF: Sandra your perspective is timely. for any reason – think about trauma thing I think structural integration people Structural integration has tried to or disease – you can experience a wide should know about is a theory called diff erentiate itself from some of the other range of symptoms. These can be familiar, “aff ordances.” It has to do with how people forms of body therapy – Ida Rolf emphasized like chronic pain, or spooky, like out-of- interact with objects. that our work is about restoring natural body experiences. The important thing to order of relationships in gravity. There are remember, from a structural integration KF: Yes, your book has a great section challenges to gett ing this point across: that point of view, is that all these maps interact on that; and I believe perception pioneer it’s diff erent from massage, chiropractic or and that you can promote synchrony, or James Gibson offered the affordance osteopathy, or myofascial release, and that healing, by entering the system from a idea. (Godard, naturally, introduced us there is a particular need humans have to variety of portals. to Gibson.) The affordance idea helps structural integraton students appreciate revive their body maps. Going forward, KF: You mention imagery. Can you say the power of context in working with your and Matt’s articulation makes our more about that? movement. For example, when we enter a job easier and helps Dr. Rolf’s work fi nd room, our brain automatically knows what bett er acceptance in the places it can make a

28 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES contribution. Thank you so much. Anything else you want to add? SB: We have entered an exciting era in neuroscience with new discoveries about ourselves occurring on an almost daily basis. What I fi nd particularly exciting is Phenomenological Space that observations that once seemed intuitive are now based on science. Therapists and healers have new ways to validate and improve their techniques. Matt and I are An Interview with Hubert Godard thrilled to get this information to people By Caryn McHose who will be inspired to use it. A lot of research in the lab tells us the “what.” Your work pushes us forward to answer the Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Contact Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2 “so what.” (Summer/Fall 2006). Hubert Godard, a Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® Instructor, ® Sandra Blakeslee is a science writer who will be one of the keynote speakers at the 2009 Membership Conference of the Rolf Institute of contributes regularly to The New York Structural Integration. Times. She co-authored the books The Body Has a Mind of Its Own (with Matthew his interview takes place in the forested lives in France and teaches worldwide. The Blakeslee) and Phantoms in the Brain (with Tlandscape of British Columbia, in son of a farmer, Godard was an athlete in V.S. Ramachandran). For more information June 2005, at a residence overlooking boarding school and a chemist in college, please see: www.sandrablakeslee.com and Howe Sound where Hubert Goddard becoming one of the youngest people www.thebodyhasamindofi tsown.com. was teaching a workshop called Portals to be licensed to perform metallurgy of Perception, about perception and for the recovery of gold in industrial movement. I appreciate Hubert’s poetic waste. At the age of twenty-one, he saw a use of language. As a Frenchmen speaking dance performance and became fascinated in English, he challenges us to reexamine with the sense of flight he observed in our learned interpretation of words the performers; soon he was dancing and associations so we may fi nd a new very seriously. After injuring his knee, perspective. Certain terminology indicated Godard’s proclivity for mechanics and in italics in the interview is specifi c to his problem solving led him to osteopathy Hubert Godard teaching at work. (C.M.) and the world of soft tissue and bony Resources in Movement, manipulation. He trained in osteopathy, Hubert Godard is a dancer, Rolfer, New Hampshire, August 2003 Feldenkrais method®, Alexander technique, movement teacher, and researcher who (Caryn McHose, second from the left) Mezieres method, classical dance and  psychoanalysis. Godard served as dean of the Department of Dance Movement Analysis at the University of Paris (1993- 1999) and continues to direct research on movement rehabilitation in Milan, Italy. His theory of Tonic Function focuses on the ways orientation to space and weight predispose perception and movement. Caryn McHose: We would like to hear from you about the relationship between body and place, our place this earth. Hubert Godard: Let me begin with space. “Space” is a word that we use constantly in our work as dancers, but it is an ambiguous term. I will use the term space when I talk about the imaginary building of our relationship to the world, and I will use topos when I am talking about real, geographical, measurable space. When people meet or interact, it is a mix of the two. What I’m calling space, the imaginary building of the phenomenon, is linked to our personal story.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 29 PERSPECTIVES

In our history there was possibly some place that was traumatic, some place that was exquisite. There is consistency in the topos – the geography – but space cannot be homogeneous. It is individual, subjective, affected by our history and meaning associations. Already in the first three months, first love – mother, parents – will shape a big part of our subjective space. What is generally called the “kinesphere” is a gradient of perspective, or a range of ways I am able to notice the space around my body. For example, I might have a blocked perspective here, a very far away perspective in one direction, and a shortsighted perspective in another direction. It is natural that that I can be moved by a painting one day when its perspective corresponds to my own. The next day it Hubert Godard teaching at Resources in Movement might be another painting, depending on my current gradient of perspective. Many people are touched by The Landscape in the we are living is a confrontation between CM: So, for example, here we are in front of Winter by Breughel. Why? Because he is expectation, desire, and history this grand view of the Cascade Mountains, and you’re saying we’re being aff ected in at a place that is delicious for many; he’s A third aspect of space involves sociological this context right now? The place will re- looking at the city from a Iitt le way off , but and geographical context. Every culture dimensionalize us? he is still being in the city. Breughel shows has a unique way of using the space. If you a perspective, a point of view, a way to were born in Japan, or if you were born in HG: Yes. If I have spent my life surrounded look at the life of a village. All of a sudden the Midwest, you will have a completely by mountains and then suddenly I am in the village becomes sweet – the accident different relationship with space. It’s fl atland with people around, it will feel of people living together. Painting is the very touching when you are in Japan, for strange. If I have been with people in a building of a space. The subjectivity of example, that people are packed against city, my walk will be diff erent; or if I am Breughel meets many subjectivities, so his each other and still a person can have a huge used to going up and down a mountain, point of view is touching for many of us. kinesphere. The topos is constricted but my stride is affected. My perception of A second consideration about space is the space is large. You can be in a Midwest space is organized through the habits of our expectation. I’m never looking just at city where it will be the opposite: you sociology and by the geography. have a huge topos and a person can have a space; I’m already projecting into it. I have CM: Do you know if there are any dancers limited kinesphere. expectations, informed by my personal or choreographers who have used this story. When I go to see a performance, The sociological aspect includes the consciously in their work? even before the dancer enters the stage, language we use to name space. Proxemics HG: Yes, the decor or set design, and there are already people dancing on the is a particular branch of semiotics that lighting in dance changes perspective. empty stage – the dance of my expectation. studies human perception and use of space The dancer will be aff ected by the light, And these expectations are dynamizing within the context of culture. American and the space is also changing because the (energizing) and vectoralizing (shaping) the sociologist Edward T. Hall has contributed light is changing. This is felt very strongly space. The space is full of the vectors of my greatly to this fi eld. If you put a hundred by performers and by spectators, who are expectation, the vectors of my desire. people within one meter of each other and wrapped in a diff erent kind of space . . . . CM: Already, before the dance starts? ask them what the distance is from the other, some will say one centimeter, some CM: We dimensionalize the space through HG: Yes. This desire, this vector, is going out will say one kilometer. And this subjectivity the decor and lighting? of me and comes back partially transformed is mostly organized by what we talked of HG: Yes. I think the set of the stage is not by the context or situation. The vector of my before: personal history and expectation but so much about meaning but about giving vision is superimposed with another vector also sociological context. All these factors a completely different arrangement of – the vector of my history, where the space impact the way we perceive, organize, and perspectives and expectations that change is full of my own phantoms or black holes. deal with space. our space. If I’m projecting in a space where there Geography is also a consideration. If you CM: So in a way it is creating a new place is an open place allowed by my history, I put somebody in front of a big mountain, for the movement to unfold? can go on; but if in my history there was a the body will react. It will change the height black hole – a missing or unperceived space of people without them noticing; they are HG: Yes, and if you take personal history – l will meet a wall. And very oft en what activated by the context. and the sociological and geographical

30 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES context together, that gives you the latent The scoliosis of the space will bring a training, afraid of the space around and potential – what is possible in terms of scoliosis of the body. So I have to reorganize of defending his territory. So in his space movement in this particular situation and my perception because what makes the of action, there is no capacity for defense context. This is what perceptual psychologist space is my perception, and if I don’t work against aggression. The audience is touched James Gibson calls the aff ordance. The space on the perception, no change will occur. I because even if you don’t understand the is completely shaped. I would fi nish this can make the scoliosis bett er, but it will keep story, you still grasp this impossibility. broad point by saying that the space – not coming back. We keep working on the body, And you know that in real life Nij insky the topos – is in fact an imaginary space and we forget to work on the space. became insane. One day he was invited to of action. It doesn’t exist. There is no contact perform in a salon for very wealthy people. Instead of manipulating the body, I’ve had with space out of time and history. The At a certain moment he said, “Now, I will success working only on the space. You context and my history give the aff ordance improvise war.” It was just the start of the address the way the people perceive, and of what can happen in terms of whole-body First World War. He was very worried if you are sensitive to that you can see the gesture and movement. And why is that? about the war coming, and when he began kinesphere in people. Sometimes there is a Because the space, in fact, doesn’t exist; it’s to dance the war, he passed out. He never leaking/leaning/looking to the right and no a space of action. And this action-space came back from this movement. projection capacity on the left because there is phenomenological, if you will. The was so strong a negative experience in the What was so evocative about Nijinsky phenomenon of space is sensory based, space, an accident of life – and you have to was not his leap but his sweetness – his unique to each person, and time dependent. rebalance this subjective space. We have to innocence and vulnerability – which was That should be the title of this chapter work on this subjectivity so that more of under his strong capacity to move and – Phenomenological Space – because I’m the space is available to us so we can move jump. And, of course, it is very att ractive in the space and the space is in me. There more freely. to meet somebody who is strong and is not a distinction fi rst between “me” and non-aggressive. We understand the fact Its huge work to rebalance the body – the “space.” There is also no distinction that there is a missing gesture. When I say because the space is in the body and the between space and time; since what “absent” or “missing,” I don’t just mean body is in the space. Working on the body, vectoralizes (shapes) the space is already a movement that is not there. You know, you work on the space. When you change temporalized, specifi c to the moment. When I can make the movement, but you also something in the body, the concrete body you perceive a vector, perception accelerates see there is a gesture that I cannot do on of somebody, you change his or her way (it builds on itself). Space is not empty. It is another level. What is “yelling” on stage is of perceiving the space. So there are two a space of action. a repressed gesture. approaches. But my experience is that very What makes me afraid of a space is what oft en in scoliosis, there is a wound in space. CM: And that creates a curiosity in us? can happen in it. What makes me att racted Not if you are born with scoliosis, but if it HG: Yes. And you see the same in a bigger to a space is that I can go into it. In fact, occurs later in life – aft er age eight. The landscape. In nature, you have the space of this space of action is my aff ordance, my scoliosis is started mainly at the moment a lion and the space of a gazelle; the space potential for movement. This is often when something happened. for a gazelle is not the same space for a lion. limited by all I’ve spoken of before. But After we talk of the space of personal It is the same for people. There are some in fact what is also limited is my potential history, the space of expectation, the who have the gazelle space; there are some for action and imagination. Because at sociological space, and the geographical who have more lion space. The reason, for a deeper level, it a space where I will be space, we come to a non-space, which is example, that dance contact is so important doing something I cannot imagine. And the meaning of utopia (Greek: literally “no is because it’s a way to renegotiate: fi rst, in this potential of action or subjective topos” or “no place”). This is the space of the distance to other people; then, the space, there are some movements that action which “inside/outside,” “me and vectoralization of space; then, the many are completely repressed, some are really the space,” are the same. This is just one. It levels of perceiving. there, some are not possible, and some are is movement, a space with the movement yet to be evoked. I think the best way to CM: Do you mean Contact Improvisation? happening in space. And this is a goal in work with people in dance or in therapy bodywork and dance – to open the full HG: Yes, Contact Improvisation. It’s an about the question of space is to help them potential for action. example of a very direct way to address the understand their potential of action, their space question at a deep level because you subjective space. A big part of my life and CM: Could a choreographer or improviser are touching the history of each person, and research has been spent demonstrating that build a performance in this way, so that they you are touching the taboo of the society. the way I am building my imaginary space emphasize either the “potential of action” aff ects my body. or the “inhibition of space”? CM: It seems that it takes awhile to reorganize and allow people to recognize CM: I oft en hear you describe building a HG: Exactly. Its a way to see choreography. the relationship that we have with space. space behind the action – working with the In performance, a big part if what you implied space behind an action. How does don’t see; it’s what is not there. What is HG: It’s true. Since the Renaissance, this aff ect your work with clients? avoided or repressed is what is “yelling.” there was the tendency to put human A good example is Nijinsky. In many beings in the center of nature instead of HG: I fi nd, for example, with many scoliosis ballets of Nij insky, there is no potential for putt ing nature in the center of the human clients that the scoliosis (lateral curvature aggressive movement. In Petrushka, for being. Now it’s changing; movement and of the spine) is not in the body but in space. example, Nij insky is completely inside the

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 31 PERSPECTIVES bodywork forms in the last forty or fi ft y which was a way of building the space in a HG: What is missing in my perception of years are step-by-step changing our vision. very strong way. my body corresponds to what is missing in my perception of the space (space here CM: In my recent travels in Bali, I was CM: So you started to see the two including “ground” and “space”). For gett ing a hint of being in a culture where orientations? example, when I was a dancer, sometimes I the split between nature and culture is not HG: Yes. I see step-by-step the magic had diffi culty with my feet because I did not so strong; the perception of nature is alive. of posture, that we need both ground have a good relationship with the ground. HG: Yes, you feel it if you go to Morocco. It’s orientation and space orientation for I was too suspended in air and so the feet so strong for me because I was born there. ease of movement. First by psychological were showing off what was missing in my There is something in Morocco that forces experience and then by clinical experience I experience of the space. your gaze, your perception of space, to be have found that the way I’ve built my CM: We have to keep “re-languaging” – peripheral. You are not in cortical vision; space, the “accident of my life,” is you know, building a language to allow you are in a way of looking that is not about directly responsible for contractions and us to embrace these changing concepts naming. And you get a direct melting with contradictions in my body. This led to the of space. the space, something very specifi c. Matisse investigation of what I call Tonic Function. changed his life completely aft er his trip to Tonic Function focuses on gravity response – HG: We have talked about perspective. Morocco; the ground was more important the body’s orientation to weight and space Horizon is somewhere linked to the than the fi gures in his paintings all of a – as central to understanding movement. vanishing point. And the vanishing point sudden. This means Matisse’s vision of has a specifi c relationship with projection. For example, the way to eff ectively stretch space changed, because painting in general The vanishing point in front is a sagitt al is to orient to ground and space. Very oft en is a declaration of space. organization, and we come from a culture the hamstring (which is a muscle on the that is outrageously sagitt al organization. CM: Can you track the thread of how you back of the thigh) that many dancers try to Why I say “outrageously” is because in arrived at the vision that you have? Were lengthen through daily stretching doesn’t painting we call it perspective legitima. there specifi c stepping-stones or moments respond. But if you change your perception Alberti set the rules of perspective, and the of discovery? and orient to the ground and to the sky, I’ve Latin name is perspectiva legitima – as though found that the hamstring will change right HG: I know that I was shaped by this there is one legitimate perspective. And this away. So the hamstring is a good example peripheral seeing. By this I mean a way will tell you a lot about sociological context of a tonic muscle; it responds refl exively of looking that is not about naming; I call because there is a “legitimate perspective” to ground and space. In general, the tonic this a non-cortical gaze. This non-cortical playing like a metaphor for the projected muscles are the core stabilizing muscles. gaze allows you to have very easy body hierarchy of our society. Each culture has reading because you have the capacity to CM: A tonic muscle responds to the quality its own perspective, and we (in western incorporate people in your subjective space; of spatial orientations? cultures) declare that there is a legitimate you are in the space, the space is in you. one, which the particular direction of HG: Yes. You have a lot of people who the vanishing point accomplishes. The CM: And you became aware of this are completely “up” people, who have no vanishing point in Japan is very oft en in relationship, this kinesthetic resonance, ground, and they will have tension of the the back. in your work when you started knee. People who are the opposite, who are teaching dance? building from the ground, they will have I don’t say that the perspectiva legitima tension in the hip and hamstring, not in the doesn’t exist, but the term legitima shows HG: I was completely shaped by teaching knee. The tonic muscles will respond not to how there is a colonization of the space. dance. I noticed that the way you talk, the what you do but only to the way you build, You colonize the space geographically, way you tell the story in a dance studio will or orient to, the space. but we forget that there is a cultural make people dance diff erently. When I tried colonization that is so strong. The history to understand how this happens, I fi rst came Posture is the capacity to go in the two of acting/performing/dancing, the history to the idea that the space is a support. You directions. It’s very clear that 50% of of painting, is aff ected by where and how can vectoralize an “up” or a “horizontal” the action needs to start from the fl oor, we build the horizon. vector which can “up” you or “broaden” like pushing or pulling, and 50% needs you. In the history of modern dance, suspension, like pointing and reaching. The CM: Since you travel and change place so there was some choreography that was space of action will be aff ected directly by much, how do you make yourself at home? completely built from the ground (Martha the way you organize your posture. HG: I have a constant place, my farm in Graham) and some that was suspended by CM: Was this also around the time you Burgundy, France. I have to have ground the chest (Dorothy Humphrey/Jose Limon). heard about Rolfi ng®? somewhere. Actually, you learn that the It became clear to me that there were people ground can be everywhere, and you learn on the two sides. With Doris Humphrey HG: I was very att racted the fi rst time I read by diminishing your expectation. So you there was always a horizon in front of her; that Rolfi ng was a way to renegotiate our give freedom for the space that arises. If the subjective building of Humphrey’s relationship to gravity. you have too much expectation, the space is space was the horizon. Whereas Martha CM: What happens when one of the two full already. The reason I was talking about Graham was very territorial – authoritarian direction – ground and space – is missing? the space of expectation is that it is so very and territorial. She knew what she wanted, oft en what prevents people from meeting

32 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES

CM: And that’s a way you can bring rest and decompression to yourself, to build your imaginary farm? HG: Yes my farm in France is a specifi c space that I can transport with me. Each person has to fi nd their space, it could be a garden, a house, whatever. For me it’s a farm because many things can happen there and I can be active in that space. I can shape the space by planting a tree here, etc. It is a tremendous playground. CM: In terms of engaging the place and people that you are with, how do you maintain the creative moments for your work to unfold? HG: All the building of my theory starts from some concrete situation. Before I’m with the people, I think I don’t know which way to go. Once we begin something is created in the space. Thanks to Kevin Frank for editorial assistance. To contact Caryn McHose or find out more about Hubert Godard’s work: [email protected] or www.resourcesinmovement.com.

REFERENCES Frank, Kevin, “Seeing the Ground of a Movement: Tonic Function and the Fencing Bear.” 2004 lASl Yearbook. Missoula, MT: IASI 2005, pp.103-104. Frank, Kevin, “Tonic Function: A Gravity Hubert Godard teaching at Resources in Movement Response Model for Rolfing® Structural and Movement Integration,” Rolf Lines, March1995, pp. 12-20. each other; they have to stop having while teaching than when I’m thinking the expectation. about my teaching because I’m constantly Godard, Hubert, “Reading the Body in having to meet people. Our difference Dance.” Rolf Lines, October 1994, pp. 37-42. CM: How do you let go of expectation? creates a current, a diff erence of potential. Hall, Edward T., An Anthropology of Everyday HG: I’m completely plastic in the way it This diff erence of potential between what Life. NY: Doubleday & Company, 1992. can happen. I have a studio, a program. I I expect and what the other expects is the know what I want to do, but I know it will defi nition of dynamic. The diff erence of Hall, Edward T., Proxemics: A Study of Man’s have to be responsive to the people. I’m potential creates movement. Spatial Relations. Edited by Iago Galston. CT: not hanging on to my program, I’m not CM: So that’s the pleasure of coming into International Universities Press, Inc., 1962. hanging on to the way it should be, and I’m a place where something unexpected not keeping distance. I see what l want to McHose, Caryn and Kevin Frank, How Life happens. Is there also the pleasure of having do, like on a horizon – but I don’t build all Moves: Explorations in Meaning and Body quiet time alone? the space between me and the horizon. It’s a Awareness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, continuum, so I can meet people where they HG: Yes. Actually, I learn a lot about how 2006. are. I don’t lose my thread, but I stay open. to be alone in the group. When I was fi rst teaching, I was exhausted every time CM: Being in your classes, I sense that because I was “out.” I was never coming there’s much that you bring in, but then back to my farm, my feet. Oft en when you you let yourself be touched by the physical teach you are in compression. Sometimes space and by the people. Perhaps that’s how you see thirty people in a group, eight hours you can be home anywhere. a day for fi ft een days, so you can imagine HG: Yes, I get pleasure from the unexpected. the compression. The only way is to go back It’s the only way to learn. I’m learning more and forth, which is to have imaginary space.

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degree of laughter, or at the very least, an amused smile.

SEIZED WITH UNDERSTANDING Similarly, the practitioner who gets Rolfi ng Getting It manifests an understanding that involves his whole body. His understanding necessarily includes, but also goes beyond, By Jeffrey Maitland, Ph.D., Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ an intellectual or conceptual grasp of the philosophy and science of Rolfing. Just . . . the suppleness of my muscles has always been the greatest when my creative energies because he may be able to speak eloquently were fl owing most abundantly. The body is inspired; let’s keep the “soul” out of it . . . about Rolfi ng does not mean he can deliver masterful work. His work is masterful Nietzsche because he gets Rolfi ng, and he gets Rolfi ng Ecco Homo because his body understands. Getting Rolfi ng and gett ing a joke both require that your body is seized with understanding. his article is about how one becomes a fullest sense, you really cannot get a joke, In one case, you are seized with the Rolfer. It’s not about what you should appreciate art, or master Rolfi ng without T understanding that laughter brings; and in study; how many credits of this or that this kind of whole-body understanding. the other, you are on fi re with a whole-body subject you should accumulate; how long Appreciating art, gett ing a joke, and gett ing felt sense of knowing that is closer to you you should study; with whom you should Rolfi ng in each case is more than just having than your breath. study; what you should study first; or a conceptual or intellectual grasp. With what the ideal curriculum should look like. Peter Ralston relates an incident that respect to the question of gett ing a joke, to These considerations are very important; illustrates a dimension of this kind of laugh is to understand – in the fullest sense. of course, but not what I am interested in whole-body understanding. When he was a If a person doesn’t at least snicker a litt le bit, pursuing. What I want to explore is how student of judo, he wanted to practice more he really cannot be said to get the joke. At one comes to manifest the way of being hours than his dojo was open. He solved this point, you might be thinking, “Not so characteristic of being a Rolfer. What does this problem when he stumbled upon the fast. I have heard jokes that I don’t think are it mean to say of someone that she “gets” idea of practicing his throws in his mind. In at all funny. I understand the humor of it Rolfi ng®? For the sake of completeness and the process of practicing his throws in his and what others are laughing about. But it clarity, I should mention that this article mind and on the mat he refi ned both and just doesn’t make me laugh. So I get the joke. builds on and is also a continuation of a discovered something amazing. “While I just don’t think it’s funny.” Unfortunately, number of previous articles in which I sitt ing there one evening working on the this sort of response confuses merely began laying the groundwork for looking throws in my mind, in a flash I simply understanding a joke with gett ing a joke. at how one becomes a Rolfer.1 ‘got’ judo. I got what it was, the essence Clearly, if you don’t understand a joke, of it. I understood what the founder of you will never get it. But it is also true that judo, Jigoro Kano, had in mind. Judo was WHAT DOES IT MEAN gett ing a joke and understanding it are really supposed to be easy! Suddenly I didn’t have TO GET A JOKE? quite diff erent. to learn technique aft er technique searching Although it may seem like a peculiar way To see how this is so, let’s imagine that for “judo” – I could create techniques to begin, let’s look at what it means to “get” you just heard a joke that is an example from my new understanding. It seemed a joke. More precisely, what conditions of the tasteless bathroom humor common unbelievable, even aft er my success with must be met in order for us to say that to twelve-year-old boys. You probably mind training, but the power of this insight someone got a joke? The results of such responded with judgment rather than was proven by an immediate change in an investigation could be illuminating for laughter, thinking, “Yikes! What a crude my abilities. Overnight, I became good at other domains of inquiry, such as aesthetic and stupid joke!” But let’s now imagine judo. And, overnight I became a real fan theory. Perhaps if we knew what it was to that you were suddenly transformed into of insight.” He practiced diligently and get a joke, we would be in a bett er position a twelve-year-old boy again. How might constantly until he suddenly grasped the to know what it was to appreciate great you respond? More than likely, you would principle or essence of judo. At the very art. Getting a joke and appreciating art suddenly appreciate the humor of it all and same moment he grasped the essence of are forms of understanding that are at the laugh your heart out. When the laughter judo, his abilities were instantly enhanced. same time a bodily response – laughter in subsided and you were transformed into He made the profound but simple one case and being moved at a feeling level an adult again, you would no longer think discovery that “conscious insight could in the other. The bodily response is, in fact, it is funny. Since you lost the mind-set make an enormous diff erence in physical inseparable from the understanding. The of a twelve-year old boy, you no longer performance.”2 For our purposes what is same is true for Rolfi ng or any form of get the joke. True, you understand the also important about his discovery is that somatic therapy. Mastering any somatic joke, but you don’t really get it. For in the insight and enhanced performance were practice involves a bodily response that end, really gett ing the joke requires some not two separate occurrences, but one and is actually a kind of understanding. In the the same event.

34 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES

Practice alone won’t create this kind of a respectful, but slightly altered version of “I am not a bodyworker. leap in performance and just being able Chuang Tzu’s poem “Cutt ing Up an Ox.” I And I have Rolfed this way for nineteen years. to accurately conceptualize its essence changed the text in critical places in order My hands have touched won’t do it either. The kind of insight he to make it more relevant to Rolfi ng. It fi rst Thousands of people. manifested is not like an ordinary insight appeared nineteen years ago in Rolf Lines Yet they are soft and supple where you fi nally understand how to solve under the title of “The Tao of Rolfi ng.”3 Like a baby’s. a simple math problem. Ralston’s insight Never do I feel pain or dis-ease. captured his whole being. Not just his John’s Rolfer was demonstrating mind understood. Every bit of him knew His art on a volunteer from the audience. “There are spaces in the body; and manifested the insight. All aspects Out went a hand, My fi ngers can be either fat or lean: of his training and his being were forged Down went a shoulder, When this deft ness into one integrated understanding and all He planted a foot, Finds that space of him suddenly understood. Insight and His fi ngers joined with the fl esh, There is all the room you need! enhanced performance were one and the The volunteer’s body shuddered, It goes like a breeze! same activity. He didn’t just know it in his Soft ened, lengthened, Hence I have Rolfed this way for nineteen years bones – no, it’s deeper than that – all of And suddenly was integrated and at ease. Free of calluses and all eff ort. him, including his bones, knew. Analogous With a whisper, to how you are seized with laughter when The Rolfer’s fi ngers pulsated with the fl esh, “True, there is sometimes you get a hilarious joke, Ralston’s body Like a gentle breeze. Tough tissue. I feel it coming, was seized with understanding – his whole Rhythm! Timing! I slow down, I watch closely, being simply and completely knew. He Like a sacred dance, Hold back, barely move my hands, didn’t just understand judo, he got it. Like “The Mulberry Grove,” And whoosh! something opens and makes way Like ancient harmonies! Gently fl owing like a river. You can easily see examples of Ralston’s discovery at work in the practice of Rolfi ng. “Good work!” John exclaimed. “Then I withdraw my hands, Rolfers who get Rolfing are not bound “Your method is faultless!” I stand still by “recipes”; get bett er change with less “Method?” said the Rolfer, And let the joy of my work eff ort; create new techniques in response His hands still in contact with the volunteer, Sink in. I wash my hands to their client’s need; and get bett er results “What I follow is the Tao of Rolfi ng, And my work is done.” than Rolfers who just understand Rolfi ng, Beyond all methods! even when both are employing the very John said, same techniques and treatment strategies. “When I fi rst began “This is it. My Rolfer has shown me I think every Rolfer has heard about how To Rolf, How I ought to live Dr. Rolf was fond of always asking her I would see before me My own life!” students “What is Rolfi ng?” only to reject The whole body every answer they gave. Since I wasn’t there Chuang Tzu’s story is wonderful description All in one mass. for Dr. Rolf’s question, I can only speculate of a practitioner who gets it with his whole about what she was aft er. I suspect that being. The story also clearly illustrates “A ft er three years, what she was looking for was not just a the evolution in orientation, perception, I no longer saw this mass. verbal defi nition, but the ability to manifest evaluation, and how the work is delivered I saw the distinctions. in words and comportment what it meant to when a practitioner of any somatic discipline really get Rolfi ng. Gett ing Rolfi ng is not just strives to master his art and fi nally gets it. “But now, I see nothing a matt er of being able to defi ne it in words. When the Rolfer fi rst began his practice, With the eye. My whole being You have to get Rolfi ng with your whole his perceptual skills were still developing; Apprehends. being, including your fl esh – you have to and he needed a “recipe” to guide him. As My senses are idle. The spirit, be seized with understanding, not just once, his perceptual vitality increased, he was Free to work without the recipe, but over and over again as you develop and able to make fi ner and fi ner distinctions Follows its own instinct evolve throughout your career. that freed him to sometimes work outside Guided by the natural Palintonic lines, the recipe. With more and more practice, By the secret opening, the hidden space, he was able to finally completely shift THE TAO OF ROLFING My hands fi nd their own way. his orientation or intentionality to where I use no excessive force, I scour no bones. Since I have only briefly sketched the he was able to apprehend his client with difference between getting Rolfing and his whole being. He was now able to fi nd “A good bodyworker needs a vacation merely understanding it, we now need to his own way to practice Rolfi ng without Once a year – he works with great eff ort look more closely at this ability to know following a recipe. Because he was free And large calluses. with our whole body and try to understand enough to become one with his client, his A poor bodyworker needs a vacation what the practice of Rolfi ng looks like when hands became deft at fi nding and creating Every month – he mashes fascia with sweating, it is enhanced by this kind of understanding. space and allowing tough tissue to release Swollen hands. We can begin by drawing inspiration from itself without eff ort. Whereas he used to the writings of the great Taoist philosopher work with direct muscular eff ort and will, and mystic, Chuang Tzu. What follows is he now fi nds that his hands are capable of

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 35 PERSPECTIVES allowing a space for the kind of change the it also involves the integration of our from your feeling nature. Your intellectual body can aff ord. It feels as if something is feeling nature. As it turns out, our feeling understanding is never abandoned, but working through him making room for nature is just as capable of perceiving it recedes to the background, informing change. He has become like the poet whose objective qualities of our world as our your work rather than determining it step poems write themselves. senses. Not only that, our feeling nature by step. As a result, your work ceases is also capable of revealing aspects of to be as mechanical and painful as you What is missing in the original Chuang reality that are unavailable to senses. By naturally work with more fi nesse and less Tzu story and in the above retelling and means of examples and a discussion of force. Because you are working with your summary is an attempt to explicate the how we appreciate art, the article further whole body, because your feeling nature phenomenon of apprehending with your demonstrated how the evaluation of compassionately apprehends by embracing whole being. Since I have already laid the clients during a Rolfi ng session requires and being embraced by your client’s feeling groundwork in a previous article, entitled the integration of our cognitive, sensory, nature, your client’s body feels safe to “The Disclosive Power of Feeling,”4 I only and feeling natures. In order to see what reveal its problems to you. As your feeling need to briefl y summarize the main points apprehending with your whole being might nature participates with the feeling nature in order to carry through this explication. look like during a Rolfi ng session, I gave a of your client, the deft ness of your fi ngers Succinctly stated, apprehending with your rather lengthy example of assessing a client. “can either be fat or lean”; and instinctively, whole being is a matt er of learning to pay without thought or premeditation, they attention to and trust how your feeling By appropriating the insights gained know where go next and how to creatively nature perceives reality. from this investigation into the nature of allow eff ortless change: “there is all the perception, we can see that apprehending Although it is seldom understood or room you need! It goes like a breeze!” with our whole being requires fi rst and appreciated, our feeling nature is a form foremost that we get in touch with our The more you learn to perceive, trust in, of perception. It “is not only deeply feeling nature. We also must get beyond our and work with the integration of your intertwined with and embedded in all our own confl icts and fi xations, at least while feeling nature with your mind and senses, states of awareness, it is also what we share we are working with clients, and learn to the more your experience of Rolfi ng clients with all living creatures. It is how other trust what it reveals to us. Eventually, we resembles the creative performance6 of a forms of life, especially those without a must come to realize that our feeling nature piece of music or a dance performance. In brain or nervous system, perceive their is just as reliable as our senses and that an inspired musical performance, the music world. Furthermore, what we recognize full-bodied perception involves not just the seems to play itself through you rather in ourselves as consciousness is a highly integration of the cognitive and sensory, but than being the result of your playing the evolved elaboration of the same feeling also the integration of our feeling nature music. In an inspired dance performance, nature that all life shares. coupled with the ability to stay open to you and your partner dance as one and “Our feeling nature is a non-dualistic, what it reveals. you experience yourselves as being danced participatory way of knowing that is not rather than performing a dance. founded in thinking. It permeates every THE ART OF ROLFING Similarly, when you practice Rolfing dimension of our being and every level from your whole being, you no longer of awareness and is fully integrated with Our cursory look at gett ing a joke gave us experience your self working from the our sensory and cognitive nature. Even a way to understand how gett ing Rolfi ng is outside according to a protocol external though we regularly take no notice of it a matt er of being seized by a kind of bodily to the body. Instead, your experience of because our consciousness is dominated understanding. But unlike gett ing a joke, Rolfing is transformed into a creative by our refl ective “I-am-self,” it is always Rolfi ng is about bringing that insight into dance in which movement and change there bringing us into unity with our an activity that helps other people. When occur through you, as if something else, surroundings and revealing the greater you stop laughing, you are done with the something bigger than you and the client, ocean of sentience of which we are a part.”5 joke – nothing more is required, and you are soon on to what the next moment brings. were doing and guiding the work. You In order to elucidate how our feeling nature When you are seized with understanding do not so much will the work of Rolfi ng is a form of perception, “The Disclosive Rolfi ng, you are taken over with an insight as allow it to take its own course. Like an Power of Feeling” begins with some that changes you and enhances your work inspired artist in whom inspiration and examples and a discussion of intentionality with others. expression do not occur as two separate acts, that is designed to show how perception but are realized as one and the same act, you involves the integration of the mind and Knowing that you are more effective feel no separation between assessment, the senses. We don’t just perceive with because of your insight, your desire to intention, execution and your client. By the senses alone. Our ability to see this help others is awakened at a deeper level. gett ing your self out of the way, you allow as a tree or that as a mountain is called As you dwell in and work with the insight, your client to manifest her nature and “aspect-seeing” and is the contribution you fi nd yourself Rolfi ng more and more problems and participate in the freedom our mind makes to perception. We are not from your feeling nature and less and less of an inspired dance of transformation. passive receivers of incoming data. Rather, from the intellect with its predetermined The full-bodied perception of a problem we are active interrogators reaching out formulas and habitual ways of working. in your client is already the initiation of its and groping for variegated contours of Certainly the intellect is indispensable change. Perception, assessment, knowing meaning or sense. Not only does perception to learning your craft and evolving your where to work, knowing what to do next, involve the integration of mind and senses, skills; but when your whole being fi nally and how and where to apply pressure with gets it, you are able to work more creatively

36 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES your hands becomes one seamless whole- be as able to entrain clients in accordance again at deeper and deeper levels. In the body activity when you work from your with the goals of Rolfi ng. He may be able to end, it doesn’t matt er whether you get it integrated feeling nature. entrain them in other ways, but not in the suddenly or in small increments. What ways of Rolfi ng. Finally, it is important to matt ers is that you get it. Your experience of Rolfi ng becomes more remember, as I previously pointed out, that and more like an inspired artist’s as you the power of intention has no power unless manifest the kind of freedom and joy that NOTES there is a change in your intentionality.7 arises when you surrender yourself to the Without this change in intentionality, your 1. Two recent articles are especially relevant: discipline of your practice. As you continue work is not as eff ective as it could be, and “Zen and the Art of Rolfi ng,” Structural to plumb the depths of your feeling nature, your intention to make change has no eff ect. Integration, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2007), you also become more aware of how to With it, amazing things are possible. pp. 21-25 and “The Disclosive Power of perceive and work with energy in the Feeling,” Structural Integration, Vol. 36, context of a Rolfi ng session. Even though Since you have good days and bad days, No. 2 (June 2008), pp. 8-13. Also relevant it no longer feels as though you are Rolfi ng and since the nature of each session you is “Orthotropism and the Unbinding of with direct muscular eff ort or will, your perform is largely dependent on your Morphological Potential,” Rolf Lines, Vol. work becomes more eff ective. As you work clients’ limitations and possibilities, even 29. No. 1 (2002), pp. 15-24. more and more from your feeling nature, if you get Rolfing at the deepest level your hands do not so much make change in possible, you cannot count on every session 2. Peter Ralston, Zen Body-Being. Berkeley: your client as discover ways to allow room being a great inspired event. Although it is North Atlantic Books, 2006, pp. 16-17. for the kind of change her body can aff ord. something of an exaggeration, it is largely 3. “The Tao of Rolfi ng,” Rolf Lines, July/ You allow a clearing within which change true that a Rolfer is only as good as the August 1990, p. 1. The version of “Cutt ing becomes possible. people she works on. Some clients are so Up an Ox” from which I created “The Tao prepared for what the dance of Rolfi ng of Rolfing” was from Thomas Merton’s CONCLUSION has to off er that they make you look like a The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: New great Rolfer. Others have so many problems Directions, 1995). As every experienced Rolfer will tell you, that you have to work really hard to bring gett ing to the point where you really get them along. Nevertheless, aft er all this talk 4. “The Disclosive Power of Feeling,” Rolfi ng is no simple matt er. It takes time, about Rolfi ng as an inspired performance, Structural Integration, Vol. 36, No. 2 (June money, practice, and study, and then more it is important to remind ourselves that 2008), pp. 8-13. time, more money, more practice, and our job is to help people, not become some 5. Ibid., p. 13. more study. It also takes a surrendering sort of diva. Gett ing Rolfi ng is fi rst and of self to the discipline of the work along foremost about the compassionate desire 6. For more on the nature of creativity with a concomitant opening to your to help others. and creative performance and the role unencumbered feeling nature. In the of allowing and the will, see my articles language of Zen, you must go to zero. Sometimes aft er a lot of hard work, you “Creativity” in The Journal of Aesthetics Then, sometimes when you least expect it, have a deep insight that fundamentally and Art Criticism (Vol.XXXIV, No. 4, a shift occurs; and you notice that you are changes the way you work. But to your Summer, 1976), pp. 397-409 and “Creative perceiving more accurately, feeling more great distress, a few days later you fi nd Performance: The Art of Life” in Research of your client’s state, more able to perceive that you cannot sustain it. Fortunately, in Phenomenology (Vol X, 1980), pp. 278- and work with energy while eff ortlessly this regression is only temporary. What 303. See also the chapter entitled, “The working with more fi nesse and less force. is actually happening is that you are Allowing-will” in my book Spacious Body: relinquishing old patt erns so that the new Explorations in Somatic Ontology (Berkeley: Eventually, you begin to notice that the insight can take root. Since the insight goes North Atlantic Books, 1995). minute you enter your Rolfi ng room, you so deep, the only way you can sustain and become a kind of beacon for the order that accommodate it is to undergo far-reaching 7. “Zen and the Art of Rolfi ng,” Structural Rolfi ng stands for. Your ability to work changes in your way of being. Aft er you go Integration, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2007), pp. from your unencumbered feeling nature through the process of relinquishing old 24-25. brings with it the power to work with patt erns to this new opening, these new, energy and to entrain the feeling nature enhanced ways of seeing and working of your clients. This fundamental change finally become fully integrated into in your intentionality effortlessly and your practice. wordlessly calls forth change in your client. Because you have spent years studying My choice of examples makes it appear as and working as a Rolfer to the point where though all insight occurs suddenly and all your psychobiological orientation is all but at once. But this one-sided diet of examples instinctive, your presence naturally entrains is misleading. Sometimes these shift s in your clients along the lines of Rolfing. orientation accumulate as a series of small No matt er how powerful a practitioner’s insights that you do not fully appreciate energy work might otherwise be, unless his at fi rst. But in time they add up to real psychobiological intentionality is saturated understanding and you realize you are with the kind of understanding that comes diff erent. Gett ing a complicated practice from being an experienced Rolfer, he won’t like Rolfi ng requires gett ing it again and

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 37 REVIEWS

sections titled “Legs and Crotch,” “Spine,” “Ovary” and “Skin”, we are privy to intimate revelations that echo archetypal feminine experience, “the collective sorrow of women.” Her body now the teacher, she seamlessly shift s between sensation and Skin of Glass: Finding memory, past and present, thought and fl esh, eroticism and spirituality. Movement becomes spiritual calligraphy, a divine Spirit in the Flesh statement that off ers a glimpse of what it is like to live in full sentience. If we let them, By Dunya Dianne McPherson McPherson’s words seep into our cells, transmitt ing something of a fi ner reality, Reviewed by Mary Bond, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ and the possibility of a fully embodied life. I must admit that I read this book twice he spiritual facet of structural before I “got” it. During the fi rst reading, I Tintegration is no secret, and yet, felt the prose overly literary. I’m a lover of following Dr. Rolf’s example, we simple sentences. But I was wrong. When practitioners seldom go public with the McPherson’s language becomes ornate, it glimmering, mysterious folds of our work is with conscious intent. Because she is a – how it cleanses our histories, frees us Sufi teacher, her presence – through her to explore our very nubs and helps us to words – has the capacity to ignite new embrace, though our bodily selves, our consciousness in receptive readers. My peri-physical being. initial resistance to the book was just that Dunya Dianne McPherson, dancer, – resistance – the stubborn kind that rises choreographer, Sufi teacher, filmmaker up to block release. Each reader’s process and writer, shares a somatic journey that with Skin of Glass will be unique. For me, parallels our own paths as healers. Her once I let go, it produced a deepening sense memoir, Skin of Glass: Finding Spirit in of the co-rhythms between myself and the the Flesh (Dancemeditation Books, 2008), natural world, a reduction of separateness. recounts in graceful, evocative language In the third and concluding part of her her somatic journey to the center of self. memoir, “Circulation,” McPherson brings She writes in a language of embodiment, us into the circle of her Dance Meditation her phrases flowing and rhythmic, rich students. In a passage that will resonate with sensual imagery. The book is a with anyone who has ever tried to teach resource not only for structural integration our work, she speaks of the fi ne distinction practitioners, but also for those clients who between “concentration, which involves find themselves alone in their somatic unmanageable. In a turn of events that will eff ort, and Absorption, the state of being travels. For them, McPherson’s text may ring true to many Rolfers, the inevitable effortlessly concentrated.” She artfully well become a beloved friend and guide. debilitating injury precipitates the descent conveys the rhythms of a class, and the In Part One, “Formation,” the author tracks that drives the dancer onto a path of necessity to track the life of a group like her body memories, from childhood’s transformation, a path on which dance a roaming animal. About being a teacher barefoot dancing on Cape Cod, through a becomes prayer and passage to the Divine. she writes: grueling dance career in the dance mecca The experience of energetic transmission I’ve been a Sufi teacher for almost of New York City, and on into a seventeen- through which a Sufi student imbibes twenty years. I undo, uncover, remove, year apprenticeship with an Iraqi Sufi the teachings from a master takes up kindle, erase and rouse, a contrast to master. Through these diverse settings the balance of the opening section of my early teaching years when I ladled runs the common theme of the inferior McPherson’s story. With her, we experience steps, repertoire and concepts into and correctible Feminine. We see this in the sublime and the mundane, ascent and the eager bodies of young dancers- the sexual roles of her parents, in the role of descent, empowerment and humiliation, to-be. Then, leaning against a steady dancer as instrument, and in the submission until, no longer requiring a Teacher, rock of information, which endowed of spiritual seeker to guru. McPherson sets out on her path alone. me with institutional weightiness, I We witness McPherson’s disembodiment watched them scrutinize themselves The second part of McPherson’s book, in the mirror, tweaking their sinews as as she cruelly forges her body to the will “Sensation,” shares her daily Dance of her art. At Juilliard she takes class with I had done years before. Now, I close Meditation practice of an hour or more my eyes, always looking at emptiness, Nureyev, survives for years on a diet of in which her body is the mandala and sashimi and caffeine, and plunges into and students follow me as I move and movement is the means of retrieving and breathe, drawing us into the simplicity therapy when the depression becomes integrating dormant aspects of self. In

38 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org REVIEWS

of moving and breathing. I sett le into a exchange except that Nothing is hard already approached them, and inspiring to fl ow of focus. My student’s wild non- to come by. those who have not. realities eddy around me. I respect Seasoned practitioners of structural More information about McPherson’s work is them by trying not to believe what they integration will agree that there is more found at www.dancemeditation.org. imagine me to be, a diffi cult task since I to our work than technical and scientifi c was once mostly a refl ection of others. mastery, that there is an aspect of Rolfi ng® Every so often a recurring anxiety which we accept as mystery. Whether invades my steady now-ness. Perhaps we seek to understand mystery through my students, wanting something for Buddhist practice, Continuum movement their money, aren’t so sure why they pay or biodynamic work, or whether mystery me for providing an expensive Nothing. simply invades us, the states McPherson I haven’t much to say in defense of this describes will be familiar to those who have

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www.rolf.org/member_conf/memberconf.htm www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 39 REVIEWS

its suspensory system of ligaments connecting into diff erent diaphragmatic att achments. He gives us a wonderful window into the secret life of the liver and its att achments. He spotlights the right triangular ligament to demonstrate Integral Anatomy Series, the blending of the parietal and visceral layers of the peritoneum. As opposed to imaging or conceptualizing this Volume 4: Viscera and anatomical idea, Hedley simply shows us how it happens. And again, he shows us that the whole is bigger their Fasciae than the sum of its parts. Within an integrated framework of the circular- DVD by Gil Hedley, Ph.D. shaped coronary ligament, perched on top of the liver, we see both the left and Reviewed by Bruce Schonfeld, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ right triangular ligaments. They fan out laterally as membranous/ligamentous n Volume 4: Viscera and their Fasciae extensions of the whole coronary form. I(2009, Integral Anatomy Productions) The falciform and round ligaments blend of The Integral Anatomy Series, Gil Hedley into each other on its anterior surface Ph.D. provides a user-friendly bridge and weave the liver to the parietal layer for the Rolfer™ curious about visceral with thicker cord-like att achments that anatomy and its many relationships provide both stability and mobility. with the musculoskeletal system. On one These ligamentous structures are level this DVD delivers solid educational not only in the same fascial layer – information on the visceral system, but they are the same fascial layer. They oh, there is so much more. Its like a master function like an intelligent spiderweb class on organ anatomy couched in the on top of, surrounding, suspending, and framework of whole-body connective facilitating motion of the liver. tissue. Hedley is knowledgeable about • Hedley’s demonstration of normal range “systems” fascial anatomy, takes his time of motion of the interfacing spleen to show the viewer the body clearly, and and stomach as articulating structures instills more complex material through is extremely helpful. It deepens one’s thoughtful repetition. The DVD has good conceptualization of normal range production values, so it’s easy to see what of motion within the serous fl uids of he is talking about and showing in the neighboring and interfacing organs. This actual dissections. As Hedley states, “it is sets the stage for many other visceral only possible to touch the whole person,” articulations. In another instance he and to this extent he seamlessly references captures the visual of the moment into the relationship between the containers back and forth between the revealed perfectly by referring to the hepato- and their contents: body’s layers, systems, structures and splenic ligament as a “slingshot,” fascial connections. He’s interested in how • Hedley shows the large attachment which it actually looks like in the anatomy behaves locally, how it relates to of the root of the mesentery to the specimen he’s showing. This potentially adjacent tissues and how it weaves in and posterior portion of the mid-line of difficult ligamentous relationship out of our whole overarching form. the abdominal cavity, i.e. the front of becomes newly accessible from this Hedley’s dissection and discourse on the lumbar spine. This view off ers an visual perspective. It just makes more fascial continuity shows us much of amazing window into low-back, spinal sense seeing all the related anatomy the connective-tissue alchemy that and gastrointestinal issues. It’s one of function as an integrated whole, seeing lives inside the pelvis, abdomen and those att achments that leaves nothing their depths, shapes, colors and thorax. These insights are invaluable in to the imagination with its big, broad gossamer-like connections. He reveals terms of understanding more of the body’s vertical connection across the lumbar a vast amount of pertinent information hidden infrastructure. As Hedley uses both spine. How could the spine be at ease if about our inner workings in both preserved and non-preserved donor bodies, the massive att achment on the front of physiological and fascial terms. it is having mobility problems? Clinical he is able to show the best of what both forms • The DVD illuminates the European insights and speculation naturally fl ow have to off er. As seeing is believing, this osteopathic idea of the “primary out of anatomical connections. video makes the viscera more approachable lesion” and its relationship to postural and understandable. The following are a • The detailed discussion and dissection compensation. For example, actually few highlights from Hedley’s exploration of the liver is very helpful as he shows seeing the infl exible adhesive properties

40 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org REVIEWS

of scar tissue in the deep abdomen, it information. He shows us three diff erent and have an outside-in approach. Volume 4 is much easier to imagine the resulting bodies and correlates their overall shape further explores the body’s interiors while compensation within the musculoskeletal to underlying biases within different building a Rolfer-friendly bridge between system. The interrelationship of anatomical systems. One has a bias in the the musculoskeletal and visceral anatomies. the organ (small intestine) to the fat, another in the musculature and the Volume 4 also advances the conversation big membrane (peritoneum) to the third in the viscera. This lesson is very between Rolfi ng® structural integration and musculature (transversus abdominus & helpful for visual assessment in terms of visceral osteopathy. Hedley shows us how co.) becomes much clearer upon seeing diff erentiating layers in a client’s postural structure and function are interrelated. As these underlying organ impinging presentation. This lesson is also very both forms are primarily driven by fascia, adhesions with clarity. The unrelenting helpful in terms of thinking about the this is an amazing opportunity to see areas pulls and lines of tension are apparent underlying mechanisms defi ning shape of overlap. Beautiful nature video vignett es in the tissue. How could function be and form. provide places to pause and exhale. Enjoy! optimal in a tangled web of adhesions? Ultimately, the structure of Hedley’s In relationship to the musculoskeletal dissection is in harmony with Dr. Rolf’s system we are able to see how adaptation original recipe. Philosophically there is can occur from the inside-out. continuity and coherence between structural • Hedley’s expose on gross morphology as integration and integral anatomy. They a primary factor in defi ning our overall fundamentally dovetail with each other in shape and form is another real jewel of terms of design. Both are holistic, layered,

Pierce begins the fi rst chapter, “Vitalizing the Musical Elements, One by One,” by Deepening Musical bridging the learning styles of kinesthetic, auditory and visual. She says that “movement refi nes listening” and relates Performance through the concept of vitality not only to music, but also to the felt sense of the performer. She goes on to speak about how vitality can Movement be explored more actively in a movement education environment. Pierce seeks to by Alexandra Pierce empower movement therapists to be positive-change agents when working Reviewed by Carolyn Pike, Certifi ed Rolfer™ towards pain relief and improvement in musical expression.

I found the book Deepening Musical Musical terms and concepts are described Performance through Movement: The Theory in enough depth for the book’s purposes, and Practice of Embodied Interpretation by for musicians and non-musicians alike. Alexandra Pierce (2007, Indiana University An educated musician will understand Press) to be a good balance between these terms and concepts in more detail structurally organized and artistically and possibly have a greater understanding guided writt en words. The book is geared of the author’s message. At times the text towards performers, music theorists, goes very deeply into highly descriptive composers, and movement professionals. At episodes revolving around sound. For times the text can get a bit wordy to explain some readers this may be intriguing. Others what should happen naturally, but there might wish to skim these parts in order to is value in her explanations of her work, focus on what speaks to them, as it relates which is based on experiences as a pianist, to their experience and client base. (The composer, music theorist, and movement author encourages diff erent starting places educator. (She also happens to be married as the reader goes through the book, based to a structural integrator.) She also makes on individual interests.) interesting references to her earlier research, Pierce speaks extensively about movement thus illustrating the experience she brings expressing emotional character and timbre to the book, and perhaps inspiring the (specifi c sounds). Reading these sections reader to enjoy artistic, sensory experiences may plant ideas for a Rolfer or Rolf more fully. Movement Practitioner™ to interpret and use as guidance for a musician, performer

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 41 or general client in his/her Rolfi ng® journey. I noticed that Rolfing references were An extensive notes section with more The text can be suggestive and ethereal. either explicit or implied in various places source information and asides provides Pierce gives starting points and suggestions through the book. For example, in a section extra details without interrupting the on how a movement therapist might “Focusing and Refi ning Movement” the fl ow of the text. Maintaining this section develop new ways to communicate; when author leads with: “To reeducate the body separately keeps the main body of the book providing systematic steps, the text allows toward its best use… ” Incorporation of on task. for individual adaptation. Rolfi ng principles such as wholism and Reading and reviewing Deepening Musical support makes this an interesting read for Movement techniques and concepts Performance through Movement turned out bodyworkers. Adaptability is also included introduced in this book are what great to be a treat for me as a Rolfer, musical but not specifi cally mentioned by name. performers do automatically. Virtuosic performer, and violin teacher. Its fl exibility talent embodies great movement practices, Pierce takes the reader through a wide between organization and expressive words whether taught or natural. The work spectrum of seated positions from posterior kept me involved, and the freedom to pick that Pierce has done here is to explain and anterior pelvic tilt with descriptions of and choose which sections to read first components of virtuosic talent that can typical counterbalancing positions superior will appeal to many readers and learning be taught through movement education. to the pelvis. Then she speaks about fi nding styles. This book is not only a wonderful The book’s message is that movement can center in relationship to these two extremes. resource for therapists, musicians and elicit passion and greatness. Moreover, Later a similar description of standing music teachers, but also qualifies as a movement suggestion and imagery along postures is outlined. These are productive well-researched academic work. While with the emotional state of the room and versatile enough to use with musician not agreeing with every premise outlined set by therapist and/or client can be and non-musician clients alike. in the book, the absorption of information catalytic toward passion and greatness in was both interesting and challenging. The book includes an array of descriptive performance. I am reminded of a book I The challenge was in the comparison of case studies and sensible steps toward read years ago as a young violinist – The the writt en word and my experience, and client education. Additionally, contrasting Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwe, then forming opinions with respect to the sections are introduced that are which was later adapted for musicians as juxtaposition of the two. conversations between two accomplished well. Those books were about the mental musicians with musical passages and Carolyn Pike studied violin performance and game of performing well under pressure line drawings depicting arm movements music education at the University of North without thinking about all the cumbersome expressing interpretations of musical Texas. Currently she is teaching and performing details; a sort of “lett ing go” with mastery passages. Musicians will enjoy these as music, as well as maintaining a Rolfi ng practice and confidence. In Deepening Musical being analogous to conducting gestures in Louisville, Kentucky. Performance through Movement Pierce seeks and non-musicians will enjoy the visual to give performers virtuosity through learning enabled by taking in the line movement education. drawings.

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To order, contact: [email protected] The 2008 keynote speaker, Serge Gracovetsky, privately offers Price: $15 each a video CD of his presentations. For more information: www.somatics.de/gracovetsky_info.pdf

42 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org MEMORIALS

Ruth Mendelsohn

Certifi ed Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement Practitioner™ Ruth Mendelsohn, of Portland, Maine, passed away February 18, 2009, shortly aft er her sixtieth birthday. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, she became a Rolfer in 1998, aft er a career as a textbook copy editor for McGraw Hill. An avid outdoorswoman, a friend to all sentient creatures, she was a delight to all who knew her.

 I’ll never forget her smile … like the sun att itude around the “batt le” against cancer. coming up in the morning! One could almost hear strains of “Onward Christian Soldiers” echoing through the Misha Noonan halls. Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer™ But Ruth was never comfortable with the Seattle, WA These are some of my memories of Ruth. “batt le” metaphor for her relationship with We have lost a credit to our profession cancer; for her, it seemed more a contest – a keen intellect and an endearing and of wits as she tried to outsmart it through  The day before Ruth left us, as I was generous soul. hiking in the Boulder foothills, memories “determined creative resistance” – as our of her overtook me. My thinking fixed friend Misha Noonan so aptly nailed it. And Heidi Massa on a particular expression she used at what fi ne and subtle wits she had! Ruth’s Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, the conclusion of activities or topics of incisive intelligence, combined with her Rolf Movement Practitioner™ conversation. The essence of “ani bah,” as gentleness, allowed her a singular way of Chicago, IL best I had inferred, never having asked gett ing her way. She was never combative, her about it was, “time to move on . . . .” but was instead persuasive by exposing to I now know that the words are modern her interlocutor his own weakness.  When I fi rst met Ruth in 2006, at a Rolf Movement® workshop in Brazil, I was Hebrew, meaning both “I am going” and “I We enjoyed endless belly laughs over struck at once by the centered and gentle- am coming,” expressing the circumstance something that happened at the Zion but-fi rm quality of her presence. One day I of transition. hospital: Zion conducted focus groups in saw her wearing a bracelet and commented which patients were invited to share with Returning to town, I passed for the on how beautiful it was. When we fi nally administrative personnel their experiences hundredth time, but noticed for the fi rst said goodbye at the end of the workshop, and impressions of the facility. To occupy time in years, the house where she was she took the bracelet from her arm and ® herself between treatments, Ruth att ended staying when we fi rst met during a Rolfi ng gave it to me. I still have it and wear it. one of these. Seated next to some Big Cheese workshop in 1999 – the house where we of the hospital, she fi rst complimented the had parties aft er class, where we became At the First International Fascia Research care she had received and how well she fast friends. Ruth was such a party girl! She Congress in Boston in 2007, I met Ruth had been treated. But there was just one loved red wine – evocative labels like 7 again. She told me she wanted to take me litt le thing… Patients were required to wear Deadly Zins and Heart of Darkness come “somewhere special.” I had been sick and plastic bracelets inscribed for reference to mind (any leftovers always dutifully wasn’t feeling well, but I decided to go with (in the event of emergency) with certain pumped with air), top-shelf Scotch whiskey, Ruth because she was so excited about it. key information – including the patient’s and really fi ne chocolate (never Ghirardelli). When we arrived, Ruth showed me the religion. In her case, the bracelet informed: But ever the gentle sophisticate, Ruth garden where she liked to sit and read or “Ruth Mendelsohn – JEW.” She asked the also loved the very best coffee as fresh write in her journal. It felt like an enchanted Big Cheese whether, in light of certain not- as possible, The New York Times, and fi ne and beautiful corner of the world . . . . It so-distant history, this wasn’t somewhat literature. is in such a place in my heart that I will insensitive. She watched him blanche white treasure my memory of gentle, wise and Years later in Chicago, I had the privilege – then blush red… Point won. and honor of hosting her in my home generous Ruth. What undoubtedly served Ruth well and accompanying her for treatments Monica Caspari throughout her life was her receptive and at a very special cancer hospital in Zion, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, kind disposition. Ruth was the apotheosis Illinois. It’s an interesting place – less like Rolf Movement Practitioner of social grace, personal equanimity, and a hospital than a cross between a day spa Sāo Paulo, Brazil and a business conference retreat center. courage under fi re. She was always the However, Zion had a distinctly evangelical perfect lady, always the titanium hand in fl avor combined with a certain marshal the cashmere glove.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 43 MEMORIALS

 A gentle discretion surrounded Ruth’s  You know kind of person who can walk presence – I experienced it as a desire not a mile in your shoes? That would be Ruth. to impose on others her batt les, the weight She was a best friend. of her burdens, but instead to emphasize I had a chance to receive work from my the lightness and joy of shared moments friend Ruth in workshops that we att ended, with her colleagues. In this way she went and during our visits over the years. She had beyond her troubles, or around them, to an uncommonly gentle way of att aching play through empathy with the communal and of sharing touch. While to look at her it music, to see the gestures, the dances, of was clear that she did not intend to “fascia a thought process that linked her with mash,” she made the most of her large others without the pathos of words and of capacity to be “involving.” Her feminine time passing . . . . hands and build would never att empt to The luminous smile that would light her face wrestle or dominate. Instead, she would when an event in the class opened a new meet. Her hands would fl ow on naturally, perspective showed her faith in a future, like one river melding into another. She though she knew it was compromised by never challenged for control; she would “sit illness. She spoke litt le, with care not to with it.” When she changed orientation she trample the shared space, not to cast upon would insinuate herself this away or that it the shadows that sometimes crossed her away, with hardly a disturbance. I don’t glance, her big eyes. believe she ever studied the Continuum method, but she did it when she worked Finally, what remains with me is the image with her hands. of her moments of joy: In those moments, what emanated from her was at once the Then there was her ability to feel rhythms – carefree sense of the child and the capacity cranial, visceral, and Lord only knows what to go beyond limitations, to overcome else she could fathom. When she fi nished obstacles, that real maturity allows – one the session, I would have a greater sense acquired in att ending to the other. In this of self because she had unconditionally she was rich, as everyone who came into listened to so much of me. contact with her could bear witness. She I remember Ruth, and I will miss her. taught me a lot, and I give thanks to her. Anne Sotelo Hubert Godard Certifi ed Rolfer™, Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer Rolf Movement Practitioner Chevigny, France Los Angeles, CA

44 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org INSTITUTE NEWS

Congratulations to the New Graduates

Europe – March, 2009

Faculty: Monica Caspari (Instructor), Giovanni Felicioni (Assistant) Students: Elizabeth Bynum, Tanja Ertel, Annette Falkenstein, Ruth Goost, Herbert Heitz, Michael Kücken, Henriette Müller, Esther Hernández Muñoz, Dagmar Schult, Brian Soderholm, Brooke Takac

U.S. – May, 2009

Faculty: Valerie Berg (Instructor), Laurence Rincon (Assistant) Students: Jeff Castle, Valentina Ercolani-Casadei, Heather Hobbs, Nao Kusumi, Anthea Lim, Brett Linder, Ayaka Mori, Alex Mott, Bethani O’Connor, Juan Jose Segura-Farias, Alejandra Troncoso-Espinoza, Rihab Yaqub

Welcome New Board Chairperson

Dear Rolf Institute Members,

We are pleased to announce that Hubert Ritter was recently elected as the new chairperson of the Rolf Institute Board. The following statement was relayed by Hubert in his acceptance of this position, “It will be an honor to serve the Rolfi ng community in this position and I will do my very best to help guide our organization through the current diffi cult times.” Hubert was elected as the chairperson by a unanimous vote of the Board.

Hubert was born in 1961. After school and few years working in his parent’s business, he studied economics and political science at the university of Innsbruck, Austria. He soon realized, however, that he was not cut out for a career in academics or the corporate world. His search for alternatives eventually brought him to the U.S., where he heard about Rolfi ng for the fi rst time. When he received his initial Rolfi ng session, he knew he had found what he had been looking for. Hubert completed his Rolfi ng Training in the U.S. in 1994 and from 19994 to 1999 he worked as a Rolfer in Washington D.C. In 1999 Hubert moved to Berlin, where he has been living and working since. In 2002, he was elected to the ERA Board and served as Chairman from 2003 to 2007. Last August, Hubert was elected by the European Rolfi ng Association as their representative to the RISI Board, and has since served on the RISI fi nance committee and has done work to help clarify the RIO contracts and build stronger communication internationally.

Kind regards,

The Rolf Institute Board of Directors

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 45 INSTITUTE NEWS

2009 Class Schedule

BOULDER, COLORADO Advanced Training BRAZIL Phase I: September 7 – 25, 2009 Unit III: Clinical Application Unit I: Foundations of Rolfing® Instructor: Ray McCall of Rolfing Theory Structural Integration/ FORSI Assistant: Jonathan Martine Phase II: January 18 – 29, 2010 September 18 – November 26, 2009 October 26 – December 14, 2009 Instructor: Ray McCall Instructors: Jan Sultan and Monica Caspari Coordinator: Suzanne Picard Assistant: Jonathan Martine

Advanced Training Unit I: Advanced Foundations of Rolf Movement® Certification Rolfing Structural Integration/ October 19 – November 20, 2009 Phase I: August 4 – 7 / 10 –14, 2009 AFORSI Instructors: Tessy Brungardt and Lael Keen Instructors: Mary Bond & Ashuan Seow July 12 – July 25, 2009 Phase II: August 18 – 21 / 24 – 28, 2009 Instructor: John Schewe Instructors: Mary Bond & Ashuan Seow KYOTO, JAPAN Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & Unit III: Clinical Application Rolf Movement Integration GERMANY of Rolfing Theory August 31 – October 22, 2009 Basic Rolfing Training: Intensive October 5 – November 25, 2009 Instructor: Bethany Ward Instructors: Pedro Prado, Monica Caspari Principles Instructor: TBA Phase 1: August 3 – 22, 2009 October 12 – December 10, 2009 Instructors: Konrad Obermeier, Gerhard Hesse, Instructor: Ray McCall Pierpaola Volpones Principles Instructor: Carol Agneessens Phase 2: October 5 – November 27, 2009 Instructors: Marius Strydom, Rita Geirola Unit III: Clinical Application Phase 3: February 1 – March 26, 2010 of Rolfing Theory Instructor: Pierpaola Volpones

October 12 – December 11, 2009 Instructor: John Martine Advanced Training Anatomy Instructor: John Martine Part I: August 3 – 21, 2009 Location: Vienna, Austria Instructor: Ray McCall Part II: February 2010 Location: Berlin, Germany Instructor: Ray McCall

46 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org INSTITUTE NEWS

2010 Class Schedule

BOULDER, COLORADO June 14 – July 12, 2010 Rolf Movement® Certification Instructor: TBA in West Virginia Principles Instructor: Rebecca Carli-Mills ® Unit I: Foundations of Rolfing August 30 – October 21, 2010 July 19 – 25 / August 23 – 29 / Structural Integration/ FORSI Instructor: Jon Martine October 5 – 12, 2010 Principles Instructor: Mary Bond Instructors: Jane Harrington & January 25 – March 8, 2010 Rebecca Carli-Mills October 11 – December 9, 2010 Coordinator: Juan David Velez Instructor: Ashuan Seow June 7 – July 19, 2010 Principles Instructor: Carol Agneessens Coordinator: Michael Polon GERMANY August 23 – October 4, 2010 Coordinator: Suzanne Picard Unit III: Clinical Application Basic Rolfing Training: Intensive of Rolfing Theory Phase 1: August 2 – 21, 2010 Unit I: Advanced Foundations of March 8 – April 30, 2010 Instructor: TBA Instructor: TBA Rolfing Structural Integration/ Phase 2: October 4 – November 26, 2010 Anatomy Instructor: TBA AFORSI Instructor: TBA June 7 – July 23, 2010 Phase 3: January 31 – March 24, 2011 March 14 – March 27, 2010 Instructor: Kevin McCoy Instructor: TBA Instructor: Jon Martine Anatomy Instructor: TBA July 18 – July 31, 2010 August 16 – October 8, 2010 Instructor: John Schewe Instructor: Libby Eason Anatomy Instructor: TBA October 24 – November 6, 2010 Instructor: TBA October 11 – December 10, 2010 Instructor: Ray McCall Anatomy Instructor: TBA Unit II: Embodiment of Rolfing & Rolf Movement Integration Advanced Training in Hawaii January 11 – March 4, 2010 Instructors: Russell Stolzoff (1st half) & Phase I: April 12 – 30, 2010 Ellen Freed (2nd half) Instructor: Sally Klemm Principles Instructor: Kevin Frank Assistant: Gael Ohlgren March 29 – May 20, 2010 Phase II: September 6 – 16, 2010 Instructor: Thomas Walker Instructor: Sally Klemm Principles Instructor: Jane Harrington Assistant: Lael Keen

For a full list of class schedules please go to these websites:

USA www.rolf.org Europe www.rolfi ng.org Brazil www.rolfi ng.com.br Australia www.rolfi ng.org.au Japan www.rolfi ng.or.jp

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / June 2009 47 CONTACTS

OFFICERS & THE ROLF INSTITUTE® JAPANESE ROLFING BOARD OF DIRECTORS 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 ASSOCIATION Boulder, CO 80301 Yoshiko Ikejima, Administrator Hubert Ritt er (Europe/Chairperson) (303) 449-5903 Bunkendo Bldg. 3rd Floor +49-30-4435 7473 (800) 530-8875 2-2-11 Kyobashi Chuoh-ku [email protected] (303) 449-5978 fax Tokyo 104-0031 www.rolf.org Valerie Berg (Faculty/Past Chairperson) Japan [email protected] (505) 341-1167 +81-3-5339-7285 fax [email protected] www.rolfi ng.or.jp ROLF INSTITUTE STAFF [email protected] Peter Bolhuis (At-large/CFO) Diana Yourell, Executive Director (303) 449-2800 Jim Jones, Director of Education [email protected] CANADIAN ROLFING Maya J. Gammon, Faculty Support ASSOCIATION Kevin McCoy (Faculty/Secretary) Heidi Hauge, Membership Kai Devai, Administrator (862) 202-2222 Judy Jones, Clinic Coordinator 615 - 50 Governor’s Rd. [email protected] Gena Rauschke, Accountant Trace’ Scheidt, Offi ce Manager Dundas, ONT L9H 5M3 Benjamin Eich enauer (At-large) Heather L. Walls, Admissions Canada (503) 280-5665 Susan Winter, Marketing & PR (416) 804-5973 [email protected] Fax: (905) 648-3743 www.rolfi ngcanada.org Marilyn Miller (Central USA) AUSTRALIAN ROLFING info@rolfi ngcanada.org (858) 451-2134 ASSOCIATION [email protected] Marnie Fitzpatrick, Administrator Jeff W. Ryder (Western USA) Suite 15, 3 Richmond Avenue (503) 250-3209 Sylvania Waters, NSW 2224 [email protected] Australia +61-2-9522 6770 Maria Helena Orlando (International/CID) +61-2-9522 6756 fax +55-11 3819-0153 www.rolfi ng.org.au [email protected] info@rolfi ng.org.au

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE BRAZILIAN ROLFING Peter Bolhuis Kevin McCoy ASSOCIATION Sybille Cavalcanti, Executive Director Hubert Ritt er R. Cel. Arthur de Godoy, 83 Vila Mariana EDUCATION EXECUTIVE 04018-050-São Paulo-SP COMMITTEE Brazil Ellen Freed, Chairperson +55-11-5574-5827 Duff y Allen +55-11-5539-8075 fax Libby Eason www.rolfi ng.com.br Michael Polon rolfi ng@rolfi ng.org.br Ashuan Seow EUROPEAN ROLFING ASSOCIATION E.V. Angelika Simon, Executive Director Martina Berger, Training Coordinator Monika Lambacher, Sales and PR Nymphenburgerstr. 86 80636 Münch en Germany +49-89 54 37 09 40 +49-89 54 37 09 42 fax www.rolfi ng.org info@rolfi ng.org

48 Structural Integration / June 2009 www.rolf.org

5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Periodicals Boulder, CO 80301