tructural ntegration S ® I THE JOURNAL OF THE ROLF INSTITUTE DECEMBER 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION: THE JOURNAL OF ® THE ROLF INSTITUTE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2 December 2017 Vol. 45, No. 4 COLUMNS Ask the Faculty: Pregnancy and Postpartum 3 PUBLISHER ® The Rolf Institute of ROLFING SI FOR PREGNANT AND POSTPARTUM CLIENTS Structural Integration Concerns and Considerations for Rolfing® SI During Pregnancy 6 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 Jeffrey Burch Boulder, CO 80301 USA Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Rolfing SI: An interview with Pilar Martin 8 (303) 449-5903 Shonnie Carson and Pilar Martin (303) 449-5978 Fax Rolfing SI After Cesarean Section 10 Dorit Schatz EDITORIAL BOARD Anne F. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief Changing the Trajectory of Life, Part 2 14 Briah Anson Shonnie Carson, Lineage Editor Szaja Gottlieb, Research/Science Editor A Doula’s View of Rolf Movement® Integration in Pregnancy: 17 Linda Loggins, Movement Editor A Conversation with Monica Caspari Heidi Massa, Latin America Editor Heidi Massa and Monica Caspari Keren’Or Pézard, Arts Editor Rolfing SI for All Stages of Pregnancy 19 John Schewe, Faculty Liason Christi Mueller Caspe Matt Walker, Asia/Pacific Editor A Compilation of Stories on Pregnancy, Postpartum Issues, 21 Naomi Wynter-Vincent, Europe Editor and Balancing Motherhood with a Rolfing Practice Diana Cary Szaja Gottlieb, Mélanie Holt, Deborah Weidhaas, Lina Hack, Lynn Cohen and Patty Murphy Craig Ellis Lina Hack ROLFING SI AND THE FEMALE BODY Dorothy Miller The Female Pelvis: Igniting a Transcendent Portal 25 Meg Maurer Carol Agneessens Deanna Melnychuk Max Leyf Treinen Working Women 29 Anne Hoff and Sally Klemm LAYOUT AND A Meta Perspective on Working with the Female Body 32 Libby Eason GRAPHIC DESIGN Susan Winter PERSPECTIVES Articles in Structural Integration: The Remembering Tim Law: The Man Behind the Little Boy Logo 34 Journal of The Rolf Institute® represent the Jan Marie Alarcon views and opinions of the authors and ‘The Blind Tailor’ and Biotensegrity 37 do not necessarily represent the official Anne Hoff and Luiz Fernando Bertolucci positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute Iconoclast: An Interview with Michael Maskornick 41 of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute about Rolfing® SI and Craniosacral Work reserves the right, in its sole and absolute Anne Hoff and Michael Maskornick discretion, to accept or reject any article for publication in Structural Integration: The REVIEW Journal of The Rolf Institute. Embryo in Motion: Understanding Ourselves as Embryo – 46 Structural Integration: The Journal of The DVD seminar by Jaap van der Wal MD Rolf Institute® (ISBN-13: 978-0997956955, Lina Hack ISSN 1538-3784) is published by the Rolf Institute, 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, CONTACTS 48 Boulder, CO 80301. Copyright ©2017 Rolf Institute. All rights reserved. Duplication in whole or in part in any form is prohibited without written permission from the publisher. “Rolfing®,” “Rolf Movement®,” “Rolfer™,” and the Little Boy Logo are service marks of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF In Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) sessions, our focus is on the unique features of the individual client – his or her structure, and what is required to bring it more into alignment with the field of gravity. Yet there are times when what we do and how we work interfaces with broader considerations, such as work for a specific demographic, or a domain of experience that is affecting the individual. In the September 2017 issue of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®, we looked at a particular demographic: infants and children. Articles in that issue explored how Rolfing SI is applied to infants and children, how the work is shaped by the fact that your client is not an adult, and what different considerations there may be for working with an infant, or a young child, or a teenager. In this issue, we look to another demographic – women – and also to specific female situations where special considerations again come into play – pregnancy and the postpartum period. In our first theme, Rolfing SI for Pregnant and Postpartum Clients, we draw on the expertise of Rolfers™ who have worked extensively in this field. Jeffrey Burch opens the theme with an overview of the concerns and considerations merited during pregnancy. In two interviews, Pilar Martin, a nurse/midwife, and Monica Caspari, a doula, share from their perspectives and experience. Dorit Schatz, another nurse/midwife, informs us about the C-section procedure and how the Rolfing series can support recovery. Briah Anson and Christi Mueller Caspe each cover aspects of Rolfing SI from pre-pregnancy through pregnancy and postpartum. Our final article on this theme is a compilation piece that brings in Rolfers’ stories from their practices: work with pregnant and postpartum clients, working as a pregnant Rolfer, the changes in one’s Rolfing practice as motherhood enters the picture, and the impact of pregnancy and delivery on embodied experience. In our second theme, Rolfing SI and the Female Body, we look at female embodied experience. We start with Carol Agneesens’ evocative article on the female pelvis, where she covers a range from neurology through to transcendent experience. Then Sally Klemm speaks about femaleness in relation to being a Rolfing client, a Rolfing Instructor, and a Rolfer working with issues – physical or psychobiological – specific to women. In closing, Libby Eason threads between elements of experience that are female, yet still uniquely personal, rounding out our theme. In the Perspectives section, we first remember Tim Law, who passed away this summer. Tim, as a child, received Rolfing sessions from Ida Rolf and was the model for the Little Boy Logo. Tim remained a lifelong believer in the power of Rolfing SI, attributing the longevity of his career as a carpenter to this early work he received. Wanting to encourage Rolfers to bring our work to carpenters’ unions so that others could benefit as he did, Tim took time away from a final family reunion to speak with Jan Alarcon about his memories of Dr. Rolf and his adult life. John Barrett, Tim’s older brother, helps flesh out the story. John also experienced Dr. Rolf’s work during childhood, and being a couple of years older than Tim, he has more vivid memories of Dr. Rolf and the timing of events. The Perspectives section also includes an interview with Luiz Fernando Bertolucci – following up on his work of Tensegrity Touch® – and an interview with Michael Maskornick on his iconoclastic view of Rolfing SI and craniosacral ork.w Anne F. Hoff Editor-in-Chief 2 Structural Integration / December 2017 www.rolf.org COLUMNS instinct is to lean back to counterbalance the Ask the Faculty weight. The strain for this can be alleviated somewhat by assuring that the atlanto- Pregnancy and Postpartum occipital junction has the possibility of easy neutral (same principle as the sacrum). Q: Women can come to us with unique circumstances when pregnant or Remember that the head on atlas is not the postpartum. Can you share something from your understanding or experience primary place where rotation happens, but related to working at these times? that this easy neutral allows adaptation to more system-wide movement patterns. A: To say that a pregnant woman is a body The reason we start the intervention with The primary locus of rotation for the head in motion (to borrow from Emily Conrad) bringing the sacrum to ‘easy neutral’ is to on neck is between C1 and C2. It is around is the least of it. Not only is she changing facilitate this subtle counter-rotation of the the odontoid process of C2 and the facets shape, but metabolically she is awash ilia around the sacrum in walking. It should of the C1-C2 interface where most of the in different hormones associated with be obvious that if the sacrum is motion- motion and potential neck pain come pregnancy. She feels herself differently. restricted, then the ilia can’t complete their from. To establish an easy neutral here She is herself, and yet in a unique state. normal gait movements. And further, that will go a long way to making the woman I do not work with pregnant women on if the sacrum is motion-restricted between more comfortable. their postural evolution. I aim to keep them the ilia, then the normal mechanics of the Finally a word about arms as a factor in as stable and organized as possible, and sacrum on the fifth lumbar also become well-being in pregnant women. As the comfortable. I do not use the Ten Series for stressed. The organization of this delicate legs are the primary support in the biped, this work, but rather have developed some complex of the lumbars, sacrum, and ilia is the arms are a primary source of balance other systematic approaches that seem to essential to the felt sense of well-being in a and, of course, how we move the world. serve them well. pregnant woman. Motion restriction here is In pregnancy the arms will come under usually at the root of low-back pain at the If I do nothing else, I make sure the sacrum much use for changing equilibrium. As such level of the iliac crest, and/or felt as a deep has a horizontal base and can be in easy they are liable to be a source of discomfort. ache in the buttock. neutral with the spine in a supine or seated Oddly they will not necessarily register position. As pregnancy develops, the prone The next major areas of stress for pregnant pain and discomfort, but rather be a silent position becomes less and less tenable. You women are the costo-transverse junctions.