tructural ntegration S ® I THE JOURNAL OF THE ROLF INSTITUTE SEPTEMBER 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION: THE JOURNAL OF ® THE ROLF INSTITUTE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2 September 2016 Vol. 44, No. 3 COLUMNS Ask the Faculty: Lineage and Inspiration 3 PUBLISHER Inter-Faculty Perspectives: Integration – How Do We Define It? 5 The Rolf Institute of How Do We Assess It? Where Do We Place It in the Ten Series? Structural Integration 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103 ROLFING® LINEAGE AND HISTORY Boulder, CO 80301 USA Journeyman: An Interview with Jan Sultan 11 (303) 449-5903 María Cristina Jiménez and Jan Sultan (303) 449-5978 Fax Burning Man, Part 2: Continuing the Interview with Michael Salveson 14 Szaja Gottlieb and Michael Salveson EDITORIAL BOARD Anne F. Hoff, Editor-in-Chief Emmett Hutchins: In Memoriam 19 Nicholas French Shonnie Carson, Lineage Editor Szaja Gottlieb, Research/Science Editor Spirit of Movement: An Interview with Judith Aston-Linderoth 20 Linda Loggins, Movement Editor on the Early History of the Rolf Movement® Work Heidi Massa, Latin America Editor Shonnie Carson and Judith Aston-Linderoth Keren’Or Pézard, Arts Editor An Awakening: My History with Rolfing SI 26 John Schewe, Faculty Liason Harvey Ruderian with María Cristina Jiménez Matt Walker, Asia/Pacific Editor Naomi Wynter-Vincent, Europe Editor OSTEOPATHY AND FASCIA Diana Cary Popular Ruts: Fascia Revisited 30 Lynn Cohen Jane Eliza Stark Craig Ellis Lina Hack Fascial Fluidity and Contiguity: An Interview with Jane Eliza Stark 35 Dorothy Miller Ron Murray and Jane Stark Meg Maurer A Review and Commentary on Still’s Fascia 38 Robert McWilliams Carol A. Agneessens Deanna Melnychuk Max Leyf Treinen PERSPECTIVES The Ankle-Lean Sequence 41 LAYOUT AND Jeffrey Maitland GRAPHIC DESIGN Susan Winter INSTITUTE NEWS 43

Articles in Structural Integration: The CONTACTS 44 Journal of The Rolf Institute® represent the views and opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions or teachings of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. The Rolf Institute Cover image: Advanced Rolfing® Instructor Jeffrey Maitland demonstrating his reserves the right, in its sole and absolute Ankle-Lean Intervention (see article on page 41). Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Maitland. discretion, to accept or reject any article for publication in Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute.

Structural Integration: The Journal of The Rolf Institute® (ISBN-13: 978-0-9979569-0-0, ISBN-10: 0-9979569-0-9, ISSN 1538-3784) is published by the Rolf Institute, 5055 Chaparral Ct., Ste. 103, Boulder, CO 80301.

Copyright ©2016 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

R olfers™, meeting one another for the first time, ask, “Who did you train with?” We swap stories about trainings and continuing- education classes and the instructors who have most influenced us. This is because Rolfing® Structural Integration is largely an oral tradition, passed from teacher to student. Lineage is thus a paramount concern in our community, as it was for Ida Rolf when she hand- picked and groomed individuals to be her first instructors. She no doubt knew that the preservation and development of her work, not yet deeply rooted in the world, depended upon their understanding, commitment, and capacity to transmit it further.

Rolfing® Integration . . . is not just about knowledge, it’s something you could only learn by oral transmission. You have to have a teacher who is capable of demonstrating the results, showing you the results, producing the result in your own body, and guiding your hands while you make those strategic decisions and interventions. Michael Salveson

Our first theme in this issue, Rolfing Lineage and History, hearkens back to those early times. We have interviews with Jan Sultan and Michael Salveson, two of the first five instructors chosen by Rolf and key ‘lineage holders’ at the Rolf Institute®. These men wear the Rolf mantle with grace, articulate Rolf’s work with cogency, and develop the Rolfing work further with brilliancy, as Rolf herself would have done had she had more years. We then have a memorial piece on a third of Rolf’s initial instructors, Emmett Hutchins, who recently passed. Hutchins was devoted to Rolf’s vision with a singular passion that indubitably inspired a generation of practitioners. Yet it also must be said that his departure from the faculty and the Institute fractured our community; members felt compelled to take sides, and we still feel the wounds of what came to be know as ‘the split’. Nicholas French’s remembrance of Emmett Hutchins looks at the man in toto, why he is so beloved by some and yet such a contentious figure to others. Going further with lineage, we interview Judith Aston-Linderoth, who at Rolf’s behest developed the first iteration of what has become Rolf Movement® work. In her story, we see what happened when two pioneering geniuses met under the same roof. Ultimately, the House of Rolf had room for only one visionary: Rolf was compelled by a need to solidify and preserve her work for the future, and some of Aston-Linderoth’s developments challenged elements of the founder’s work. Leaving the Rolf Institute was painful, but it allowed the younger woman to fly free – which brought about the brilliant outflow of creativity that became Aston Patterning® and Aston Kinetics®. Now an elder in her own right, Aston-Linderoth retains the utmost respect for Rolf, and we see in her story the tenderness and respect Rolf maintained for her. We round out this first theme with Harvey Ruderian’s story of his own Rolfing ‘awakening’ and his early days of training with Rolf. While the details are uniquely his own, we see the power of Rolfing SI to awaken those called to the lineage. This speaks to the inner flame of the work, its power to elicit transformation – whether the physical transformations that are the hallmark of our work (aligned bodies and resultant relief from pain) or the dramatic personal transformations that sometimes occur. Our second theme, Osteopathy and Fascia, has a link to lineage as well: Rolf’s interest in osteopathy was well known, and there is no doubt that the field of osteopathy greatly influenced the development of her work. We here feature the work of Jane Eliza Stark, a manual osteopathic practitioner and historiographer. Stark has delved deeply into the biographies of A.T. Still (the founder of osteopathy) and W.G. Sutherland (the founder of cranial osteopathy), researched early osteopathic views on fascia, and traced the thread of fascia through later osteopathic literature to modern-day practice. As a practitioner, she has synthesized these views into a way of working with fascia that is based on both its fluidity and its contiguous quality between layers. Her article “Popular Ruts” speaks to these domains and is illustrated with gorgeous photos of fresh fascial dissections that demonstrate her thesis. Her manner of working with fascia, and the rationale for it, is discussed in an interview conducted by Rolfer and fellow manual osteopathic practitioner Ron Murray. Finally, Rolfing and Rolf Movement Instructor Carol Agneesens provides a review of and commentary on Stark’s meticulously researched book Still’s Fascia. Our closing article, “The Ankle-Lean Sequence,” comes from Jeffrey Maitland, another key figure in the Rolfing lineage. Although Maitland did not study directly with Rolf, his brilliance has contributed invaluably to the ordering, articulation, and development of the Rolf canon – both conceptual and hands-on – that will be used to educate practitioners for years to come. A closing note: If you look at the masthead on the table of contents page, you will see that we now have editors acting as liaisons in particular domains or for particular regions. If you have content to suggest or other recommendations, feel free to contact us through our individual contact information in the Find a Rolfer™ section of www.rolf.org.

Anne F. Hoff Editor-in-Chief

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“What gives?” Then, I noticed I was getting Ask the Faculty agitated like the student. Not knowing what to do, I went over to where Emmett Lineage and Inspiration was, sat down next to him, opened up my sensorium, and just let what is show Q: Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) is essentially passed on as an oral itself. Suddenly, the pattern popped out of tradition through a lineage of teachers. Can you share a short teaching story or the complicated, confusing pulls, strains, piece of advice from someone in your direct lineage? Something that was impactful rotations, etc. Sure enough, there it was to your thinking and way of working and that might be beneficial to others in again – as clear as anything could be. I went our professional community. over to where the student was working and said, “Let’s try looking for that pattern again.” We did and within thirty seconds A: Here are three of my favorite Rolfing Dr. Rolf and often vividly described the student saw the pattern emerge. quotes/stories that have stayed with me scenarios from his time with her. Jack is a over these many years: very smart man with a PhD in mathematics, Sitting next to Emmett allowed me to and is a practicing acupuncturist as well find my way into the clear space again. I Peter Melchior was my Rolfing teacher for as an inventor and forward-thinking learned that a big part of my job was to the practitioner phase of the training. It individual. I understood why Dr. Rolf metaphorically keep a constant rhythm was a large class with eight practitioners liked having him sit next to her in those going in order to entrain the student in and twenty-two auditors held in the early classes. He grasped her vision. Their the same constant rhythm of the session. annex of the Rolf Institute® on Pearl Street. conversations must have covered a range of When I went over to the student’s table the We were doing the Second Hour for our enlivening topics. It is not a specific quote, first time, I unknowingly let the student’s outside models. I was working with my but more the highly respected genius of agitated rhythm entrain me. As a result, I client’s ankle, and the retinaculum felt as Dr. Rolf, that Jack transmitted to me during had lost the rhythm and the ability to see. dehydrated as a strip of beef jerky. I was these reveries. Dr. Rolf was a most unique I also learned the importance of studying working hard and getting frustrated . . . woman of her era: brilliant, outspoken, and with teachers who teach beyond words. nothing seemed to penetrate or hydrate his possessing a scope of understanding on tissues. Suddenly Peter was at my side. He subjects as diverse as homeopathy, atomic Jeffrey Maitland put his hands over mine and gently sank my physics and mathematics, yoga, and the Advanced Rolfing instructor fingers into the depths of the client’s ankle general semantics of Alfred Korzybski. This joint. I felt like I was suddenly jettisoned diversity of perspectives cultivated a fertile into deep space! My finger pads sank easily ground for the early students of Rolfing A: What I can share is how much some into this unique sensation with depth with SI. Jack’s stories infuse me with awe and teachers have influenced my way of being a ease. It was a dimension of contact I had inspiration and the impetus to continue Rolfer, and not only on a professional level. never before experienced. I remember evolving her vision. When I was certified in 1987, my instructor Peter saying to me “depth is a matter of was Nicholas French. At the end of the intention.” That moment of guidance Carol Agneesens training, giving me the certificate, Nicholas served to fuel a lifelong inquiry into the Rolfing Instructor said: “Rita, every thing is all right. Don’t art of Rolfing SI. Rolf Movement Instructor take it so seriously . . .” At that time I didn’t Megan James was one of my original A: On my way to becoming an Advanced quite understand the meaning, but I let it movement instructors. This was 1981, a time Rolfing Instructor, I had the privilege of co- in . . . and forgot. It took ten years before when Rolf Movement® could be studied as teaching two advanced classes with Emmett I could get the sense of what Nicholas an independent program separate from the Hutchins. One morning Emmett gave a talk had clearly seen at that time. I was simply Rolfing training. She was truly amazing. on a peculiar pattern of strain that he was too serious and concerned about being Her exploration of the body in motion seeing. He talked in some detail about the ‘professional’ – and too much relying on encouraged both visionary imaginings as pattern and how it went from head to toe cortical understanding. well as insight-filled sensorial moments. in most people. We took a short break after In 1997 I attended a Rolf Movement These experiences propelled me to see-feel which the students went to work. Certification Training with France Hatt- beyond a secular understanding of the body About ten minutes into the session, a very Arnold and Hubert Godard teaching. What and biomechanically driven movement. an incredible, transforming experience! Megan often repeated the phrase, “bones bright and very exacting student left his model and cornered me. He could barely What deeply affected me was the sense of are juicy and alive!” She spoke these words having been exposed to some ‘contagious from her own embodied truth. In many contain his agitation and upset. He said he couldn’t see or feel anything Emmett virus’ that let the flow of knowledge classes, I repeat this phrase, citing Megan between teachers and students happen as a was talking about. He fussed and worried in honor of her sweet memory. Rest in living experience in my system. It was full peace, Megan. that he’d never make it as a Rolfer™. At his request, we went to see what we could of joy and vitality. Understanding through In 1976, I began receiving the Rolfing Ten see. As soon as we got in the vicinity of mind was only a part of the process. The Series from Jack Donnelly. Luckily for me, his model and tried to find the pattern teachers’ clear presence, empathy, and we’ve maintained a friendship over these Emmett was talking about, I couldn’t find connection strongly affected the whole many years. Jack studied directly with it. I had had no trouble seeing it before. process. In my experience, people coming for Rolfing SI are more and more motivated

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 3 COLUMNS by physical suffering and a sense of a Rolfer. I had strong impressions of my easier than others. Use the concepts of the inadequacy at many levels. It is part of the auditing phase with Peter Melchior when Ten Series to help you limit the possibilities healing process to find again the sense of I realized that our party was at the exact in a meaningful way. If you only have one the pleasure of being alive, what led us biergarten (a Bavarian outdoor restaurant) session, consider the concepts of the Third when we were children to playfully explore where we had often sat with Peter for lunch Hour – or maybe a combination, such as the the inner and outer worlds together with or dinner. It felt as if it was yesterday – Second, Fourth, and Fifth hours to address achieving physical and coordinative order. words, teachings, lectures, and a strong support. Then soften your gaze and your In whatever form it is possible, what I almost physical sense of presence. Through body and let yourself notice what you see offer to my client is the sense of lightness, all the years, these impressions are still that pertains to your session goals and possibility, trust. Their willingness and present in my work and my life, and I would your client’s goals. And, as you’ve probably capacity to come and ask for help is already assert that one strong base of what my heard a million times before, ‘trust the an expression of their potential for changing teachers tried to transmit is embodiment. process’. Rest assured, you already know their condition. How far? Hard to say. But In my experience, Peter was an example of how to see. change can happen. embodied knowledge, wisdom, passion, and love for Rolfing SI. I didn’t get all of what he Bethany Ward Other teachers have been so important for was transmitting with words at that time, but Rolfing Instructor my development; among them, Harvey I wouldn’t have tried to find out without the Burns and Pedro Prado. I assisted Harvey authenticity I sensed. in some classes. He has a refined and A: I received my initial Rolfing series from sophisticated capacity to touch in a deep, Jörg Ahrend-Löns then faculty member Stacey Mills, so when global dialogue with the system (“touch Rolfing Instructor I trained as a Rolfing practitioner thirty local, think global,” to quote him). This is years ago, I sought her out for mentoring already a great teaching. What was even and supervision. Two pearls still stand more inspiring for me is his capacity to A: When I ask my students about their out in my mind from those sessions. First, cut more complicated content into little learning edges – what skills they’re when I admitted to her that I honestly didn’t pieces, to make it ‘digestible’ and clear working on now – I inevitably hear, “I still care for a particular client, her response for students and beginning Rolfers. This have trouble seeing.” Body reading is an was something to this effect: “You’re not capacity helps to create a safe container important part of our work and something obligated to like every client; but it will in which to research and experiment in an we learn to do with our whole self. We use help tremendously to unconditionally organic step-by-step process. all of our senses. We ‘see’ structural patterns ‘love’ them during the time they are on I also had the privilege of assisting Pedro in and relationships with our eyes, but we also your table.” The second pearl dropped as some classes. He has helped me to focus on listen for them in gait, and feel them in our I was reproaching myself for having been one main factor: to reveal and understand own bodies. moved to tears by my client’s experience. Stacey’s response: “It’s only unprofessional the patterns ‘behind’ the model that frame I hope I am attributing this correctly (all the when the tears drop onto the client instead the way that client express him/herself, good advice I’ve received over the years of the sheet.” that build the narrative of his/her story seems to mingle with my own thoughts), and give value according to the person’s but I believe I was assisting Duffy Allen Sally Klemm subjective belief system. This applies to when I first heard her tell a class, “You Advanced Rolfing Instructor my own pattern too. To be able to connect already know how to see. The problem is to the modality, not to be caught by the you see too much.” What I do remember appearance, is a powerful tool to support clearly was the impact it had on the room. A: There have been instructors who have the client’s transformative process, and also You could feel the collective anxiety drop. In impacted me greatly – even when I didn’t a way to evaluate the results from both the a workshop some years later, I heard Rolfer appreciate or fully understand what client’s and the Rolfer’s prospective. And Art Riggs say the same thing with similar they were talking about at the time. But even more than that, when working with effect. We went on to practice seeing with their thought, words, or vision just kept Pedro I could sense the power and the value exercises where we limited the scope of our bouncing around in my mind looking of being in a group; his capacity to build observations. It’s hard to figure out what for an anchor. One of my most anchoring connection, trust, and commitment is an to do when you see everything. Imposing moments came from Hubert Godard. extraordinary living experience. purposeful structure helps us to choose. That’s why the Rolfing Ten Series is such Shortly after I became a Certified Rolfer, I Rita Geirolla a great tool for learning the work – and had a chance to take a class with Hubert. Rolfing Instructor why so many of us apply it throughout I believe we were in class for nine days, Rolf Movement Instructor our careers. and there were many gems that changed the way I thought about the work. One One of the reasons Rolfing SI is forever insight that has always stayed with me A: As I write this, it’s just two weeks since interesting is because it’s dynamic. We came from Hubert’s demonstration of the the European Rolfers celebrated the twenty- are forever oscillating between macro and balance between front and back. What fifth anniversary of the European Rolfing micro viewpoints. As you practice our art, does palintonicity really look like? In this Association – which was in a way my macro and micro start to blend and you demonstration, he took off running across own twenty-fifth anniversary of becoming become able to hold them simultaneously. the floor and executed a perfect grand jeté. But, even then, there are days when it’s

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Jumping with one leg straight forward “It is often the pre-movement that puts you “The way I manipulate depends on my own and one leg straight back, he did a perfect out of gravity.” Hubert Godard, 2010. corporeality, on the way I am touched.” split in mid-air, landing light as a feather. I Hubert Godard, 2009. “The expressivity of the one that moves was amazed at the beauty and grace of the depends on the receptivity of the witness.” “I am one that becomes, an individuation, move. But then he said, “That’s only half of Hubert Godard, 2009. which is at play on the surface of the picture.” Instantly, he ran backwards, encountership.” Hubert Godard, 2014. leaped into the air, performed a perfect “All of you is behind your touch, your split in reverse, and landed light on his touch becomes essential. As you go deeper “A reaction is automatic, unconscious, rapid, feet again. If you had taken a picture of the you go slower. Allow your hand to sink in within belief systems. A response is noticing, airborne splits going in each direction, they the bottom of the river. You want to ask for delaying, putting experience into words.” would have looked identical. “That’s the permission, but you don’t always have to Janie French and Annie Duggan, 1985. other half,” he said. My memory is fuzzy do it verbally.” Bill Smythe, 1990. from time, and words do not always convey France Hatt-Arnold “The more we take the compensations exactly what I feel, but this demonstration Rolfing Instructor away, the more the inner strain tightens. It is struck a chord in me that has always Rolf Movement Instructor about sensing space.” Peter Schwind, 2014. remained. When I’m working with a client, I find I’m always looking for the ‘other half’.

Larry Koliha Rolfing Instructor Inter-Faculty Perspectives A: I first heard this from Emmett Hutchins, Integration: How Do We Define It? How Do We then from Peter Melchior, then from Jan Sultan, then from a couple other old-time Assess It? Where Do We Place It in the Ten Series? Rolf Institute members: “There shall be three By Kevin Frank, Rolf Movement® Instructor and Ray McCall, schools in Rolfing SI. These schools will Advanced Rolfing® Instructor develop as the work evolves. One physical, biomechanical; another psychological; and Introduction does ‘putting things together’ fit into the a third one, more metaphysical. There will logic and sequence of the work? be further specializations in these areas.” The term integration is embedded in how Hearing this as an auditor, then as a young we define the work of Rolfing Structural Traditional Views assistant, impacted me to pay attention Integration (SI). Is there agreement about its of Integration at RISI to ‘what belongs where’, and made me definition? We can frequently use a word, At the Rolf Institute ® of Structural respect the multidimensional perspectives and not necessarily stop and ask what we Integration (RISI), one view of integration present in Rolfing SI. It also helped me not mean when we use it. is that the first seven Rolfing sessions to favor one over another, rather to perceive Questions around this topic: prepare the client to integrate in sessions a whole. It helped me form a holistic view Eight, Nine, and Ten. The advantage of of the work, the unfoldings of the same • What does ‘integration’ mean, this idea is that it allows you to concentrate core work, Rolfing SI. The ‘specializations’ generically, and what does ‘integration’ on differentiation in sessions One through part of the quote spurred my curiosity in mean specifically to SI? Seven with less pressure to do integration all areas . . . I’m still seeking . . . • How does the concept of integration fit until later. You have time to observe your Pedro Prado into the formulation of Dr. Rolf’s Ten client’s responses to the work before Advanced Rolfing Instructor Series or ‘Recipe’? attempting to enhance the integrative Rolf Movement Instructor • How might integration help link our process. It also works to your advantage if work with current neuroscience and you are teaching, because you don’t have to motor control theory? ask the students to think about integration A: Here are a few sentences from my until later. The disadvantage to this idea is trainings that accompany me: • How does integration get assessed that you may do more differentiation than through the Ten Series and are there necessary, if you don’t take time to give “The ‘Line’ is a space around which the things our community can learn about the organism an opportunity to reflect the body organizes itself.” Annie Duggan and how to evoke and recognize integration? work back to you – to integrate. You run the Janie French, 1985. risk of working contrary to Rolf’s opinion • What does coordination have to do with on the topic: “There is no balance, the axis emerges out integration? of imbalance.” Hubert Godard, 2011. This is the important concept: that Common definitions for the word Rolfers™ are integrating something; “A primary holding pattern is an ego in ‘integration’ use phrases like: “pieces we are not restoring something. This expression.” Annie Duggan and Janie working together as a whole,” or “fitting puts us in a different class from French, 1985. together to make a whole.” To apply the all other therapists that I know idea of integration to Rolf’s Ten Series, how of. It takes us out of the domain

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designated by the word ‘therapy’, seated or standing. Do diagnostic tests rise to pattern – the selection and sequence of motor and puts us into the domain the threshold of assessing integration? Let’s units recruited by the body to orchestrate designated by the word ‘education’ leave this as an open question as we continue movement. The orchestrated expression of . . . From the first day we see a client, to consider what constitutes integration. movement is signature to each individual and, we are putting him together, we are at the same time, can be generally sorted integrating him. We integrate him at Integration as Manipulation/ into categories.1 To illustrate the ‘integration the end of his first hour, at the end Movement that Crosses Two as coordination’ idea, let’s review some of the second, third, fourth, fifth, or More Joints common coordinative hallmarks of sixth, seventh and eighth. At every Students of Rolf’s work learn that ‘integration’ integration, ones that tend to find common hour before that man or that woman is defined as work that involves movement agreement in our community. walks out the door, we should have through two or more joints. The concept Hallmarks of Integration integrated him to the place where he is attractive, in part, because it is concise. has the best, most efficient use of his Certainly, as a manipulative strategy, What expressions of movement are content- system that he can have at that level working across multiple joints invites rich? What are movements that all of us (Rolf 1978, 40). the practitioner to open his/her vision to observe during most sessions – ones that are commonplace and obvious? Movements Over time we may hear Rolf’s words consider what connects to what, and to that we might agree reveal coordinative differently. Is our relationship to “putting also look at how well the body expresses change? Every encounter with a client him together” the same as it was last year? continuity of motion through multiple joints. includes some of the following movements: Five years ago? Thirty years ago? Time Many Useful Definitions – walking, sitting, sit-to-stand, and stand- and experience can affect how we view Is There an Overview? to-sit. Most sessions involve supine-to- integration, its role, and its importance. sit. These are moments of coordinative Additional questions help unpack the topic As with all our ideas about integration, each expression, and further moments in which so we can reflect on how we feel about it. formulation may not necessarily provide an integration can occur and be noticed. overview of what integration means, how it The ‘Integrate at the occurs, how much work is needed, or when Walking is a particularly complex set of End of Each Session’ Idea to intervene. This article invites inquiry into movements; it is central to human behavior Congruent with Rolf’s words about the larger picture of what we are doing that (we are the only bipedal mammals), and integrating “at the end of [each] hour,” constitutes integration, and perhaps more it reveals many coordinative elements: integration is often considered the part of importantly, what the client is doing that stability, axis/appendicular differentiation, a session in which a client receives neck constitutes integration. How do we see, feel, degree of upper and lower trunk rotation, work, a pelvic lift, and seated back work. or find out what the client is integrating at degree of hip extension, and palintonicity, The client gets to feel more complete; the both conscious and unconscious levels? among a long list of criteria. Most of our repeated ritual signals closure; the neck, clients are ambulatory, although some Integration As the sacrum, and back are emphasized – these require assistance from a walker or cane. elements feature the spine (axis) as central Primary Goal of Our Work Walking has many sub-parameters that to integration. In teaching, this idea makes Another view, congruent with Rolf’s quote students can learn to see, find agreement sense to students. This strategy has served (above) and headed in the direction of about, and then describe in standardized the work over many decades. It focuses on an overview, is the idea that if the work written or verbal observations. integration as something we do to the client. doesn’t integrate, no change has been When someone walks, what does ‘more However, finding out what a particular achieved. Unless the work is incorporated successful coordination’ look like? In the client needs to integrate is less considered. into the client’s system, SI has not occurred. past two decades, growing consensus Integration as Pre- and Post- This possibility lends urgency to the has emerged in the SI community that Intervention Diagnostic Tests questions: What is integration? How/why contralateral gait is a reliable indicator. does it occur? How do we determine if it It really cannot be faked, and when it is Some instructors teach an approach that uses has occurred? present in a client, it is obvious. Integrated pre- and post-intervention diagnostic tests. Answering questions about how and why contralateral gait has a range of expressive The practitioner either moves segments of the integration occurs begins with asking what characteristics that include: rotation and client’s body, or observes motion in segments does integration look like? What is this counter-rotation of the trunk; the sense that of the body, or palpates motion to find any elusive ‘put together’ phenomenon? Many the pelvic and shoulder girdles ‘disappear’; restrictions on which to work. Then, after of the elements that are contained in the the axial and appendicular skeletons move an intervention, s/he again palpates motion aforementioned ideas about integration independently, and the axis relates directly to see if the restrictions are still present. hint at a further idea, an idea that links the with the extremities leaving the girdles Pre- and post-intervention tests constitute world of motor control and neuroscience to ‘quiet’. Palintonic expression is enhanced – a logical and understandable strategy. This what structural integrators do. This idea is we see/feel the body finding ground and sky strategy encourages practitioners to be that integration is revealed in changed patterns simultaneously. The limbs look ‘limby’ and precise, and to keep track of what the goal is of coordination. When we see or feel a new, free to swing. The spine’s curves and gravity for each manipulative step. Some diagnostic more successful pattern of coordination, we centers are responsive to shifts in velocity tests involve a small voluntary movement, are witnessing the expression of integration. and levels of demand. These hallmarks while others require more effort from the Coordination, in this context, means motor of successful contralateral coordination client, such as initiating movement while

6 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org COLUMNS represent an expression of integration. Session Eight traditionally poses the Further detailed measures of contralateral question “Which girdle should one address gait include Keen’s (2007) formulation of first (in session Eight) and which girdle can Godard’s ‘Three Chains’ (an interpretation be postponed (until session Nine)?” Rolf derived from Gracovetsky’s analysis of taught students to use a test (nicknamed kinetic energy from the feet to the spine; the Crest Test) where the practitioner does Godard 2002, Gracovetsky 2001). Gait, alone, a small amount of fascial work on or near is a rich source of integrative indicators. the crest of the ilium, then assesses how the client looks when s/he stands up. Many Other common movements to consider are: structural integrators learn this test, which ‘push’, ‘reach’, ‘lift’, and ‘pull’ with either focuses on postural response to a fascial the upper or lower limbs, or a combination intervention, in basic classes. The newer of both, while standing or seated. (Reach, alternative, a test of integrated behavior push, lift, and pull movements can, in our that has come to be known as the Wall work as in life, be unilateral or bilateral.) Test, is a test to determine which girdle is What does a ‘push’ or ‘reach’ or ‘lift’ or the correct one to work on first, and which ‘pull’ movement show us? The Principles will also improve order in the other girdle. of Intervention (Maitland 2016) offer a The Wall Test was introduced by Hubert guide to what ‘successful’ movement Godard as a way of determining which or ‘successful’ coordination looks like. girdle – shoulder or pelvic – expresses Observing those movements, we can more support, adaptability, palintonicity, ask the following questions: Does the and continuity. movement show support, adaptability, continuity and palintonicity?2 Further, do An advantage of defining integration as Figure 1: Setup for Wall Test. we see the beginnings of bidirectionality/ coordination is that many elements have to eccentricity in the axis before the movement ‘integrate’ to allow for change. A series of begins? [Eccentricity is another term interventions occurs, the body shows you Integration means that the isometric action similar to palintonicity – the expression a movement behavior, and the behavior of the hands/arms/shoulders, or feet/legs/ of two opposite directions at the same reflects how each input has found a place in pelvis, occurs with a level of competence in time. Advantages of the term ‘eccentricity’ the body’s catalog of coordinative capacities. the whole body. (expansion away from the center) are You look at coordinative capacity, and you Particular elements that contribute to the implication of ‘three-dimensionality’ can infer something about integration. One integrated behavior include the following: and the convenience of its opposite, can test prior to the session, at the end of a sensory receptivity in the hands and feet; ‘concentricity’ (Frank 2014).] Do we see session, at the beginning of the next session, grounding/loading and eccentricity in eccentricity in the limbs and appropriate or after several months. the feet and rami; ample orientation and primary stabilization in the girdles – quiet The Wall Test Procedure security in the upper pole (the head); normal stability – or do we see a tendency linking of hands and feet to segmental toward efforted, secondary stabilization? The setup for a basic Wall Test (see Figure articulation of the spine; primary stability (Frank 2010). There are many parameters to 1) involves an adjustable bench and a wall response in the spine/trunk; and primary use as metrics for successful coordination. to push against. The client is seated with stability in the girdles (pelvic and shoulder). feet flat on the floor, but with toes, and Can such metrics find a natural home in Looking deeper, other contributions include also the hands, pressed against a wall. The each step of the Ten Series? It’s a question four-way directionality of the feet – which practitioner puts his/her hand on the back for each practitioner and instructor to means that the bones of the foot (cuboid, of the client at the level of the transition contemplate in the context of the work. navicular, toes, and talus/calcaneus) express between the lumbar and thoracic spine What is a practical way to begin to answer eccentricity and sustained support – (the lumbodorsal hinge or LDH) to monitor that question? Fortuitously, some Rolfing and lines of abductive and adductive what occurs in the spine. The client is students learn a movement assessment test support in the legs/thighs/pelvis that asked to “extend the hands through the that uses push and reach for the upper and work together in balance. In addition, one wall,” and the practitioner makes an lower girdle – a test that offers a procedure likes to see forearm eccentricity, so that assessment as the movement is performed. for assessing integration. the radius ‘reaches to the world’ and the After releasing the hand press, the client ulna expresses ‘belonging to the ground’ A Concise Example of is then asked to “extend the feet through or to the ‘lateral space’. Further, the jaw is Integration – the Wall the wall,” and again, the practitioner free from the cranium; there is a balance of Test for Session Eight makes an assessment. In each instance interoception and exteroception in overall the practitioner senses for eccentricity/ body awareness; the attentional field of the Some Rolfing instructors utilize the Wall palintonicity in the spine – an expression of body is omnidirectional – an expression of Test as a diagnostic tool when teaching stability from head to tail. The movement the body’s peripersonal space occupying sessions Eight and Nine in the Ten Series, asked for is, semantically, a combination front and back, side to side, as well as above and also in the post-ten Three Series. It is a of a push and a reach. (‘Extend’ implies a and below. Additionally, the client and the way to evaluate the relative ability of a client movement that, although literally a push, practitioner both notice a sense that the to reach and push with each of the girdles. involves some feeling quality of a reach.) body maintains a feeling of volume and

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 7 COLUMNS spaciousness throughout, especially in the while supine, prone, sidelying, seated, and client ‘learn’, rather than ‘reform’ as Rolf’s trunk, head, and pelvis. standing)? Can these sorts of integrative quote (above) suggests. lessons fit efficiently into the time For purposes of a basic class, the Wall Test, If we demonstrate with our own body the constraints of a Ten Series? Is there a place taken at its most fundamental level, is a leap before and after – the less integrated and the for these elements in teaching the Ten forward in the direction of defining and more integrated version of a movement – do Series in Basic Training? The likelihood demonstrating degrees of integrative behavior. we inspire the client or intimidate them? this form of innovation will occur rests The test is done before and after a session, We have to determine what is appropriate most probably on the comfort level of the so a student discovers how to measure the in each situation. instructor – his/her comfort and familiarity degrees of integration by palpating the with coordinative nuance. On the other hand, if we are going to test spine while the movement occurs. Ideally, integrative behavior in session Eight, might students are introduced to the experience Integrative Strategies it not be useful to introduce some elements of a maintaining a seated posture with Don’t Have to Be Fancy of seated push or reach in earlier sessions? active hand and foot support, and to some There are many ways to do this, including version of push and reach movements, The fact that coordination is hugely complex, simply adopting strategies that use the well before session Eight. If seated push/ and involves timing and sequencing of hands and feet more often in the series; reach exploration comes early in the Series, motor units at a speed and proliferation hand participation in seated back work, for students realize behavioral change matters. that is beyond thought, may make a example, or feet participation against a wall Students also start to gain the capacity practitioner hesitant to attempt it with surface for table work. to find a collaborative relationship with clients. However, integration that leads to the client – a relationship that is about change in coordination is often prompted Does Integration Make by simply asking, “How do you notice providing support for the client’s discovery Our Work (SI) Structural? and personal exploration, which helps lead weight right now?” or, “Is it possible to to moments of success during sessions. feel a little bit of softening in the contact What does the word structural mean? between your hand and the wall?” or “What There are many definitions for the words Do We Teach to the Test? do you imagine might entice your reach, ‘structure’ and ‘structural’. A structural How soon, in a Ten Series, does integration right now?” Quiet observation that allows engineer typically works on buildings and start? Each practitioner or instructor the client to drop into his or her experience bridges, rather than electrical circuits which will have an individual response to that of the moment can be enough to foster are typically the domain of an electrical question, such as, when does s/he first look subsequent change in the coordinative engineer. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary to see if a client owns what is presented? pattern of walk, push, or reach. (1995 edition) states that ‘structural’ means relating to “the physical components of Might integration begin in one’s first Strategies can progress at an appropriate a plant or animal body.” This is a literal conversation with the client, or in the pace for each client. Some primary notion of structure, one that emphasizes manner in which a client learns to accept examples: cognitive awareness that hands focus on the physical components of a the touch of the practitioner, or in the and feet connected to the spine reduces construction and how they are arranged, client’s descriptions of how the touch feels the effort when pushing and reaching; and like the blocks in Rolf’s ’Little Boy Logo’. as sensation? Might not the moments after imagining two opposite directions, almost These definitions are akin to Maitland’s a mobilizing touch be a time to observe anywhere in the body, tends to improve (2016) structural taxonomy, the SI taxonomy, what the body ‘says back to us’? How much eccentricity in the execution of a movement. does curiosity itself generate an implicit which emphasizes looking at physical/ invitation that encourages a client to How Much Do We Do? tissue components and thinking about integrate, to digest, to notice the experience? How Far Do We Go? them in relation to their relative positioning in the body. The anatomy-as-structure More specifically, if we know that the How much is too much? Integration is an paradigm is, of course, useful in training Wall Test will occur in session Eight, what invitation, not a performance contest. Bodies a practitioner. might we think about in sessions One, Two, respond best in their own rhythm and pace. and Three, for example, that prepares the We must honor that rhythm and pace – if we Typically, students and clients are directed client for integrated behavior in the later exceed it, the results are not optimal. to think of SI as primarily or exclusively sessions? Do we take a bit of time to invite focused on arrangement of the physical How much integration belongs in each ownership for the orientation process, and components of the body. How does this part of a Ten Series? How much do we for mobility of the chest, in session One? emphasis, as of 2016, enhance or impede encourage a client to explore in a session For the connection of feet to spine in session thinking about the integrative process that versus at home or in daily life? Clearly, Two? For the capacity to find ease in sit- is the goal of our work? There can be honest there is no formula. Some clients appear to to-stand and stand-to-sit in session Three? debate on this point, but it is time to ask: own the work and embrace coordinative Marking these moments through reflection Could this question, in fact, become a living challenge enthusiastically. Others may, at of the client experience – what clients feel element within SI education? first, be shy about trying out integrative and how they make meaning of each step – movements, or even accepting an invitation Meanwhile, let’s note other definitions of is explicit support for integration. to reflect on their sensory experience or the words ‘structure’ and ‘structural’ that Is it possible to help ‘prepare’ the client to their felt sense. We must slowly learn the have stood the passage of time. meet the Wall Test (meaning to introduce pace of integration in different people’s One definition, quoted now and then in closed-chain push and reach experiences systems, and allow for the chance to let the the SI community, is the one formulated

8 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org COLUMNS by Karl Ludwig van Bertalanffy, an differentiation and linking are directly Additionally, to ask where are the obvious Austrian biologist who founded General related to integration, and integration moments in which ‘push’ and ‘reach’ fit Systems Theory in the 1930s, a science that enables more intricate functions to emerge. into the Series. inspired other modern sciences including Integration, so defined, is something that Are there ways of illustrating integrative cybernetics. Van Bertalanffy (1952, 134) students can be asked to see emerge in the outcomes in each session? Instructors most stated about structure and function: “What client in a broad variety of forms – behavior likely already do this in some fashion. are called structures are slow patterns of means a broad spectrum of phenomena, Optimally, integrative outcomes are long duration; functions are quick processes but tangible phenomena, nonetheless, when demonstrated by the instructor, as well of short duration.” framed as behavior. as contrasting between ‘before’ and ‘after’ Van Bertalanffy’s work led directly to From a biological-systems point of view, a conditions, so as to ground the integration Norbert Wiener’s formulation of cybernetics structural change is a change that reveals idea in specific changes of coordination. – the science of self-governing systems. integration, and conversely, integration is Discussion about integration – what are Wiener’s words (quoted by Rolf) include, perhaps the most important sign of structural the varieties of ways we can encourage and “We are not stuff that abides, but patterns change. Differentiation and linking is not a assess it; the timing of its introduction into that perpetuate themselves” (Rolf 1977, mechanical process, though. Differentiation the Series; the relationship between what 15-16). and linking is ultimately a process that we, as structural integrators, think about it, happens in the client – in the client’s motor Rolf says about structure, “. . . structure is compared with what researchers studying system. It is, hopefully, facilitated through behavior . . .” (Rolf 1977, 31). the brain and motor control think about artful fascial mobilization and somatic it – it’s a topic ripe for our field. These latter definitions point to structure education; and, ironically, sometimes in as something more than just a mechanistic spite of well-intentioned ministrations by Kevin Frank is a Certified Advanced Rolfer™ idea about parts that are arranged a the practitioner. and a member of the Rolf Movement Faculty certain way. Rather, in systems, especially at the Rolf Institute®. He writes and teaches living systems, structure means how the Integration Across about perception and coordination in the system predictably behaves as a response to Multiple Measures context of SI. His private practice is in central specific conditions. Cottingham and Maitland (1997) showed New Hampshire. Kelso (1982), in Human Motor Behavior: An how, in treatment of a patient with low Ray McCall has a master’s degree in structural Introduction, proposes the term coordinative back pain, a pattern of coordination in sit- linguistics. He completed his basic Rolfing structure – the body’s acquired coordinative to-stand ultimately and significantly shifts certification in 1978 and his advanced sub-routines that allow the body to function toward greater ease and symptom relief certification in 1981. He joined the Rolf in a broad variety of ways without having (along with improvements in standard Institute faculty in 1997. He teaches Basic and to assemble, from scratch, a means to do physical-therapy measures) during a session Advanced Trainings and continuing education so (each time that a different motion is in which instruction in pre-movement turns workshops both in the U.S. and overseas. He 3 called for). Kelso’s ideas are consistent with out to be the key intervention. Along with has served on the Board of Directors of the Rolf systems theory and consistent with Rolf – a the more standard measures, vagal tone Institute and numerous faculty committees. He use of the term ‘structure’ to mean that which also improves significantly, indicative of is currently on the Faculty Development and determines behavior. autonomic nervous system integration. Review Board. Ray has also trained to instructor The agreement across multiple variables, in level in biodynamic craniosacral therapy. He What types of structure do we think about conjunction with coordinative improvement, is interested in how change happens and how when we think about integration: geometric lends weight to the idea that integration form manifests out of the formless. He is also arrangement of parts or tendencies of is, optimally, a comprehensive ‘putting interested in making really old cars look really behavior? The style of a Ten Series, and the together’ – a holistic ‘putting together’. good and go really, really fast. narrative offered students and clients, is affected by the degree of emphasis afforded Integration: Endnotes to each definition. Understandably, the An Ongoing Inquiry history of Rolf’s work has tended, up until 1. Research studies reveal that as few What might we want to tell students now, to emphasize the arrangement or as seven points of light attached to about integration? What skills might we alignment of physical parts. joint locations of a body moving in a encourage students to learn in order to dark room are sufficient to allow the Daniel Siegel (2010), the neuroscience foster integration during the Ten Series? It observer to identify who the person is author and psychiatrist, says about could be helpful to begin by asking students who is moving. Human beings recognize integration: “Defined as the linkage of to reflect on what has been helpful in their coordinative patterns, inherently. Students differentiated components of a system, own integrative experiences. of SI learn quickly to see the contrast integration is viewed as the core mechanism between coordinative patterns of lesser What might we introduce into the Ten Series in the cultivation of well being . . . These and greater ease and success. A source in terms of explicit exercises/explorations integrated linkages enable more intricate for viewing a biometric demonstration that focus on integration? A start would be functions to emerge.” Siegel points of this capacity can be found at for students to learn how to invite a client out that a system integrates when its www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalker. to notice his/her own experience. Another components are differentiated, and when html and an article describing this capacity helpful ingredient would be to include the components develop links to each other; can be found at http://jov.arvojournals.org/ integration as an explicit discussion topic. article.aspx?articleid=2192503. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 9 COLUMNS

2. The Principles of Intervention (Maitland situations encountered in life. In the world Rolf, I.P. 1977. Rolfing: The Integration of 2016) are intended to capture the underlying of motor-control science, the term used for Human Structures. New York: Harper and elements that make integration of structure postural activity that anticipates movement Row. possible. Support means the body registers is ‘anticipatory postural adjustment’ or Santos, M., N. Kanekar, and A. Aruin 2010 support, either from places of physical ‘anticipatory postural activity’ – APA for Jun. “The Role of Anticipatory Postural support, such as through the hands and feet short (Frank 2004, Frank 2006, Santos et Adjustments in Compensatory Control and pelvis, or via supportive factors such al 2010). of Posture: 2. Biomechanical Analysis.” as vital contact with the spatial context, or Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology support from psychological factors that Bibliography 20(3):398-405. assist in establishing security; Adaptability Cottingham, J. and J. Maitland 1997 Sept. means the capacity to adapt to physical “A Three Paradigm Treatment Model Siegel, D. 2010. “About Interpersonal and psychological demands in such a Using Soft Tissue Mobilization and Guided Neurobiology.” www.drdansiegel.com/ way as to not undermine ease of function; Movement-Awareness Techniques for a about/interpersonal_neurobiology/ Continuity (a subset of Adaptability with Patient with Chronic Low Back Pain: A Case (retrieved 7/30/16). elements of Palintonicity) means that there Study,” Journal of Orthopedic Sports Physical van Bertalanffy, L. 1952. Problems of Life, is an unimpeded sequence of eccentric Therapy 26(3):154-167. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Publishing. events in the body’s response to demand; ® Palintonicity, a word from an ancient Greek Frank, K. 2014 Dec. “Rolf Movement philosopher named Heraclitus, denotes the Faculty Perspectives: The Craft of Teaching bidirectional sense expressed by the body Eccentricity of Function.” Structural ® – two opposite directions leads to a feeling Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute and appearance of ‘unity of opposites’, or 42(2):2-4. to a feeling or appearance of eccentricity Frank, K. 2010 Dec. “SI Psoas Intervention (away from the center), an opening and Considered in Terms of Normalized space-creating event; Holism means we Stability Response in Hip and Trunk consider the body/mind as a system and Flexion,” Structural Integration: The Journal the system behaves most intelligently of the Rolf Institute® 38(2):33-43. when each part of the system affects all the other parts, and is, in turn, affected by all Frank, K. 2006. “Articulated Perception, the other parts, which is not far from the Articulated Structure: Building the Sense of definition of integration by Daniel Siegel Other in Structural Integration.” The 2006 (2010). Closure means the client can sustain Yearbook of Structural Integration, Missoula, the changes – quite relevant to the topic Montana: The International Association of of integration. Structural Integrators, pp. 61-67. 3. ‘Pre-movement’ is an important concept Frank, K. 2004 Apr. “Tonic Function: Gravity for SI. Pre-movement is the automatic Orientation as the Basis for Structural preparation the body makes prior to Integration.” Hellerwork News, pp. 16-18. movement. For example, before one lifts Godard, H. 2002. Lecture notes of Kevin one’s arm, postural muscles contract to Frank from course taught by Godard in anticipate the change in weight distribution Holderness, New Hampshire. that will happen next. Or, before we inhale to take a breath, the postural muscles Gracovetsky, S. 2001. “Analysis and prepare to compensate for the concentric Interpretation of Gait in Relation to Lumbo- action of the respiratory diaphragm. Pelvic Function.” Presentation to the 4th These are gross examples, but there are Interdisciplinary World Congress on Low pre-movements of perception that nest Back and Pelvic Pain, Montreal, Canada. within pre-movements of posture, and Keen, L. 2007. “Gracovetsky’s Chains – the topic of pre-movement has many Contralateral Walking.” Unpublished class layers of consideration. What occurs in handout. pre-movement is part of the motor pattern and largely shapes motor-sequence choices Kelso, J.A.S. 1982. Human Motor Behavior: An that the body makes as it executes the Introduction. New York: Psychology Press. movement itself. Changing pre-movement Maitland, J., 2016. Embodied Being: The is a feature of SI, and sets it apart from Philosophical Roots of Manual Therapy. other systems of postural change through Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. the combination of fascial mobilization and perceptual intervention; both of these Rolf, I.P. 1978. Rolfing and Physical Reality, allow the body to make different choices R. Feitis, Ed. Rochester, Vermont: Healing in pre-movement, and that, in turn, leads Arts Press. to different motor patterns for meeting the

10 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY

latent traits online’. The pattern of growth Journeyman I had experienced was in me, but it hadn’t shown up because there was no pressure to An Interview with Jan Sultan make it happen.

By María Cristina Jiménez, Certified Advanced Rolfer and Jan Sultan, Advanced It follows that if you throw away Ida Rolf’s Rolfing® Instructor technique of systematic differentiation of fascia in favor of techniques that deal more with imagery, or energy-based techniques, María Cristina Jiménez: Tell us about your journey into Rolfing Structural the opportunity is missed to apply Rolf’s Integration (SI). highly organized systematic pressure, and organization in the gravity field, that creates Jan Sultan: I have been [practicing] space for the body to grow. Rolfing SI for forty-six years. I started training in 1969 and finished Basic Training MCJ: What happened next? in the spring of 1970. I first [received Rolfing JS: As I said, I started Rolfing training sessions] from Dr. Rolf when I was about in 1969 and finished Basic Training in the twenty-six years old. I had my first eight spring of 1970. In the fall of 1971, I left Big sessions with Ida and my last two with Sur and moved to Northern New Mexico. I Peter Melchior. What a difference that was. was based there, and worked with students Initially I didn’t like Rolfing SI or Rolf! at Prescott College in Arizona, at a growth But the results after the first ten sessions center in Houston, Texas, and also traveled to (which took about a year to complete) were Denver to work. I was like a circuit preacher, astounding: I grew an inch in height, my Jan Sultan spreading the gospel of Rolf. In 1974 Rolf feet went up from size ten to size eleven had her first Advanced Training (AT). I went and a half, and I began to look more like back to Big Sur. Peter and Emmett [Hutchins] my maternal grandfather. I could tell that were there in 1974, Judith Aston too, in sum this was my adult body showing up. It was probably fourteen to fifteen of us. We were quite profound. her original students. MCJ: What was your background and how A couple of years later in 1976, Dr. Rolf did that lead you to Dr. Rolf? called me to assist her in a Basic Training in Los Angeles. I did the Ten Series with JS: When I graduated high school I wanted to get into the world. I could not Tom Myers, who was an instructor model imagine spending any more time sitting in in that class. She again asked me to assist classrooms. I was too wild to even think of in the AT for two years running. sitting still in a classroom for six to eight She practically dragged us there and said, years of college. The world was calling. Now “I am going to train you to teach.” Peter and I realize I am afflicted with attention deficit Emmett were the first two and I was the disorder, and I can’t sit still to this day. In third to be ‘knighted’. The three of us later María Cristina Jiménez any case, I worked the building trades, and went on to teach the AT for fifteen years. was a working sailor in the US Merchant In addition to IPR, I looked to Peter and I got my first session at the Esalen hot Marine, a member of the Sailors Union of the Emmett as my primary mentors, as models springs bathhouse. It was a little bit like Pacific. I had a cabin in Big Sur, in proximity for what it was to be a teacher. In my whole she was carving a roast; like a she-bear on to Esalen. In between trips to sea, I worked education to that point, I only had one good a deer carcass. A few days after the [session] a landscape business. After complaining of teacher, a high school biology teacher. I I was working on something and stood up knee and back pain to my then girlfriend, she also remember that I had one mentor as a and my lungs opened with a crackle – like suggested I get [Rolfing sessions]. sailor, an old salt who looked out for me, Velcro. I took three or four big breaths and taught me the ropes, and how to show up I had never had a massage or been touched got dizzy and I realized, “Oh it’s the Rolfing and work. therapeutically at that point. I saw Ida one [work]. Shit! I have to go back.” day at the dining room at Esalen and went MCJ: What other mentors did you have? The effect was so transformative that after a up to her: “Hey, I have heard about you. I few visits over about three months – ‘cause have back pain. My knees hurt a lot and JS: Another well-developed teacher and she would come and go – I began to mature I do physical labor part of the time.” Ida physician was [John] Upledger. He came in a very particular way, almost as if I got to ® looked at me up and down and said, “Of to the Rolf Institute in 1983 and taught a finish growing. I didn’t have any conceptual course your knees hurt, look at your pelvis!” five-day training for the Rolfing faculty. All framework for this – I just knew I was I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what that of us showed up for that except Emmett, changing. Years later when I had enough meant, but we made an appointment and I who claimed he just did not want to learn information to reflect, I came up with a went. I actually didn’t like it or her. It hurt. “that stuff.” Upledger opened up my deeper understanding of Rolfing [SI] as ‘a perception about osteopathy and indirect highly organized stressor that would bring technique. He demonstrated that he was

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 11 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY able to have fun with teaching. Rolf was gravity you weren’t [practicing] Rolfing [SI]. and microcosmic orbits supported what too driven to have fun. Fun wasn’t a highly I take that to mean that the body is where Ida was seeing and driving for, and it was valued quality for her. She was a serious gravity happens, and that the mass of the a natural fit. person. Most of us were intimidated by structure is what we affect. Energy work per She knew about the Tao. She didn’t talk her. In turn, she had a soft spot for medical se does not deal with the gravity part of the about it very much. She had been to Japan doctors and PhD-level people. She was not equation; the form and shape of the body. and taught there. After she died, we took pandering but was solicitous of them. She Having said that, sometimes when I am her library apart and saw these books wanted her work recognized by the doctors. working, it is as if a doorway opens into a on the Tao, and the I Ching. She may This was a paradox that struck me from the causal domain, in which the preconditions not have gone deep, but she knew. This very beginning: that IPR never used the that set up what I am seeing emerge as the connection was huge for me, because it put word ‘cure’ or ‘heal’, but insisted that her conditions that are operating a priori. It isn’t working on people in a different context. work was education. Still, she sought the magic but it’s definitely got a quality to it I would look for where the up and down approval of the elite class of healers in the that you can smell and taste. It is as if the flow of the ‘orbit’ was disrupted. Getting medical profession. limbic brain is turned on and its perception the body organized in space and on the MCJ: Talk more about IPR’s teaching and rises to consciousness. I don’t go looking for ‘Line’ also opened the way for the rising how close you feel to her teachings. this quality, but it happens often enough and descending chi to move through the that I see it is part of perception. “What is body better. JS: I am constantly amazed by Ida’s that odd taste? Oh that’s anesthesia! Ah! genius and how she spun this work out MCJ: How does it feel to be a lineage Surgical trauma? Oh yes, there it is.” Ida of diverse threads (i.e., yoga, physics, holder for the community? was well aware of it, and in her teaching osteopathy, biochemistry), and that she would obliquely refer to it. In my private JS: I didn’t ask for it. And I would probably came to different conclusions than the work with her this element emerged, and be having more fun if I weren’t beholden people around her. Also, there are some she would speak to it as she went along to the lineage. I have given up trying to anecdotes that she had some sort of leap of with her hands on. keep the pack in line. It draws too much inspiration or insight that this work might resentment. I don’t have anything to prove. have been used as part of the initiation of Ida had a mandate, she said, “Do it my I am interested in teaching people who want temple acolytes in ancient Egypt. She often way for five years or until you think know to learn. I am not interested in convincing alluded to Egypt. But she wanted the work what you are doing.” Being a good Scout, people that Rolf was right. I am not trying to be acceptable and she thought that if we at about the five-and-a-half-year mark I to be her successor. I just was there and I let the metaphysical cat out of the bag too began studying outside Rolf’s teaching by learned it from her and I studied my ass much, that we would be relegated to a less reading books on osteopathy, chiropractic, off for forty years. I don’t have any other credible place in the culture. and cranial work. I wanted to know how credentials, you know, other than 80,000- other people who worked with structure Among the early group, I was the structure 90,000 sessions that I have done. I am like viewed the nature of the bod. I also began guy from early on. While the ‘Recipe’ was an airline pilot with a lot of miles: you want to study the ideas of people that Ida would our law and guideline, I wanted to know to fly with me [laughs]. I am kind of an refer to in her lectures, like the work of the nature of structure, the medium that educational philosopher. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Theosophy, and we worked in: How did it behave? What general semantics. MCJ: What changes would you make to is it made of? What made the Recipe the work? work so well? How could a technique like When I entered the realm of the I Ching Rolfing [SI] produce such pervasive and and the Tao Te Ching, I had a smashing JS: If I had my way I would make the diverse changes in people? IPR did a lot insight. First, I have to say that Taoism Rolf Institute® a two-year school, and I of demonstrations with very disabled and is not a religion but a science of life. would invest a lot more in the foundational affected people. I saw her deviate from her The yin and yang principles of Taoism training of our practitioners. When I was Recipe over and over. In fact, it was a source apply to everything: ordinary living, faculty chair in the late 1970s (for five of frustration for many of us, that after one religion, warfare, and politics. The years), I said to my colleagues: “If we are of her ‘wild’ demos, she would instruct us circulation patterns of the microcosmic going to do this right, we have to get rid to go ahead and do a sixth session, as if she and macrocosmic orbits, of the movement of the traveling show and actually build had shown it to us. of energy between heaven and earth and a real university.” You come here and we the human body, define how the body is train you. Tons of anatomy, kinesiology, IPR used to say that “There is a lot more maintained. The body emerges as a material better understanding of chemistry, and going on with the human than the body, being connected to, and interpenetrated by, tons more supervised clinical time. Then I but the body is what you can get your heaven and earth. This lawful fluctuation of think that we can produce a graduate that is hands on.” In this context the inquiry energy through the system matched, and much better prepared to actually represent about the energetics of the body, the supported, what Ida valued. The ‘Line’ was Rolfing [SI]. ‘psychobiological’ part of human being, the logo of that relationship. How we are should always have the element of touch MCJ: Talk about your style as a practitioner: related to the fields around us, connected as a way in. If it is done without getting to Earth and connected to the cosmos, was JS: I think, as for any high-level your hands on the body, you don’t evoke emerging for me. IPR was independently journeyman, the work appears more and the kind of changes that are potential with validated by this understanding. I realized more simple to me. Even as it is informed our work. IPR used to say that if you left out that the energetic template of the macro- by thousands of hours of experience, I do

12 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY less to get my results. I am able to see into a idea that water always goes to the lowest various aspects of craniosacral work, visceral pattern and more often do the right couple point, but then it rises as clouds and it manipulation with Jean-Pierre Barral, and nerve of things to mobilize it. As a practitioner rains again. In the body the lesser governs mobilization in all its variations. gets more experience, [he is] able to see the greater, and in the ligament bed the María Cristina Jiménez is a Certified Advanced into the essence of a pattern and do the few establishment of adaptability opens the Rolfer and a yoga teacher (ERYT 500) who has things that make it accessible for the client structure to receive educational input and been teaching yoga since 2001. She was born and to contact and move through. I am not sure real pattern changes. raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She’s worked I want to say what my metaphysical roots MCJ: Can you speak about tracking? extensively with – and is deeply influenced are, but I am a product of my times. by – Integral Anatomy’s Gil Hedley and the JS: Ida didn’t identify the work that she Rolf used to say that Rolfing [SI] was great Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and her Body- did at the end of sessions as ‘tracking’ – a holistic system, and she was also a Mind Centering® work. She regularly mentors it looked more like a guided movement big advocate of always grounding your with Rolfers Jan Sultan, Benjamin Shields, education. At some point I noticed that abstractions. With that in mind, I kept and Harvey Ruderian, and has also mentored she would do certain techniques at the wondering what is Rolfing SI’s holism? with Mary Bond and Bruce Schonfeld. She is end of certain sessions to help the client As she often demanded that we ground training in craniosacral therapy and visceral integrate the work. I decided to view our abstract thinking, I wondered where manipulation. She completed her Rolfing that as a separate body of work. After her her ‘holism’ found its ground. IPR said, certification in 2013 and has a thriving death, I gave it the name ‘tracking’. My “The body is a web connecting everything bodywork practice. In addition to her public motivation was to preserve this unique with everything else.” It comes to this: yoga classes, María Cristina has contributed in part of her work, and to be able to identify when your client stands before you, you over thirty-five different teacher trainings and it as a distinct system that you could apply have three primary elements, trait, state, immersions all around the Los Angeles area as whenever and wherever. I don’t do it every and shape. Trait is your genome, as in the well as nationally. She is known for her spiritual time. I often do it when I feel people need patterns of your grandparents, your hair anatomy workshops, which help make anatomy help integrating the manual work that I’ve color, your size, your attitudes, your tribal accessible, relevant, and poetic. done. I sometime use it to get a hold of the roots in a manner of speaking. Then there is brain and guide the limbs through space in the state [the person is] in now, and perhaps a different way than what is habitual, in a the one he habitually holds. Are you a sense to ‘burn in’ the track. pissed-off person, a joyous person, a fearful person? Or “God, I almost had an accident MCJ: Any last comments and/or pieces of on my way over here and I am upset and advice for new Rolfers? activated, but generally I am more cooled JS: As you develop as a practitioner, begin out.” And then there is the shape: your to pay attention to the space between the literal form, and the way you occupy space. moves you make. Watch the body and the Shape, trait, and state then are the essence whole field of the intervention. Listen to of our holism. your own body as you watch. Your pacing, MCJ: Talk about the evolution of the and listening, is every bit as important as Advanced Training from formulistic as your doing. Dr. Rolf had it, to non-formulistic. How It’s hard to get a business going – you are did it come about and was there pushback? self-employed and the development of JS: Yes there was. How it came about was your business is based first and foremost that it was high time for Advanced Rolfing to on referral. So every person you touch is take people to client-centered work instead potentially the next five people you’re going of predetermined-formula work. And more to touch. Work more, talk less. Lead people to the point, Rolf said if you are going to do to their own experience, not yours. Don’t advanced work, you have to reach higher tell any stories about yourself unless it’s and higher levels of specificity. That can’t be directly related to what’s happening with done with a predetermined formula. the person on the table. And be prepared to wash dishes or wait tables until you get MCJ: Would you elaborate on the concept going. Don’t give up your day job! that you and Michael Salveson developed of working in the ligamentous bed? Jan Sultan currently lives in Manhattan Beach, California, and maintains a full-time JS: The ligament bed is the deepest practice there. He also travels to Santa Fe, myofascial layer on your way to the New Mexico to work with his clients there. He osseous components. In the ligament bed teaches Advanced Rolfing classes and offers are concentrations of Golgi tendon organs continuing education for structural integrators and muscle spindle reflex arcs. In that on a regular basis. In addition to holding a direct way, working in the ligament bed follows lineage to Ida Rolf, he woks to deepen Rolfing the law that the smallest governs the largest. SI as it is practiced today. Jan’s studies include This is also fundamental [to] Taoism: the

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 13 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY Burning Man, Part 2 Continuing the Interview with Michael Salveson

By Szaja Gottlieb, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Michael Salveson, Advanced Rolfing® Instructor

Editor’s Note: Advanced Rolfing instructor Michael Salveson has been an integral part of the Rolf Institute®. He was chosen by Dr. Rolf as one of five to help transmit her work. He has many times been a contributor to this Journal, particularly about the importance of the Advanced Training and topics in Advanced Rolfing Structural Integration (SI). In March 2005 (vol. 33, issue 1) the Journal published “The Advanced Class,” and in September 2008 (vol. 36, issue 3), “A Lecture from the April 2008 Advanced Rolfing Training.” Though the interview includes comments and views about the Advanced Training, there is also an exploration of his own process since he became a Rolfer. This interview took place in summer 2015 at Salveson’s home in Berkeley, California a Michael Salveson few days before he left for the Burning Man gathering. This is the second part of the interview. The first part of this interview was published in the March 2016 issue of this Journal.

Szaja Gottlieb: Let’s go back to the has the kind of potency that Ida’s ten- ‘Recipe’ and its importance. Even though session series has. It’s because she stayed I took the Advanced Training (AT) in directly connected to the actual anatomical 2008 and do non-formulaic Rolfing SI, a structures. The Second Hour is a good three-session series, or even one, I find example. Work in the anterior compartment myself always doing the ten-session series, of the lower leg has a direct effect on the whether I know it or not. fascial compartments that control flexion and extension at the talo-crural joint. Michael Salveson: There’s a good reason for that actually. In my opinion, SG: Yes. Ida’s formulation of the Recipe is inherently MS: In the Fourth Hour, you are separating tied to the actual structure of the body. the adductor compartments. I mean, if you Think about how the Recipe progresses. look at the way the legs are approached, it’s You begin by peeling the onion, releasing Szaja Gottlieb sequential, medial compartment, anterior the superficial structures of the thorax, compartment, posterior compartment – back, and hips. When you work in sessions the actual way the body works. Plus, it’s the sessions Four, Five, and Six. Four, Five, and Six, these sessions are tied way the brain works. We now know that the to the actual muscular compartments SG: Exactly. brain organizes movement, influenced by defined by the septa that are anatomically spatial perception. But the implementation MS: That’s not an invention. That’s not determining functional units in the body. of movement occurs according to how somebody’s idea about how lines of She understood how these functional units these compartments interact. These transmission might go through the body. fit together to make a whole. She didn’t compartments are defined, and they define They are absolutely rock solid anatomical hypothesize potential relationships – she the possibility of movement. The adductors structures and she understood how they looked at the actual structure; and that’s the create adduction, and so forth. You are interact. That was her power, not that she reason that even if you’ve been [practicing] working in a system not only rooted in came up with some fabulous new view. Rolfing work for thirty years, you still look physical structure, but also rooted in the She took what she knew to be the actual through the image of the Recipe she created. way the brain is organizing movement. physical structure and understood how it Dr. Rolf was fond of kitchen metaphors by Movement, of course, is more complex went together. Not like, “Oh well, here’s this the way. No matter how long you do Rolfing than that, but these anatomical structures one line and you could follow this flow up integration and how, you still look at the comprise the actual motor units. here across the fascia in the leg and then body through the glasses that were put on up into the chest.” In such examples, the SG: Would you talk a bit about the you in the Basic Training when you learned underlying myofascial structures affecting discussion we had earlier on as to whether the fundamental recipe. There have been function are not so clear. feet or rib cage should be done in the First people who come up with other recipes Hour? but they lack the anatomical integrity of SG: She is talking about anatomically Dr. Rolf’s Recipe. grounded structures. MS: I absolutely go with Ida here that the first session releases inhibitions to SG: So there is no escape from the Recipe . . . MS: Yes, totally anatomically grounded. respiration from the thorax and the hips. MS: There are some other ways in which SG: Which is critical. SG: I remember her saying that by working some see connectivity happening in the on the thorax the whole body is affected in body. But no one has come even close MS: It is. It’s critical because it’s working the first fifteen minutes. to defining the sequential approach that with the structure as it is defined by anatomical units. It’s the actual stuff. It’s

14 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY

MS: This is both a blessing and a source Anyway, I was doing that with her, working SG: Personally, I feel much better when I of risk. I remember when I first discovered my way through, and I stand her up and she see everything in movement, the quality the significance of the restrictions down at looks good except: ”Oh my God, she needs of the movement and the whole energy the ligamentous level, it all lit up for me. a Second Hour.” It was so apparent . . . the of the organism. I think sometimes that I could walk up to the client on the table lack of continuity. The work had spread to practitioners focus on structural aspects and see it right away and my impulse was, her knees, but below the knees the girl was too much rather than function. My personal “Why are we tinkering here. Just go down a total mess. I then said to her, “When are belief is that Rolfing [SI] is actually a there and open that up and then let’s see you going back to New York?” She said, movement therapy. For a practitioner, not what happens.” I used to call it “let’s blow ”In a week.” I said, “Okay, you need to see to see how [his] results function in gravity it up and see what happens” . . . trusting this guy in New York, Chuck Carpenter.” would be absurd. that we had the skills to deal with the It’s a perfect example of how opening up MS: That would certainly be problematic. compensations or decompensation that deeper structures [causes] unexpected The other thing that’s really interesting to would spread out from liberating that deep decompensations in other parts of the body. me – and this comes partly out of my own restriction. That was a huge learning for SG: I always wonder does anyone, internal experience, my own process of me to see the way those decompensations particularly experienced Certified healing – is the notion of unwinding. One would spread. Advanced Rolfers, know what’s going to of the things that I look for is a condition I had a woman come here from New York. happen before they do whatever they do? in the organism, in the person when I am I was going to do two sessions on her working, that sets the stage for deep release. MS: No, almost never. Although I have two days in a row and then never see her Ultimately, what happens is that there are to say, with forty-five years of experience again. She had a back problem and a slight restrictions [that] we deal with to the best you do have a sense of the possibilities. I curvature. I said, ”Well, okay, I’m going of our ability. We partially mobilize, never will tell you something else, though. Once to deal with the pain problem first, that’s completely, but we go in and we create some you get the reputation for being able to fix what you are suffering from, that’s what space and movement. But then [the client’s] people, they start circling your office like you came for.” I worked releasing the brain has to let go of the tension pattern that planes waiting to land at Chicago’s O’Hare structures around the pelvis in a systematic created the fixation. airport and you get more and more difficult way before releasing the restrictions on a people. And what is amazing to me is there SG: So, even though we give a certain ligamentous level. We got it done and we is a way of assessing someone that would potential, he may not access it. did it in one session and it’s a big success. allow a session devoted almost exclusively She came in the next day and I realized MS: The question is, what does letting go to a very limited, even unilateral, area, and there were still a lot of unresolved strains look like, because it’s really about letting you can still trust that the organism is going from the previous session. I just need to go go. In the Taoist world, they say there are to assimilate the work. back and polish the stone a little bit. There two primordial actions in life, grasping and were fixations in the spine that I mobilized SG: The suggestion of integration. letting go. In this culture, letting go doesn’t that needed to be remobilized. I have a get its fair share of the press. MS: Yeah, it gives you the kind of confidence technique, a very direct but interactive that you can intervene in the system and the SG: Absolutely not. touch; after applying pressure, I monitor system can absorb it. the response. MS: In a way, it’s a notion that I introduce SG: After all, you can’t be everywhere. at a certain point, particularly with the gym SG: Is this the ‘vectorized touch’ you often When you start as a Rolfer, of course, the rats who come in. Most are covering up a refer to? ‘pink all over’ philosophy is quite common. deeper vulnerability. Not that I am not a big MS: No, this is what I usually refer to as It’s hard to learn that you can do more with believer in strength training, there are lots ‘bossy indirect’. I will give you an example. less. In a way that’s the transition from of people who need it. Let’s say there is a problem around T8-T10, formulaic to non-formulaic Rolfing [work]. SG: True. this area is often in trouble. You palpate, MS: Yes, correct. You don’t have to plow push on the vertebrae, and realize they MS: To illustrate, I stand in front of [the the whole field. don’t move. What are you going to do? client] and mime a position that is severely You release the soft tissue and the vertebrae SG: I remember during my training that bent to the left. I ask, “What should I do are still stuck. I have a technique. I actually that was a criticism of my own work – I to straighten up?” I point out that many use my elbow. I gently make contact, line was told, “You open up too many boxes.” strengthening modalities would suggest up with the plane of the facets, establish that, if I am pulled over to the left, I should MS: It’s about judgment. Every practitioner just enough pressure to where I feel I’m strengthen the muscles on the right side to needs to have confidence in the data set that engaging the ligaments that control the create a balanced pull and then I would be [he uses] to determine whether or not the motion of the vertebra. Then I back off straight. So, I contract the muscles on the organism is actively integrating as a result and wait for the vertebra to wake up right side and point out that, although I of what [he is] doing. You can watch the and activate. As soon as it activates, I am straight, I am now compressed, from nervous system or the energetic flow. Or, start following it, and pretty soon it slips the contraction of the muscles on both you can watch movement. But there needs home. There’s a big spreading. Everyone sides. In fact, the best approach would to be a way. When you watch someone do feels better. be to let go, or release, the muscles on the a session and [he does] the whole session left that were pulling me over to the left. without the client getting up to check in, Then I would be straight and lengthened, you should be suspicious. www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 15 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY not compressed from over-contraction. So MS: In a way that activation, that kind of “I see what the game is here. We are like what’s happening? In the illustration, the deep calming that goes on in a session, is her harem.” client is prescribing a counter-shortness. also really an indicator that tells you what SG: For her use. What we have is an artificially induced you are doing is integrative. shortness on top of an inherent shortness. It MS: That’s exactly right. We were there for SG: You are there! is important to note that this is actually the her use. Obviously, she had a big influence condition that many people come in with. MS: You are in a place and what you are on me. The real issue is letting go of the shortness doing is not disruptive. SG: Sounds like that scene from The Blues on that left side. Ultimately, in order to get SG: I want to turn to your teachers, your Brothers, “We are on a mission from God.” that client straight, he has to let go. How? major influences. Dr. Rolf was obviously MS: Yeah, exactly. A lot of people had a One of the phenomenon that’s mind- your main teacher. What about your problem with her because she never would boggling to me is that I can be working relationship with her? really say, “You got it . . . That was good.” very deep in someone – and this happens MS: I was very aware that Ida was an She was never big on acknowledgement. regularly now – and, all of a sudden, the open fire. I was very aware that she had an I used to say Ida was one of the teachers whole room will just go quiet, his breathing agenda. She had come to a level of social from the hard school. You would go in. You will slow down, and he drops down, and I recognition late in her life. She knew she would engage her. You do what you were can feel the chi move up to his brain and [he had a limited amount of time and she supposed to be doing. And, if you had a big closes his] eyes and is gone. I can continue wanted to get this work established and hole, Ida would find it, and push you in it, working in that state, and I can do very in place. The individual destiny of those and then she would help pull you out. She deep work that ordinarily would be painful. around her didn’t matter much. You were would immediately reveal the weaknesses What the hell is going on? Is this just opiates fuel for her fire. And, if you got too close to because that’s what you needed to work being released in the brain because of the the fire, you could get burned. There were on, but it was not a gentle approach. There pain sensation? Or something else? We three suicides. There were a lot of emotional was collateral damage sometimes. I saw should study this because that brain state, disruptions. I was close to her because she that. I was pretty careful. I made myself that configuration in the central nervous said, “Look, you’re going to be one of the useful to her in ways that I knew she would system, is immensely open to a new way. teachers.” I sat next to her. She taught me appreciate. And she acknowledged me. She This is the state in which it is possible to how to teach. Also, she said, “We need said, ”Yeah, you’re OK. You got it.” She said, let go. someone to step forward and be president “You should go to chiropractic school. You SG: I think of that state as a kind of [of the Rolf Institute®].” It was either me or should go. You could do it.” daydreaming for the body. At night the Joe Heller. SG: That was huge. body is unleashed in dreams, flying or SG: I remember you talking about it. doing crazy things or what not. And then MS: Yes, it was huge for me. It meant I during the day, it can happen that we are MS: I told her, “Look, I’m in the middle of didn’t need to go to chiropractic school. out of the way of the body, it becomes a divorce. Let’s let Joe do it.” [But] then Joe Trust me, I saw how big her vision was. primary, the ego is gone, and finally took off and then I got elected. If you knew I say we are scratching the surface. The the body can do its thing. And that is a my neurotic structure at that time, one of implications of what she had laid out healing place. my great fears was being abandoned by are huge. a woman. I got elected president [of the MS: I think that’s right. In relation to study SG: Who else was a major influence? Institute] by like 99% of the vote. Then Ida in the fascia, we should also study this. died and my wife left me. This kind of state is really useful, and if we MS: My analyst of fifteen years, my Jungian analyst, Donald Sander. He was the missing produce it regularly in a Rolfing session, SG: Early 1980s? that’s nourishing. father for me. He was also like Ida. He was MS: 1978. In a way it cured that little glitch a trained MD. He was also studying with SG: Absolutely. in my psyche because what I feared would Navajo shamans and taking mescaline. happen, happened. It is one of those things He moved between those worlds. It was MS: Clients say, “Wow, I feel straighter, but that you know, this is going to be difficult, an early acknowledgement that there is a I also feel filled up.” but you also know that if you pull this off, legitimacy to altered states of consciousness SG: You probably don’t remember a session you’ll be different forever. It was a very and I didn’t need to deny it. you worked on me during my Unit 3. It was difficult time. SG: Gave you a model. a long session, maybe two hours plus. You Ida needed help so she would draw people were the third Rolfer to work on me in that MS: Yeah, and I didn’t need to sit on it and to her who could help her. I remember one session, Patrick Hannum and Jim Price were suppress it, which, in a way, my childhood night after class at the Adams House in the others. While you were working on was set up to do. He was huge. Big Sur. She called like five of us out, she me, I felt something. I told you, “Michael, wanted to have a meeting to talk about the something is coming, I don’t know if it is SG: Were there any other teachers who Institute. I was on the cliff looking out over tears or laughter.” Moments later the two have influenced your work? the Pacific Ocean; Ida was in the recliner of us were laughing uproariously for no MS: [John] Upledger had a significant covered with a bear skin. I looked around apparent reason. It was one of those states. influence on my work. Long before and here were one, two, three, four, five My dad had died a few months earlier. It the Upledger Institute started training guys, all healthy, attractive, vital. I think, was a huge release.

16 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY everybody, Jan Sultan set up a class with [Certified Advanced Rolfer Georgette really want to do SI as it was developed by him and his wife. They came to New Mexico Salveson-Delvaux] is close to his wife. I Ida, which we [should] now call ‘Rolfing and taught a group of Rolfers. have [done Rolfing sessions on] him. He is Integration’. I think the Rolf Institute can one of my keystone teachers and gave the become a container for the practitioners SG: Was it obvious that craniosacral work keys to the inner flow that is at the heart of who are truly skilled and motivated to do was the next step? my spiritual development. great Rolfing Integration. MS: Ida didn’t talk about it in class, SG: I want to cover one more aspect of the SG: I think it is a brilliant idea, actually, but afterwards she gave me a copy of AT. I was thinking about how the AT was because it takes care of a lot things. It builds Sutherland’s book, The Cranial Bowl. I still related to the schism in the 1980s [where bridges to other schools and practitioners. have it. She said: “Michael, you should read certain teachers left the Rolf Institute], and It protects the service mark. It stimulates this book.” Jim Asher, in fact, became very now there’s the recent decision to allow interest in having a high level of expertise. skilled in cranial technique. graduates of other SI schools to apply I think it is a bold stroke. SG: So, she was saying, “You need to do and attend [our AT]. It seems like we are MS: We have an energetic director now, this.” becoming a graduate school for other Christina Howe. She has a staff. We need SI institutions. MS: Yes, I got it right away. The truth is you more money, but I think we may be able to cannot go to the highest levels of Rolfing MS: Ida knew that there’d be more than do this at this time. The time maybe ripe. Integration if you don’t understand the one location for her work. But, I think she SG: How do you feel about recent fascial craniosacral system and how to release would not be very happy with the kind of research and our participation in the the skull and the brain. Even though I was dilution that’s going on in SI. There has been International Fascia Research Congress, has never close to Upledger, he did open that dilution by SI schools, most unconnected there been any effect? world for me. Not only does it make it to her lineage, and there has been dilution possible to decompress the upper pole and by the adoption of ancillary techniques – MS: I think a lot of the impact of take the Seventh Hour into a whole other energetic, visceral, biodynamic – which the fascia research has stayed in the world, it also introduces you to inherent have confused the basic practice of Rolfing scientific community. I don’t see a lot motion. I felt it. When Upledger said, “Put Integration. Not that those techniques are of it coming into clinical practice. In your hands here,” and I did, and then, not legitimate modes of intervention, but terms of establishing credibility for the boom! – I felt it. they are not Rolfing Integration. They possibility of the configuration of the can inform Rolfing work, but they can’t human body by manipulating connective In a way, in the early days of Rolfing replace it. tissue, and the role of connective tissue in Integration, it was much more like sculpture. the overall physiology of human organisms, We were moving tissue. We were molding SG: It sounds like you think that SI as a it’s fabulous. people into an upright position. But when brand is tainted. you get this – “Holy Christ, the whole thing I remember the first [Congress] at Harvard. MS: Yes, everybody now is a structural is in motion, it’s pulsating and moving I was sitting with Georgette and they were integrator. I think two things. Number one, around in there, flowing – that requires a talking about various dissections. It was Gil I think the Rolf Institute needs to begin to different quality of touch. If you are going Hedley and one other person, whose name define itself as ‘Rolfing Integration’ separate to take this work to the highest level, you I forget, but they were showing videos of a from ‘structural integration’. We need to have to be able to follow inherent motion. careful dissection of the superficial fascia. market the brand of ‘Rolfing Integration’ They had gone in, carefully peeled off the SG: Another reason for the AT. and minimize the connection to SI because skin down to the basement membrane; otherwise all the good work that we do and MS: Yes, exactly. Because in the AT, one there was a picture of a speckling of yellow have done to develop this work just gets of the benchmark experiences is the fat all over the body of the superficial tailgated on by every SI school. We raise the introduction to the spectrum of touch, that fascia of the body without skin. Then, they profile of SI by virtue of Rolfing Integration, a Rolfer’s touch goes across the spectrum of carefully removed the superficial fascia while others do little and yet benefit from intensity and duration. That is the hallmark from the deep fascia, the first layer of the all our good work. There are exceptions. of a great Rolfer. deep fascia. [They had a picture where Some SI people are doing good work to there was] a body on a stainless-steel SG: Any other great influences? put standards in place. Unfortunately, they gurney where you could begin to see this have little leverage to enforce adherence gray glistening fascia with the muscles MS: Yes, my Taoist teacher Bruce Kumar to the standards and they need members, underneath, and on the stainless-steel Frantzis. I got a call from Jan Sultan saying, so they are lowering the entry standard to gurney next to it, a body suit of superficial ”Michael, there is this guy in Santa Fe. He is increase membership. the real deal. He is moving to San Francisco. fascia completely contiguous like a pair of You need to check him out.” I did and I Second point. There is a problem because long johns. I turned to Georgette and said, was impressed. I saw that this guy had the now you have a lot of SI practitioners out “You know, dissection was done in the late goods. He embodied what he was teaching. there who are actually very good, who Middle Ages through the Renaissance into I have been his student for thirty years. have been trained by Peter [Melchior] and the Enlightenment. There probably has not Emmett [Hutchins], and who have been been a novel dissection done on a human SG: Wow! Still? trained in some other schools but do not body in three hundred years, and [we] just MS: Yes, I took all his classes. We are friends have a home. The next step then is to make saw the first novel dissection in the history now. He has moved to Hawaii but Georgette the Rolf Institute a home for people who of anatomy right there.” No one had ever

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 17 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY parsed that out in the body. It was totally a license. However, times have changed. MS: That’s right exactly. There is a way in cool! Gil Hedley is a fabulous teacher. I’ve The increase in interest in expanding which we are working under the radar of watched his videos – what a tremendous human potential that occurred in the 70s the dominant culture and that’s fine. That’s resource he is. and 80s changed everything. Touching where we are. That’s where we are doing the body, in all varieties of bodywork, our work. It’s okay with me. It may change SG: Do you have any fears that with all has become a major industry. The last someday. We’ve had a huge effect that we this research and dissemination of new fifteen years has seen an explosion in new don’t get credit for. That’s okay with me too, information we will, in a sense, be overrun manipulative techniques. It is important we as long as keep training practitioners at the by other modalities? Soon everyone is going do not lose our footing here. highest level. That’s our job. If we do that, to be claiming to be doing fascial fitness. Ida would be happy. Our work is stronger and more powerful to MS: Just like tissue massage. the extent that we understand and master I remember I was in New York with her. SG: Yes. ways of moving restricted structures She was giving a speech at Hunter College, in areas of the connective-tissue matrix and it was the first time in public that she MS: The reason we don’t have to be afraid is that Dr. Rolf did not address. We must, talked about energy. At that time, we had a because 1) Rolfing Integration is hard work; however, integrate these techniques into couple of people on the board, and Ida was 2) it takes a long time to get good at it; 3) our unique approach to manipulating looking for money. She was staying on the it’s not just about knowledge, it’s something connective tissue and not adopt them Upper East Side in this beautiful loft. We you could only learn by oral transmission. without examination, and just replace our were hanging out at night, it was pretty late, You have to have a teacher who is capable approach with another technique. We need drinking cognac and talking. I said, “You of demonstrating the results, showing you to understand when, where, and how to know, you’ve done a lot and you’ve got the results, producing the result in your use these new manipulative techniques to an institute now. It’s an organization. You own body and guiding your hands while further our unique goals. got enough people trained and you have you make those strategic decisions and trained some teachers. You must be proud interventions. That’s not just about the SG: I absolutely agree with you but I do feel of that. If I were to ask you, what are you biomechanics of fascia. chagrined that the public does not realize really proud of, what would you say?” She our influence in the bodywork field. SG: I have been doing a number of reviews looked at me and said, “I’m very happy that for this Journal in the past few years and MS: Nobody had heard of connective I’ve found something that people could do there is a wave of therapies beginning tissue before Dr. Rolf had created Rolfing that is useful,” to emanate. [Integration]. SG: Is there anything better” MS: One of the things you see – and you SG: How about the massage magazines? MS: Yeah, exactly. I could put people to see it in medicine, you in fact see it in many There is so much in there that comes from work doing some useful. That’s our job. fields – is the vulnerability that we have to Rolfing work but the reading public doesn’t something that’s new. The derogatory term know that. SG: Thank you, Michael, for your time. for it is a ‘fad’. You can see these fads sweep MS: It’s a form of selfishness. People MS: My pleasure. through bodywork so that everybody wants want the credit to come to them but they the latest fad on their business cards. Then Michael Salveson was educated in philosophy don’t acknowledge the source. We have there is a new fad and now they have got and religion, trained as a Rolfer by Dr. Rolf in had a huge influence on the culture, to get that name on their business cards 1969, trained as an Advanced Rolfer in the first unacknowledged to a large extent. as well. Something new doesn’t mean it’s AT Rolf taught, and trained by Rolf to be one better. It almost never produces a more SG: Exactly. of the five instructors of Rolfing SI she trained profound result. in her lifetime. Michael was president of the MS: Then the question is what our true Rolf Institute from 1978 to 1982. He has been SG: I’m smiling because I’m thinking of role is here? Are we really a small secret a practitioner of Taoist chi gong for twenty-five how many times I have told people what I school? We are not. We simply need to be years. He is currently working to develop a do, Rolfing [Integration], and their response comfortable with our true identity, and that coherent Rolfing approach to the ligamentous is, “Oh, is that still around?” “Yup, we are is that we continue to train practitioners at bed that controls movement and position of the still around,” I reply, “and we are still doing the highest possible level and put them in articular surfaces of the body. the good work.” a place where they are capable of making a really good living by practicing something Szaja Gottlieb first received Rolfing sessions in MS: That’s right. We have been doing that’s very useful to their community. The 1978, which resulted in him becoming a stone this for a long time now and we have waves will go out from there and maybe sculptor, which, in turn, led to his becoming a trained a small but significant number of there’s only two thousand or three thousand Rolfer in 2001. He lives with his wife Ko and practitioners. We are not totally in charge Rolfers in the US. It doesn’t matter. All I care daughter Judith in Los Osos, California and of how many people we train. The culture about is that we put some people out there practices in San Luis Obispo and Ventura. He that we are in isn’t profoundly receptive to who are capable of working at the highest believes in the transformational potency of SI. what we are doing. Dr. Rolf was paranoid possible level. regarding any risk that what she was doing might be construed as practicing medicine. SG: And to attract those people who want She had friends who had been legally to work at that level as well. persecuted for practicing medicine without

18 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY

But those close to Emmett knew that Emmett Hutchins teaching was often a serious challenge for him, because he also struggled with In Memoriam a psychological disorder that could suddenly elicit overwhelming fear or rage, By Nicholas French, PhD, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ often robbing him of reason. Emmett’s intellectual brilliance would suddenly From the Editor-in-Chief: For many, Emmett Hutchins was a beloved personage in the Rolf be lost to emotions he couldn’t control; lineage, an inspiring teacher, practitioner, mentor, or friend. For others he was a controversial people he loved might seem frighteningly figure because of his pivotal role in ‘the split’ and his acrimony toward the Rolf Institute® after he dangerous, the familiar world lost and left. This presents a challenge in writing about his passing and his legacy. It may offend some who nightmarish. After an early, terrifying expect only tributes, yet it seems imperative to present the full man, in order to perhaps understand experience of being confined in a hospital as more about both his contributions and the wounds that linger in our community. I am grateful to psychotic, he made his partner, Dick Nicholas French for taking this on with honesty, compassion, and a depth of insight into a man Stenstadvold (for years the Executive who he knew variously as teacher, colleague, and friend. Director of the Rolf Institute), swear never to hospitalize him again. And so his close friends and the members of their household did their best to conceal that struggle and protect him from both his personal demons and the outside world. Emmett told me that when he was a boy, his mother, a fervent believer in a Christian sect, would call him inside at a certain time every day and do her best to “. . . Beat the sin out of me, to cleanse me of the devil’s influences.” How does a child, especially a sensitive boy, find a way to balance such drastic opposites, especially when a central figure in his world presents them as inescapably real? The gifted Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote about the need to recognize that no matter what one believes (or wishes to believe) about oneself, it is deeply important to uncover the darker aspects in the unconscious, to know our ‘shadow’ side. I never heard Emmett mention Jung, but he did spend a lot of time studying astrology and striving for perfection; perhaps those Emmett Hutchins, September 2015, shortly after his efforts were his way of trying to fight off eighty-first birthday. Photo by Amber Leigh Burnham, those personal demons. And well before used with permission. Colorado legalized marijuana, he smoked a lot of it, perhaps seeking escape from In 1979 we had to accept the death of Dr. greater part of their lives to that work, and his nightmarish thoughts and emotions, Ida P. Rolf, the brilliant, far-seeing founder they are deservedly honored for that by eventually becoming so habituated to it of our work. In 2005 we lost Peter Melchior, their students and faculty colleagues. that the effect wasn’t noticed unless one the first of her students that Dr. Rolf asked Peter and Emmett had very contrasting looked closely at the pupils of his eyes. to teach the work, a man whose knowledge, personalities, but when they taught Even so, Emmett would periodically lose sure touch, and sense of humor made him together the contrasts seemed only to his balance and Dick would suddenly have a legend in our Institute (though he scoffed add to the clarity and effectiveness of the to call Peter to take over the class Emmett at such an idea). Now we must say goodbye ideas they offered. Similarly, the way they had been teaching. to another pivotal figure in the evolution demonstrated the possibilities of seeing of our Institute: Emmett Hutchins, an Clearly, life was often very problematic what was needed and the hands-on contact intellectually gifted man whose shyness for Emmett. His devotion to his personal that would elicit the required change and need for solitude often earned him a understanding of Dr. Rolf’s work often led tended to draw great admiration from sense of mystery, or at least detachment. him to criticize the views of other faculty students – fairly normal for basic Rolfing® In 1971 he and Peter were the first two of members. It’s possible that was a projection Structural Integration classes, but somehow Dr. Rolf’s students that she entrusted with of his own sense of being imperfect as a the Hutchins/Melchior chemistry seemed to teaching her work. Both men were brilliant teacher, but he often focused it on other magnify the effect. Rolfers and fine teachers and gave the teachers, especially if he thought they were

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 19 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY trying to change what was being taught. Whatever disagreements remain from the Nicholas French, PhD, has been a member of the In a group of intelligent and creative past, I hope Emmett’s passion for structural Rolf Institute since 1976. His first teachers were people who were following their own integration and his teaching skills will stand Emmett Hutchins, Ida Rolf, and Peter Melchior. intuitions and experience, being treated like as a contribution of great value. They did He later was made a teacher and taught Rolfing heretics or unbelievers was understandably not disappear with Emmett’s passing; their classes in Boulder, Munich, Paris, São Paulo, disagreeable. If the tension hit a certain influence lives on in a large number of his and Adelaide, Australia. He has twice served on level, Emmett would simply walk out students and has undoubtedly touched a the Board of Directors of the Rolf Institute. In on the meeting. Even though we all saw great number of clients — deeply. After all, 1991 he left the faculty to enter seven and a half our teaching as sharing what Dr. Rolf that was Emmett’s style. years of training as a psychoanalyst at the Jung had taught us, it was clear that there was Institute of Dallas. He lives in Dallas, Texas, May he finally be at peace. increasing dissension in the faculty. and continues to stay busy in both practices. In 1990, an audit of the Rolf Institute’s books and accounts revealed irregularities indicating that someone had been misappropriating funds. Dick, the one in charge, quickly resigned. In a letter to the Spirit of Movement membership he denied any wrongdoing, but added that if he had used Institute funds An Interview with Judith Aston-Linderoth on the Early ® improperly, it would have been appropriate History of the Rolf Movement Work as part of his work as Executive Director of the Rolf Institute. While many Institute By Shonnie Carson, Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Judith Aston-Linderoth members saw that as a confession of guilt, Note from Shonnie Carson: This interview was conducted on September 16, 2015. Judith Aston many others defended him. Emotions was in Palm Springs, California teaching a workshop and I drove from Phoenix, Arizona to do an on both sides became so heated that interview with her. The chance to be able to document more history of the Rolf Institute® and the many members worried that the Institute early history of the movement work was just too valuable to pass up. would not survive a split, though one was clearly inevitable. Shonnie Carson: My first question for Dick quickly took up the idea of having you, Judith, is how and when did you meet a separate school, calling it what Dr. Rolf Dr. Rolf? had originally called her group: The Guild Judith Aston-Linderoth: I had had two for Structural Integration. Emmett was its rather serious car accidents in 1966 and first teacher, and later Peter and a couple 1967. In one of them I was braking and of other Rolf Institute faculty joined them. someone going more than fifty miles per Both schools have been training ever since, hour rear-ended me. This left me in a great and though a few attempts have been made deal of pain and flexed over. I was teaching over the years to find peace, they were movement, dance, and fitness at a college, unsuccessful. The shouting died down over and I was also doing classes on the weekends time, but opposing beliefs have left us with in La Jolla at Kiros. It was kind of like a New a wound that has never healed. Because so Age, Esalen-type center and Fritz Perls and many contradictory stories spread through various people were also doing workshops our Institute so quickly, most of them there. I became the ‘movement lady’ on the Judith Aston-Linderoth inaccurate and based on heated emotions weekends, and so I was asked to do the or old disagreements, lines of opposition movement for Fritz Perls’ workshop. One formed — each side certain it had The One of the leaders there, Dr. Tom Munson, was And Only Truth. As usual, no position a psychiatrist and he got me involved in his was without some mistaken impression, work assisting his patients to understand but friendships suffered and ideas of what was happening in their bodies and wrongdoing have hung on too long. Is it therefore how they could listen to their possible to face that old wound and move bodies to make sense of what was going toward healing? on. Dr. Munson said, “I know you are still While the Guild maintained an office in having a lot of pain from this accident and Boulder and held classes there until a year no one seems to be able to help you. I’ve or two ago, Emmett and Dick moved their heard of a white witch named Dr. Ida Rolf. household to Hawaii, where they continued She’s going to be coming to Esalen to teach to hold classes. Dick died there several years a class this spring [1968] and I think you ago, and the Guild’s board of directors should see her.” shifted the office to Salt Lake City, Utah. So off I went to Esalen. Dr. Rolf was working Shonnie Carson Emmett continued to teach as long as he down at the baths in a little room doing her was able.

20 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY sessions but she has no cancellations. So go and watch them perform or play golf communication, be it dance or everyday every time she opens the door I’m sitting or whatever it was they were doing, and movement or stillness. I was fascinated with on the stairs and she says, “Not you again,” I could see, because of my mathematical how people expressed the same emotion and I say, “Well I’m just waiting until you tendencies, common denominators depending on their culture. have a cancellation.” Then the day goes between what they were doing, and what So when I started teaching at the college in on and the next day I’m there also. She their coaches were saying they weren’t 1963 I became fascinated with movement, all opens her door and says, “Listen, be here doing, and I’d quickly start to design the aspects, then communication, then teaching, tomorrow at two o’clock and I can see you.” movement. So this was a new thing that she observing how people taught. I was intrigued had to train me. She said, “You’re too small, Ida had done her homework about me to find that the secondary education degree I you’ll never make it in the field, but I need somehow. Maybe she had asked people received was not so helpful. My techniques to train you so you know what to do.” And who is this strange person sitting on my of explanation, demonstration, intimidation I said, “Oh . . . Okay.” doorstep, because when I had this first were not working. I observed this idea that appointment with Dr. Rolf (and Dr. Rolf The reason I will never forget this happened people don’t learn on the ‘no’ – they learn to did all of my Series, by the way, which was in the first session is because I had plans freeze on the ‘no’. They don’t take it in. So in a treat) she said, “I understand you design to go to Europe in a few weeks and I was 1964 I changed my whole teaching around to movement programs,” and I (hesitatingly) pretty excited because it would be my first teach people on the ‘yes’ and I saw fantastic said, “Yes” (like how did she know that time. She said, “The class starts in mid-June, results. All of these things led me to work and why?). And she said, “Well I wonder if and I said, “Oh Dr. Rolf, I won’t be able to with this psychiatrist with his patients about you could create a movement program for come, perhaps another class. I am going movement, communication, and emotion my work?” I said, “Really?” and she said, to Europe and I am so excited!” She said, and that’s where I was. “Yes, structural integration.” I said sure, “No, the class starts June 12th.” I said, “No, SC: And then you met Miss Ida. because one of the things about me is that no, Dr. Rolf, I’ve been really planning this this whole life I’ve always looked at things a long time and I don’t know that I could JAL: And then I met Miss Ida. in a certain, evidently creative way and change it.” She said, “CHANGE IT!” [we SC: I am interested in your observations I’m always trying to create something that are both laughing again] and I knew I had about her work. What was your experience makes things better, faster or more efficient to change it, so I did and I was there. That of the work when you received it from her in some way. That’s what I had been doing was my first experience with Dr. Rolf. and when you went through training? How for the college. They asked me to create a SC: How old were you when you met her? did that feed into all of these perceptions movement program for athletes, and for the of movement that you’ve been telling theater department, and for the students, JAL: In my mid twenties. me about? music department, etc., and so I did. SC: And your background was in? JAL: Well, Dr. Rolf often taught on the ‘no’. SC: Did she ask during the first session or JAL: My background was in quite a few [Begins some funny imitations of Ida and after or during your ten sessions? things, all to do with movement. I had a BA we are both laughing.] “What’s the matter JAL: This is during the first session. and master’s from UCLA in dance education with you man? No don’t do that! Line up Dr. Rolf always got to the point. So the and fitness/physical education. My aptitudes – who’s got the worst pelvis? Ok, trainees first session was truly amazing. I had were mainly anything to do with math and pick – who has the worst pelvis? I will give been to all these doctors and the last one abstract thinking. When I was in high school a session to them.” I was an auditor. Ed said, “Well I think really you should see I assisted with a class teaching blind students Maupin was in that class, Will Johnson . . . a psychologist because I think your pain so I learned Braille, and the teacher asked It was in the ‘Big House’ at Big Sur. I learned might be there.” I’m thinking, “Well I’m me what I wanted to do. I said be a flight I saw bodies differently from her. Dr. Rolf really miserable. I am co-leading workshops attendant. [We are both laughing again.] The knew the musculature, the anatomy, and I with a psychiatrist and he’s the one who teacher said “No – why?” I said because I saw the space. She saw in terms of anatomy led me to Dr. Rolf.” In the first session as wanted to travel. She said “You can travel and I see in terms of space. When I would she worked, and I’m a wuss when it comes anytime, what’s the matter with you, your say I saw a pelvic tilt on the left she would to pain, it hurt. But as soon as she stopped aptitudes are all in math, you could be an say, “Yes, that’s right, it’s a tight psoas, why it didn’t, and I could feel the difference engineer!” And I said, “They have lady don’t you just say that?” immediately, immediately! It was like whoa, engineers?” [laughter] So that’s where I was I also had another role in that first training. this is amazing! Then she’d do more and oh in 1959 – “They have lady engineers?” I became Dr. Rolf’s ‘Girl Friday’. I got her my goodness, some of the pain is reduced! SC: [laughing] Yep, I can relate. groceries, drove to Carmel to drop off and And then more work and then even more pick up her cleaning, ran errands, kept her of the pain was gone. This was interspersed JAL: I immediately went to school and schedule, etc., and then between I audited. with Dr. Rolf saying, “Well, I’d have to started studying the new math, which I say that because at the time I wasn’t really train you.” was like playing games for me. But then a very gracious Girl Friday. I had never had I got into dance and movement more and SC: So you have some understanding of that role and I think I would be much better my teacher at the time told me I should what we are doing [we are both laughing at it now with life’s lessons. I also loved really think about going to UCLA dance at this point]. Dr. Rolf and I very much wanted to help department. So I did. I met Juana de Laban, her in any way I could, but some of those JAL: I said, “Oh, uh huh, ok.” In designing Alma Hawkins, all these amazing teachers. tasks felt like they were taking me away previous movement programs, I would just My thesis in 1965 was about movement as

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 21 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY from what was important. But, never fear, to her, somebody would pester her and JAL: Sharon Wheeler, Gael Rosewood, I connected Rosemary Feitis to Dr. Rolf! pester her. If it turned to ‘yes’, this is how Marya Melchior, Faith Hornbacher, Elisa she said it: “Okay, Okay, Okay!” So I said, Lodge, Annie McCoombs, Lynn Johnson, SC: [laughing] Well now there’s an “I take that as a yes.” She said, ”Yes,” so I Bill Williams, and Douglas Wallace. Others interesting little factoid I was not aware of! said, “Okay I’ll see you in February.” who did the movement certification before JAL: [laughing] Early on, Rosemary used I left were Richard Schultz, Heather Wing, JAL: The training happened at a hotel right to tease me once in a while and say, “I’m not Megan James, Elissa Johnson, Mary Bond, there on Sunset by UCLA in February 1969. sure I’m happy that you got me into this.” Richard Wheeler, Joseph Heller, Linda Emmett [Hutchins] audited that class. She Rosemary really changed things. Krier, Elizabeth McIver, Lynn Blake, Roger didn’t tell me before, but when I got there Pierce, and many others. By teaching all SC: When did you find Rosemary? she told me that I would do my private the movement certifications and teaching sessions (with clients) in another room JAL: In 1971. I taught the first class in a movement classes for all Rolf practitioners, I under the supervision of Dorothy Nolte. house she was renting, and I introduced probably had the opportunity to work with She said Dorothy specialized in working them. She was such a gift to Dr. Rolf, three hundred students. I do remember that with small women and children. On the last their brilliant minds together and what when I asked Dr. Rolf about her interest in day of class she said to me privately, “You they could achieve. I’m sure one of the my class she said, “Well, I realize that it will know Dorothy has a movement program, disappointments that Dr. Rolf had with give the wives of the Rolfers something to perhaps you should do that.” Well I had me was that I didn’t know enough about do and it will promote the work.” What! I no idea where this was coming from and I the world of music, books, people, etc. or remember thinking, “Oh, Dr. Rolf, that is said, “Oh is this a new program?” She said, the latest artists in classical music, and you not what this is meant to be, this is so much “Oh no, no, she’s been doing it for years.” know Rosemary would know all of those more than that.” But maybe that’s why she things. Dr. Rolf and I actually had a very I went to work with Dorothy, we became said yes. I don’t know, but it showed the strong bond and I would be a source of pretty good friends, and I think I had two attitudes of that era. entertainment for her. I like to laugh and sessions with her. Then I called Dr. Rolf SC: When I moved to Boulder in 1972 I was create humor and she had this wonderful and said, “It’s beautiful work [I think it was in the process of finishing my Ten Series laugh that just changed the energy of the called Structural Awareness] but it’s not at all with Emmett and I had several sessions room to the most wonderful thing ever. what I have in mind. So you need to tell me with the two of you together. what you want. I want to create a program SC: With my nature I’d be making every of movement forms that will teach people JAL: Yes, I remember you from then. effort to elicit that and I bet you were too. how to take care of themselves, so they can SC: I was trying very hard to finish all JAL: Yes, yes. The next training was not until apply it to their running, their yoga, their my requirements for training. I wanted to February in Los Angeles. What happened on fitness, and use it in whatever task they want make sure they couldn’t turn me down for the last day of that first class, she waited until to do. It’s going to apply to all of their life. anything. The movement person I worked everyone left then she walked out to the car It’s going to teach them ways to use the body with was Marya Melchior and I remember with me and she said, “I’m not going to take in everyday living. So just let me know now, those things you are describing, the arm you on.” WHAT! And she said, “No, you’re yes or no.” Significant pause, then she said rotations with the thumb and the small just too small, it won’t work.” And I said in “Okay, okay, okay.” I said, “What does that finger, the head rotations, and a series of leg my sarcastic way, “You didn’t know this two mean?” She said “Okay, go create.” and foot movements that actually changed days ago or last week or six weeks ago?” She As I was putting the program together my entire structure. said, ”I’ve decided now.” And I said, “Well in either late 1970 or early 1971, Dr. Rolf you’re wrong.” So in the next six months I JAL: Many people told me how useful it was going to be in the same vicinity managed to gain about ten pounds, I went was. I saw that you had to individualize the and she came to watch me work with to massage school, and then I was teaching work for each person and I have taken great students. I showed her how I had taken her massage at the college, and I became the pride in being able to teach people about movements and integrated them into things person who would sign off on Rolfers to teaching. So as soon as I finished the first that were being used, like pelvic tilt forward complete their massage requirement. I heard class, I was busy changing it to the next piece, and backward, arm movements, thumbs up she was coming to LA in November 1968. So and it grew from one week to eight weeks. thumbs down, etc., which I think may have I walked in to the motel, there were quite a come from Dr. Rolf’s study of Mensendieck I’m so glad Dr. Rolf brought fascia to few people around her, and I walked in with work. I created a rather extensive program everyone’s attention. I am better at seeing my best Rolf ‘Line’ and my Rolf walk with and in 1971 I trained ten people in that first and questioning how fascia can be tugging full payment in a check. ten-day class. This created the movement on everything. Dr. Rolf said, “You should SC: Yep, there it is! [We are both laughing education department for Rolfing ® teach seeing.” I agreed. I could teach people because she is doing this wonderful Structural Integration (SI), and as the head how to see body relationships and then how demonstration of something I used to see of that, I became a board member. Emmett to use their body mechanics for doing the everyone in the Institute do back then, Hutchins and Peter Melchior were training work. I created a four-day class, Movement which was a rather stiff walk with elbows with Dr. Rolf at that time to eventually solo Analysis, and I traveled around from 1971 out, knees straight forward, etc.] teach the structural trainings. to 1977 teaching these classes, they were required in the training. There were times JAL: I handed her my check. This is what SC: Can you remember who the students when Ida and I were teaching in the same she used to do when you finally would get were? location and I would assist if she was doing

22 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY a training class, so I was involved with several of the trainings. One of the things that pleased me the most was that in the Big Sur house early on, probably 1972, she was sitting next to me in class watching sessions and she plopped her hand in my lap. I started working on her hands and fingers, she had very strong arthritis, which is why her work didn’t hurt the same way. She was having everyone use straight fingers, 90-degree pressing in, to do the work, and her fingers, because of the arthritis, couldn’t do that. So through the years her work became more ‘round’, which was good. Here’s the piece I wanted to mention. She asked me to stay after class and work with her and I did a whole session on her. Well, I was so honored. I think I did a number of sessions on her when we were in the same location like Florida, New Jersey, some of the other places. I didn’t see her regularly. Her son Dick was the person she saw for regular work and I think Emmett later on. I remember one time she gave me a check and I really didn’t want to cash it because I just wanted to frame it [laughing], but I needed the money so I cashed it. She did give a nice photograph of her to me inscribed “To Judith Aston – spirit of movement” (see Figure 1). That was very Figure 1: Ida Rolf’s gift to Judith Aston. special to me.

SC: What a nice thing. doing. But maybe she thought I just couldn’t spiraling moves at different layers to affect JAL: As I was doing this work between 1971 get it, I didn’t weigh enough, and she’d just the patterns accurately. I would share these and 1976, I was having all these ideas about let me be. Perhaps the idea she had early on discoveries with the next class, and the working with people and their bodies. I that you had to really dig to make a change work kept expanding. would no longer be as relevant to her now, began to discover if I could get [practitioners] SC: As it should be. to incline their bodies [so they] were more but they were theories at the time. JAL: As it should be. I was teaching people, angled instead of perpendicular in the SC: When did you decide to go out on your for example, my discovery that I don’t work, the tissue would open more easily. I own and why? I think that is what you are believe the 90-degree plumb line is accurate started bringing in all these ideas. The ideas coming up to now. were very well received for the most part to the Earth – I’m sorry Dr. Rolf, I know it’s because the client experienced less pain and JAL: Yep, that’s where we are. I had created a medical model as well. I deducted that the practitioners less wear on their body, certain movement designs, for example that if we are aligned and centered over the particularly their fingers and knuckles. would be useful for the legs, arms, etc., and malleolus, and that is at 90 degrees, then There were jokes from practitioners saying, those were taught. But I kept finding that as that would center our weight over the back “Do I have to give a rebate because I don’t I looked at the individual I needed to tailor half of the foot. My quick wit made me think feel like I’m working as hard. Are the clients the movement for that particular body and that maybe we were supposed to have an getting their money’s worth?” I said, “No its specific issues. If someone came in who aft foot, and maybe this is the problem. But rebates, I think it is being more effective.” did white-water kayaking, I would listen to if we change the plumb line to run through I was discovering all of these things about what he did and how he used his body and the front of the ankle hinge and use a slightly getting to point A by going into the body just develop a specific movement for him. Or if open stance, then this would distribute the an inch and going in a circuitous route to go a woman had a hysterectomy or C-section, weight of the body more evenly through through what I now understand is fascia. I I discovered later that perhaps the surgeon the front and back of the foot. I should point figured out a way to spiral through tissue being right-handed or left-handed would out that Dr. Rolf’s cueing for alignment was to get to bone. I could work the periosteum. affect how the incision was made and how to stand with your feet close and straight But people wouldn’t think they were getting the different layers were sutured together ahead, knees soft, waistline back, chest deep work because it didn’t hurt as much. I and they would have some extra tissue forward and up, elbows facing out to the felt because I was working on Ida surely she that was tucked under, etc. I would have sides, chin in and top of the head up. would have said if she didn’t like what I was to address those specifics with different

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 23 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY

I began to change the position to a more By 1975-1976, I was making a distinction thinking and techniques. I’m watching her open stance. When your weight comes between functional holding patterns and and she was looking more and more tense, slightly forward of the malleolus and structural holding patterns. Functional with a very hard expression. The angle of centers on the whole foot, you feel less holding patterns are more easily changed her head was changing and her triple Taurus torsion in the tissue particularly around through movement, rest, meditation, etc. was about to charge. She said, “You stop the hips to lower legs. Rolfers would say to Structural holding patterns needed hands- that! You stop that now! Stop pampering me “Heresy! You are actually in danger of on work to release rather quickly. But the client! I’m telling you if it’s not hurting getting in trouble now, Judith.” And I would in teaching, I was working with people [causing pain], you’re not getting it!” End of say, “Well, just try it and you will feel the who had not had the Ten Series, and both story. That was it. When she said that, I was difference. Stand and put your feet close the students and I could see how much shocked that I had missed that bottom line together, facing straight forward, centrally they changed by releasing the functional as I had found a way to work so deeply and aligned over the malleoli and transfer your holding patterns. Why not do that at the it didn’t have to hurt. weight from one leg to the other, and then beginning of the session so the Rolfer knows JAL: In 1977 or early 1978, evidently an do the same thing with the feet in a slightly exactly what is left in the structural holding article came out that I believe was connected more open stance and you can feel the pattern that needs to be released? I started to the Humanistic Psychology organization. weight comes forward and the difference in exploring asymmetrical spiraling as a way I say this because I don’t exactly know, but the tissue around the upper and lower leg.” of negotiating balance between functional I think there may have been a connection as and structural patterns. I remember Dr. Rolf My ideas started expanding like crazy: earlier that year I was invited to be a speaker said to me, “Don’t have the people you train the way I thought, the way I taught, and at the Humanistic Psychology convention. work with anyone until they have done the exercised. It started changing everything. I never saw the article. It evidently said ten-session series.” People were getting When I added the idea that the body is something like “Judith Aston, an originating nervous for me. supposed to be asymmetrical, well now I genius, has created soft Rolfing [SI].” The was in even bigger trouble. In 1974 I had a SC: Because you were flying in the face of reason I know about it is that I was a board session with a young boy who had drowned current thinking? member of the Rolf Institute and head of in a pool, was rescued, but lived within his the movement department, and suddenly JAL: Well, probably. I was not hiding. I was stiffened body until he was five years old. the board was having meetings without me sharing my explorations and discoveries When I looked at him I immediately saw and I was called in. The head of the board as they came along. In 1976 I organized negative (blank) space behind his neck, on said to me, “We are all originating geniuses, a rafting trip on the Colorado River with one side, etc. So I ran to get blankets and why are you getting this attention?” I said, sixteen Rolfers, and the first night I laid pillows and I used them to support those “I know nothing about this, I had nothing down on my little mat with my pillow spaces. He relaxed somewhat and blinked to do with this. What are you accusing me and I couldn’t sleep because I was so his eyes as if to thank me. [Then] I started of?” The head of the board [assumed I had uncomfortable. The next night I took all the to work and I tried my Rolfing work, been interviewed, which was not the case]. clothes out of my backpack and used them stretching, pulling, static contraction, on It was evident that these people gathered at to fill in all the empty spaces as pillows for and on. I tried everything I knew and I felt this board meeting because of the article [that my neck, shoulders, etc. and I slept like a like he was just getting tighter. I decided to I had nothing to do with]. One of the board baby. I realized this might be happening form my hand to match his contracted hand members said, “Well show us what you do with clients when they were on the table. and just listen. As I listened I could feel the and we’ll tell you if it works.” I said, “Oh you Instead of being supported on their side tissue start to unwind, and I would follow guys, I know in advance you are not going to or on their stomach, they were in lying in and it would release, and when I stopped like my answer, I would have to train you for certain compromised positions that added his hand and arm were slightly more open. you to be able to evaluate it, and I don’t think stress to their bodies. This had me working Again he did the eye blinking, perhaps this will happen.” It deteriorated from there. on positional tension instead of their true to say yes. I hoped it was an indication There were many tears and many meetings body tension. I began to use pillows with it was helping. It felt as though we were called in the background. clients to support them in their available communicating, and we had a wonderful neutral while they were getting work. So SC: So did you just resign and walk away? session together with a lot of change. I start teaching this to others and people JAL: So here’s the thing. I had no plan to Sometime later walking by the water in were appreciating the information. I also move out on my own. That hadn’t occurred Tiburon looking all about, I stepped into developed some pillow designs for people to me. It was done for me. Dr. Rolf hadn’t a hole and sprained my ankle. It felt like a to specifically use for body supports. In asked me to change her work, so I had to bad one. So I tried the above techniques on 1977 Dr. Rolf had an advanced training for look at that. Through the spiraling work myself, to honor what is, to match it, and the faculty and someone said (I realize now I was making it less compressive and unwind it by going in reverse of the injury they were just pushing me), “Judith, show less painful, but that was not her request. sequence. I realized by working with the Ida your body supports.” I said, “Later,” Recently, a Rolfer wondered if because functional pattern through movement, and Dr. Rolf said, “Yes, show me.” So I took of her biochemistry background she had it changed and neutralized significantly, a deep breath and thought, well here goes. an idea that you had to sustain pushing leaving me with the actual injury instead of SC: Into the breach. in order to ‘melt’ tissue and change the the reaction to the injury. It was manageable chemistry of it, and that’s the first time and I walked home. JAL: Yes, into the cauldron [rolls her eyes]. I I thought about that viewpoint. It was a started demonstrating and talking about my harsh reality for me that it was what she

24 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY wanted me to do, because I was getting JAL: Well yes. I called her after it all of viewing the body in a ‘360 by 360 degree such fantastic results with this other way of happened and [said] I was sorry it had perspective’ – not just the linear view of it. working. Being small I learned how to use turned out this way. She said, “Judith, the So I’m very excited about this project. I have movement and leverage (mine and theirs) world is certainly big enough for both of us.” seen the results from the pilot program. I to work as deeply as was needed. I thanked her. But because I was made out to have about twenty-five projects on my list be such an awful person, creating too much to get done, so I am winding down my SC: With this work you were doing, you upset for Dr. Rolf, I didn’t make contact teaching and traveling in order to do that. were able to get good change as with again. When Jim Asher caught up with me Rolfing work, that could be demonstrated I’m most grateful for the curiosity and skills in 2007, he said, “You know, Ida used to photographically? And the results I have been given and the ability to help talk about you a lot when she was near her were sustainable? people in this life. I have always had such death.” I said, “What? Why didn’t you call appreciation for Dr. Rolf introducing me JAL: Yes, not only were they sustainable, me?” He said, “Well I thought you weren’t to the magic of the body, for helping me to but with the movement work they could speaking to her.” I said that a wall had been heal, and giving me a lifetime of inspiration continue to improve on their own. I was created by the actions of the board and I and ways to help others. Thank you, also getting a lot of positive feedback from didn’t feel I could contact her. I would have Shonnie, for your interest and for asking me clients and practitioners about the changes. flown to New Jersey to be with her. It was to share my history within the Rolf history. Depending on what layer is adhered, you so sad for me because I loved her so much. may have something else surface next, so SC: Well, Judith, I am most grateful for this SC: What came next for you? it is an ongoing process. wonderful time I’ve had with you sharing JAL: From 1976 on I was teaching Aston history, and I think this is a wonderful SC: Yes, I understand that. So now here Patterning®, teaching people from all place to end this interview. Thank you so you are swimming in the world outside of different kinds of professions. I would very much. the Institute help them learn to ‘see’ and palpate, and Judith Aston-Linderoth is widely recognized JAL: Yes, it was ugly. I developed a system of notation I called as a pioneer in the art and science of kinetics ‘body mapping.’ I had many rewarding SC: I have no doubt. Was there some for her discovery of the Aston® paradigm and classes with Rolfers. After I left [the movement to try to discredit your work? consequent development of Aston® Kinetics. Rolf Institute], the movement people Aston Kinetics is an educational system of JAL: Yes, and me. A member who was I had trained regrouped and formed movement, bodywork, fitness, and ergonomics very angry with me sent a letter that should Rolf Movement. that aims to treat each person’s body as unique have been personal to me, with many It was a big lesson for me. I realized I just and customizes the work to match. Rather than negative destructive statements, and the Rolf needed to take a leap of faith and follow enforcing physical symmetry, Aston Kinetics organization decided to mail it out. It was what was coming to me. I suddenly felt seeks to recognize which asymmetries are very traumatizing. I had to get an attorney like someone had taken this cement hat off natural to a person’s body and how to maximize and file a suit for slander with a request to my head and I couldn’t stop my creativity. their use. Early in her career, from 1963 to 1972, retract statements that were being published. I was inventing products like shoes, chairs, Aston taught movement, physical education, SC: That’s unfortunate. One of the most all kinds of things to help people. By 1983, I and dance for performing artists and athletes important questions, at least for me, is what had 175 [inventions] I presented to a patent at Long Beach Community College. In 1968, have you learned from that? I think that attorney, and he said, “Well I have good at the request of Dr. Ida Rolf, she developed the things like that don’t just happen randomly, news and bad news. I believe you have movement education program for Rolfing SI there’s a lesson there. discovered a law of nature. The bad news and taught this program for nearly a decade. is it is really difficult to patent.” Aston is an author and inventor of an array of JAL: Always. Always, always. Being ergonomic products and movement programs. SC: My very last question is what are you alienated from Ida was painful. The ‘boys She continues to teach Aston Kinetics training most passionate about now? club’ of the board members were speaking and certification courses. For more information, for her and I felt that she was put in a JAL: One of the guidelines for my life visit astonkinetics.com or contact Aston position of not being able to communicate has been to listen to things that invite my Kinetics at [email protected]. with me or support me even if she wanted interest or my skill to help others. Lately to. I realized later that perhaps she realized Shonnie Carson, RN, BS, ANP, BCSI, Certified the surgeries and mutilation I’m seeing, she was coming to the end of her time Advanced Rolfer was trained at the Rolf particularly with women and breast here and needed to make her organization Institute in 1981. She has studied with most surgery, has sparked me to create a program stronger before she was no longer in charge. of Ida’s original teachers/students. She had that will be taught online. Our non-profit is I realized that after all that had happened, a full-time practice in Seattle, Washington applying for a grants right now to fund the I was creating too much stress for the Rolf for twenty-four years and now practices in design and filming. Most cancer survivors organization. For myself, I felt limited to Phoenix, Arizona. She has served as a member do not know how much they can reclaim create within the current model of the Rolf of the Rolf Institute’s Law and Legislation and recover their bodies when they do paradigm, and if I changed one more thing, Committee, a member of the IASI Board of movement, and even better with bodywork. it would be a different paradigm. Directors, and Vice-Chair of the Certification They usually have some physical therapy Board for Structural Integration. She can be after surgery. But one needs to be able to SC: Was part of the lesson that you had contacted at [email protected] or work with the three-dimensional body – I to be independent and stand on your own www.mybodyworks.com. with your work? have written and spoken about my theory

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 25 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY The Healing Journey An Awakening I moved up to Malibu and joined an organic ® biodynamic gardening community. I started My History with Rolfing SI doing yoga and joined an Alexander Lowen By Harvey Ruderian, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Craniosacral Therapist, Aston Bioenergetics group, to try to free up the Patterner®, as told to María Cristina Jiménez, Certified Advanced Rolfer stuck emotions that might be causing inflammation. I began meditating. I was From María Cristina Jiménez: “The best way for me is to just talk and you edit it down. I want doing acupuncture. I tried chiropractic and to tell the story, drop into the feeling and nuance of the time. I am now sixty-nine years old and osteopathy. I swam in the ocean every day. I practicing for over forty-three years . . .” Thus began my several-hour interview with Harvey did five-day fasts every month. Did lots of Ruderian on January 24, 2016. I listened enthralled to his stories and his journey as he talks to shamanic journeys on LSD and peyote and me – a young practitioner – sharing about the old days, creating a picture of the embryology of mushrooms, and all of it helped my soul this work. Thank you Harvey! and changed my inner life, but my body was still hurting. The Beginning It was summer 1970 and I was having lunch I got into Rolfing [Structural Integration with Sam Keen (publisher and editor of (SI)] because throughout my childhood and Psychology Today magazine), who I knew teenage years I had multiple impacts and through a good friend of his and a political compression injuries. Since the age of eleven, revolutionary mentor of mine, Reverend I was a performing acrobat and competitive James Donaldson. Sam was getting [Rolfing gymnast. I fell and crashed trying to learn sessions] in Big Sur and [told me to try new tricks, often on my head. I never broke it]. At that time, my guess is there were any bones, just compressed them. My body probably less than fifty certified Rolfers, collected these impacts, and by the time I at the most. was in college I was suffering from terrible Joe Heller (founder of Hellerwork® SI) was migraine headaches. I was in constant pain, part of the Bioenergetic training I was doing and kept a vial of codeine #4 in my pocket and turned me on to his Rolfer, Hal Fink all the time. Harvey Ruderian (now Harold Milton), in Santa Barbara. I got When I finished at UCLA (1969), I entered my first session on my fifth day of fasting. law school trying to keep my military It was the most extraordinarily, painfully selective-service student deferment. I was liberating mind/body experience I’d ever desperately trying to stay out of the army had, beyond what I could’ve dreamed of. I and the Vietnam War, although I was never had another migraine after that first prepared to leave the country rather than session. I cried and screamed and vibrated participate in US war crimes. Sure enough, on the table throughout the session. The they dropped the graduate deferments concept of ‘titrate’ was definitely not yet a that year – 1970 – and I was notified to part of the work in those days. Personally, I show up at the army induction center for loved every moment of it. My body was so my physical. I immediately went to my sore the next day that I could hardly stand doctor to investigate why I was suffering up. My lymph glands under my arms were from migraines. Additionally, my first so swollen that I couldn’t put my arms to and second fingers on my right hand were my sides. I hit a temperature of 105 degrees numb, as well as my left index finger. I was by the third day after that first session and also suffering from terrible sciatica pain. My without antibiotics I continued to fast and neck hurt all the time. We took CAT scans María Cristina Jiménez detox on a master cleanse for the next ten because there were no MRIs at the time, and days. After the fourth session I started the scans showed three large bone spurs My doctor referred me to two neurosurgeons having energetic awakenings up the spine. and floating spicules/boney chips in my who wanted to do surgery . . . immediately. I went to the Bodhi Tree esoteric bookstore neck, and bulging discs in both the cervical I was twenty-three years old. I asked my to see what these 10,000-volt electrical and lower lumbar spine. My right eye doctor what could have caused these spurs? explosions from the sacrum up to the top was partly closed and the right side of my The doctor said they were probably caused of my head might be all about. When I face slightly contracted. The army doctors by inflammation and said, “If I you don’t meditated flowers would flow out of my took one look at my scans and expressed get surgery, it’ll just keep getting worse third eye. At that point in my life, I had their sympathy and gave me my ticket to until you become paralyzed.” I said “Thank never heard much about kundalini energy. freedom: physical deferment from serving you” and left. This was the beginning of my I found one book on the subject by Gopi in the military. Since I didn’t have any actual healing odyssey. Krishna. In my training, Ida referenced the interest in studying law, I dropped out of two nadi lines, ida and pingala, that converge law school the next day. at the ganglion of impar as the seat of the kundalini. She occasionally referenced

26 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY metaphysical nuances and subtle anatomy came out of concepts that became the first, fitness record, but I was never a Marine! in the training. I have a suspicion she second, etc., sessions as a map for learning. Ida said, “That’s impressive. Please stand began to drop these conversations in future He wanted his students to understand the up.” She looks my body up and down and trainings so as to emphasize the science source of the Recipe. Mostly, nobody in says, “Wow, I never would have thought and not the metascience. Perhaps better for class knew what he was saying or doing it.” Welcome to Ida Rolf! social acceptability. – way too advanced for first-time students Ida was looking for people who were going to comprehend. The students convinced Rolfing [SI], for me, was an extraordinarily to be Rolfers for the rest of their life; not Maurice Paulson and I to hold evening transformative experience, which changed Rolfers as an adjunct of something else they classes and we taught the Recipe behind my life and exposed me to a potential of did. She often said, “I only have a limited Dick’s back. (He would have barbecued us beingness that was truly an awakening. The time left to train Rolfers. I don’t have time had he found out!) numbness in my fingers, my horrific sciatica for people who can’t handle my teaching pain, the contraction in my face, all cleared The Rolfing Interview approach. I don’t have time to train anybody by the end of my ten sessions. Additionally, and Training who can’t handle the rigors of the work for I had the realization that I had been holding many years to come, because I only have in my neck the deep tensions of fear In those days you had to be twenty-six time to teach so many people.” She was and terror and anger and abandonment years old to do the training. [Ida] was very clear. Ida also didn’t particularly want – confluences of belief systems and looking for maturity and commitment. She to train people who were going to set up suppressed emotional expressions collected was looking for people who were already an eclectic practice. She didn’t want Rolfer/ from family and school and religion and successful at something else and preferably Gestalt therapist, Rolfer/rebirther, Rolfer/ government that I had learned to accept as college graduates. You had to go through a Reichian Therapist. She wanted practitioners truth. Growing up I was forced to swallow notorious interview process. She didn’t care who were dedicated to practicing Rolfing and digest a lot of information that was not about your title. She wanted to meet you [SI]. At my selection interview, I shared dharmic truth. Over the years, as a structural directly. She had a selection committee but with her that I had participated in Gestalt, bodyworker, I’ve come to appreciate that she wanted to meet you and she wanted to rebirthing, bioenergetics, yoga, primal much of what we are doing is trying to see your hands. scream, and encounter groups. She looked soften the deep gripping – the angst – both I was in Taipei studying herbs with my at me and said, “Well, that is exactly what emotional/historical and psychospiritual – brother when I heard that I finally, after I am not looking for.” I looked up at her, that is stored in our nervous system, organs, two years, got my interview with Ida. I flew paused, and then said from my heart, soft tissues, and bones. Our bodies contort directly to Colorado stopping only in Los “Rolfing [SI] is what got rid of my migraine to fit, to match all of those psycho-mental Angeles to buy a blue blazer, cut my hair, headaches. Rolfing [SI] is what got rid of the constraints. Suddenly I saw with Ida Rolf and shave my beard. I looked a lot different numbness in my fingers. Nothing else did. this visionary who had a system to help than the hippie picture I had sent in with Not osteopathy. Not chiropractic. Not any of liberate the body from all of its history: my application. Jan Sultan later told me the New Age therapeutic modalities. Only social, cultural, ancestral, as well as all of the that Ida had said right before I came in that Rolfing [SI] healed my physical ailments and collected compressions and compensations we “were only going to take a few minutes now I would like to change other people’s from simply living in gravity. before dismissing this next person.” When lives. I can’t think of a bigger honor.” So this is what it did for me. Being a yogi, I walked in, six Rolfers were seated behind “Thank you Harvey. That will be enough for I thought of Rolfing SI as a yogic practice. I me: Jim Asher, Jan Sultan, Peter Melchior, now. You can leave the room,” she said. I had the wonderful privilege of driving Ida Michael Salveson, John Lodge, and Emmett began to walk out, stopped, turned around for many hours over many locations, and Hutchins. Ida was sitting on a throne-like and said, “And I will devote my life to [had] conversations with her about various chair, asking questions probably given to Rolfing [SI].” Ida right then asked me to be subjects including the evolution of the work. her by her then assistant Rosemary Feitis. a model in her upcoming Big Sur summer [Through this I came to learn] that while Ida asked me, right off the bat – with a [Basic] and Advanced Training. She told [the work] came from years of immersing somewhat negative attitude – “What makes me to [in the meantime] study anatomy, herself into the exploration of hands-on you think that being a Marine prepares and closed with, “Harvey shake everyone’s impression of tissue and the quantum you to be a Rolfer?” I told her I was never hands.” That was special, because I knew shifts that happened as she experimented to a Marine. In fact, I was adamantly against at that moment that I [had] passed, but I develop the sequence of sessions we know the war and was an anti-war activist in could tell she also wanted everyone to feel as the ‘Recipe’, she also told me that the college. I could see she approved. One of my hands. So that was really cool. Everyone work came to her through meditation and the application questions [had been], “What looked at me as I shook their hands as if contemplation and pure insight. makes you think you have the physical saying, “Welcome to the family.” aptitude to perform the demands of a Her son Dick Demmerle was teaching Rolfer?” I [had] answered that when I was I went back to Malibu to write a paper a class in New Jersey in the summer of in high school, John F. Kennedy – under the that covered all the systems of the body 1974, in which I reviewed the practitioner President’s Council on Physical Fitness – including pretty much whatever I could training. He taught the entire training not tested all high school boys in the country for find about fascia. Now in those days as a Recipe but as a set of concepts, that he their level of fitness using the Marine Corps you couldn’t find anything about fascia. said is how he originally learned the work. fitness test. Then they had regional runoffs, There were no books or computers to look He would say that the Recipe was designed and I had the highest score in the country. up ‘fascia’. I had to go to a bookstore in as a template but the evolution of the Recipe I even broke the standing Marine Corps Hollywood (Book Finders) where they

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 27 ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY would try to find a book for you, and found green-blue turquoise hawk eyes, “Harvey by promising me that you will study dog one book on fascia in England. That’s how are you a vegetarian?” Everyone got quiet anatomy and that you will work on dogs.” little there was on fascia in those days. at the table. I knew right away there was During my next ten years of working in I got all my books, sat down, and spent only one right answer and it was “No.” Malibu, people regularly brought their dogs the next three weeks writing. I wrote my Before she gave me the chance to answer, and I worked on them. It was an interesting paper on a typewriter and made carbon she politely, but firmly, told me that she did learning to work on animals. While they copies. I was typing my final draft when not think that combining essential amino certainly learn protective mechanisms, they a fire came through Malibu and burned acids from different sources could make a do not seem to carry the weight of grief and my house down, as well as all my books protein molecule strong enough to be able sorrow, the abandonment and longing, the and the paper. I lost everything I owned at to withstand and endure the rigors of being resentment and fear and distrust that we see twenty-six years old, yet all l could think a Rolfer over an extended period of time. walk into our offices. So the change happens of was that I needed to get this paper done Obviously, what she was saying was “I almost effortlessly. in the next couple weeks! I called Dick don’t train vegetarians.” I answered, “Ida, Ida was a master. True masters are not Stenstadvold – the [school] director [at that as an Armenian I was weaned on lamb. I known for their niceness. When I think of time it was called the Guild] – and told him love lamb.” So I took the lamb. Then she Ida, I think someone who is a tough lover; my story. He said, “Well Harvey, that’s a lot went on to say, “I need your commitment she was tough love. She said, “We are going better than the dog ate it.” We laughed and Harvey. In order to train you must promise to walk out into a world that has never he said, “Harvey, what I want you to do me that you will not be a vegetarian.” Ida heard of Rolfing [SI]. We will have people now – with no books – is write the paper.” was 100% committed to her purpose. That’s against us, and you will have results that are I took walks. I wrote. I meditated. I wrote masterful. That is why there is Rolfing [SI] threatening to PTs and chiropractors and a poem to Ida (circa 1973): today. She wasn’t trying to be nice . . . or osteopaths and orthopedists, but actually, not nice. She liked me plenty, but she had Primrose we are working in a whole other dimension. a higher calling. She was inviting me to be We are not doing fix-it work.” Rolfing [SI] tunes, as it tones, a part of something very special. That day the body, so that less static muffles I stopped being a vegetarian and found a The Work: Listening the energy of love from manifesting special teacher. from a place of scarcity toward an Ida would say that Rolfing [SI] in its purest In the practitioner class I, and others, had abundance. Where there is no need, form is not found in books but it is in the beards and/or long hair. One day she gave but desire, which pours itself an deep art of listening and seeing. There’s a talk before the seventh-session class and endless cup of dry wine. a beautiful saying: “Be still and listen. said, “I don’t care if you want to wear your Don’t even listen, just be still. Don’t even hair long or have a beard, but let me put it Rolfing [SI] is an instrument of sweet be still. Just be.” Ram Dass used to say the this way, I need to see your cheeks. We need divinity shedding its light on those paradox is that when you find a master – a to see the change in your jawline and in the who ask, and the self-affirmation true teacher– you have to learn everything back of your neck.” She left it at that. And which already knows there’s and practice everything s/he says without you walked away saying and thinking, “I nowhere to go and nothing new to do – question or compromise, day after day, year believe she said we need to shave!” so let’s do something different after year, and if the teaching is true, the and you reach out for more. A special Ida story happened with my practice disappears and all you’re left with dog, my white Belgian Shepherd, Shane. is your knowing; and the knowing comes And Rolfing [SI] sharpens your speed Someone shot him full of birdshot in his through listening, and listening comes and accuracy while traveling thru rear, probably a disturbed Malibu neighbor. through being. Ida, along with a strong time and space. The minute little tiny About a year after removing most of the influence from Judith Aston, taught me a subtleties which travel from the navel shot, his back legs stopped working. He practice that eventually ‘disappeared’ from to the sun as mankind’s inner core could barely walk. I brought him to Big Sur formulistic to non-formulistic. She modeled and outer armor, kiss and die and during the 1973 summer class. Turned out the courage to deeply listen to bodies. kiss again. And sleeping serpents can Ida loved dogs, and horses. Ida and Dick My personal experience informed that the again blow their fire without being worked on my dear friend. The two of them potential of this work includes the possibility crucified for loving. worked on him like a dance, a four-handed for transmutation. A year after I got a orchestra; no words, two Zen masters. I was By the time I arrived in Big Sur for the physical deferment from the army, I was worried he would bite them, but Ida and summer class of 1973, Ida and I had called back to get re-evaluated. I went back Dick reassured me that Shane would know discovered that we had a very dear friend to the doctor to get new CAT scans and there that they were trying to help him. About in common. Additionally, her son, Dick were no bulging discs, no spurs, no boney fifteen minutes into the work, Shane, who Demmerle, and I became immediate good chips. My spine was completely rejuvenated. could barely walk when he came in, walked friends. I often was invited to dinner. First The doctor – who was the Chief of Internal around the back of the couch, jumped over week of class, a leg of lamb, Ida’s favorite Medicine at Cedar’s [Cedar’s-Sinai Medical the couch, and spritely walked up to Ida dish, was being passed around the table on Center] – said it was remarkable. I told him and Dick and just started licking them. He a silver platter with vegetables. At that time about my adventures in the alternative did what a dog does when he is joyously I was being a vegetarian. When the platter healing culture of that time, especially saying “Thank you.” I asked Ida if I could got to me I took some vegetables and began emphasizing Rolfing SI. He said, “Harvey, pay her and she said, “Yes, you can pay me to pass the platter when Ida said, with her talk like that is very embarrassing for a

28 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org ROLFING LINEAGE AND HISTORY college graduate. Sometimes spontaneous and dimensions of energetics and fluid terror that made my hair stand on end. A healing happens and we don’t have any and tissue and how they communicate very dark energy blob came through the explanation for it, but for sure you will get with each other. As you learn to match and closed door and floated straight down the yourself in trouble if you keep engaging in shape to inherent motion, you step into the hallway to a room where Ida would have those voodoo practices.” energetics of the fluidic body. It’s at this been sleeping, turned around, and returned layer of listening that you often find that to exit out the closed front door. Totally I believe that the Rolfing SI I received in 1971 the direction of an energetic strain pattern freaked out, I woke up Dick and explained was the catalyst to reintegrate the physical, is different than the direction of the tissue what I had witnessed. He explained to me gravitational realities of life in my aching strain. The tissue might be holding a strain that there were very dark forces that that body with my more subtle energetic bodies; pattern in a direction and layer different did not want Ida to successfully present that it was the integrative convergence of than the force vector held in the fluid this evolutionary work to the world of light. the physical and subtle bodies that created body. You want to learn to organize these a quantum shift in my ‘being’ and allowed I’m forever grateful [for this work] . . . Thank vectors and tissue strains such that the for a ‘spontaneous healing’ of the dense you Ida for having a ‘love of purpose’ that fluid motility and the tissue strain pattern boney spurs in my neck. My early Rolfing transcended [any] fears. synchronize as one harmonic expression journey drove me through the physical of grace. Harvey Ruderian studied political science mythology of my underworld – my social and economics at UCLA (1965-1970) and rage, familial hypocrisy, my personal So what we call ‘indirect work’ means we was certified as a Rolfer 1973 and as an Aston impotence –­ facilitating [my finding] the work in the direction the tissue takes you, Patterner in 1983. He began cranial studies in courage to express the voice that was me, whether it’s the direction of the grain of 1985 and has studied with John Upledger, DO, and to expand my personal commitment the tissue, or direction of motility, or down Hugh Milne, DO (Visionary Craniosacral), to nature, to humanity, to love. There were into a deeper level of listening which is and Scott Zamut (biodynamic craniosacral). moments in that Rolfing process where the the potential of beingness. Being is where He began visceral manipulation training in time-space continuum seemed to disappear you step out of the direction of motility 1988 and has studied with Jean-Pierre Barral, and a critical mass of physical and subtle manifesting from the fluid into the tissue, Frank Lowen, Didier Prat, and Alain Gehin. He energetics allowed the causal to express and you step into the presence of a pure maintains a full-time practice in Santa Monica, itself as a transmutational healing. energetic matrix. That energetic matrix is California and lives in Malibu with his wife, the embryological organizing principle Rolfing SI is potentially a practice in dog, two cats, and fruit trees. of the body. When you match the tissue which transmutation is possible if you grain with the fluid motility and then with María Cristina Jiménez is a Certified Advanced hold that possibility in your own being. the underlying energetic matrix, tissues Rolfer and a yoga teacher (ERYT 500) who has Transmutation comes out of beingness. not only organize, but they organize in a been teaching yoga since 2001. She was born and That’s the depth of possibility through way that contains a deep energetic ground raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She’s worked which we can potentially learn to listen substance, a primordial ground substance extensively with – and is deeply influenced when touching bodies. Firstly, you want to that stabilizes the structure through this by – Integral Anatomy’s Gil Hedley and the learn to use your hands to shape and match amazing and mysterious organizing great Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and her Body- to the layer and tempo and direction of the principle often referred to as the Breath Mind Centering® work. She regularly mentors tissue – usually with a three-dimensional of Life. Listening from a deep place of with Rolfers Jan Sultan, Benjamin Shields, impression and/or distraction around and stillness, this organizing principle presents and Harvey Ruderian, and has also mentored through joints. You work with the sequence with a wave-like motion that emerges, with Mary Bond and Bruce Schonfeld. She is around which you get a quantum change. in my experience, from outside the body, training in craniosacral therapy and visceral The important piece is to learn to assess particulates around the midline of the body, manipulation. She completed her Rolfing through palpation, as you’re working, and then moves back out again. When you certification in 2013 and has a thriving moment to moment. Then you want to listen from that depth of presence you bodywork practice. In addition to her public learn to integrate and blend. That’s what will, in a very real sense, organize the deep yoga classes, María Cristina has contributed in Rolfing SI is. functional holding patterns that are the over thirty-five different teacher trainings and Miraculously, the body tissues, organs, angst of our everyday life, integrating one’s immersions all around the Los Angeles area as bones, etc. have an embryological memory own deep nature of self with the egocentric well as nationally. She is known for her spiritual – which helps us in our work, especially world we live in. What potentially emerges anatomy workshops, which help make anatomy when the compensatory holding patterns is an alchemical harmonic convergence and accessible, relevant, and poetic. are functional. Structural holding patterns re-patterning, of learning to negotiate and and structural limitations/lesions/fixations communicate from love in a world that is that are the result of injuries/birth/traumas, mostly based on fear. The Course of Miracles etc. and have seated themselves in tissue reminds us that “love is letting go of fear.” change (adhesions, shortenings held by scar One day after class in Big Sur in 1973, Ida tissue, etc.) often require us to work with asked if I would drive home with Dick more impression and a lot more intention. as she was too tired and would prefer to That’s where Rolfing SI really has its place. stay the night at the classroom house. That Eventually, when you palpate tissue you evening as I lay in a bed very close to the want to learn to listen to tissue motility: to front door, I awoke to a sensory feeling of listen and distinguish the various layers

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faced a similar challenge – he was the sole Popular Ruts proponent of his model of medicine, amidst a sea of inflexible thinking and behavior. In Fascia Revisited an environment of fierce opposition, Still developed a physical model and mechanical By Jane Eliza Stark, MS, DOMP (Canada) approach to the cause and treatment of disease, incorporating minimal use of Editor’s Note: I first heard about Jane Eliza Stark from Rolfer™ Ron Murray. In looking into her drugs and surgical intervention. Upon book, Still’s Fascia, and communicating with her, I thought that her work on fascia, its fluidity and this approach, he founded the American contiguity, would be of interest to Rolfers, who have long been interested in osteopathic thought. Here School of Osteopathy in order “to improve we present an article she wrote, originally published in Thinking: A Review of the Sutherland our present system of surgery, obstetrics, Cranial Academy of Belgium [Volume 12, January (2011), pp.18-19] and reprinted here (lightly and treatment of diseases generally” (Still edited and with additional images) with permission. Following this article, we have an interview 1897, 168). with Stark conducted by Ron Murray, and then a commentary on and review of her book. Recognizing himself to be a solitary voice “Popular Ruts” certainly seems like an odd raised in opposition to the rigid medical title for an article about fascia, however, the paradigm of his era, and having himself phrase is an apt summary of how fascia is traveled westward in a covered wagon commonly understood today. Ensuring our in 1836 (Still 1897, 51), it is not surprising logic and practice does not fall prey to the that Still was drawn to the words of Robert popular ruts of our time is fundamental to Harris, a Kirksville resident who said, osteopathy today. “only few men allow themselves to think outside of popular ruts” (Still 1897, 127). The term ‘popular ruts’ has its origin in the This phrase, lamented Still (1897, 127), depressions or grooves or ruts created by “. . . was the phrase of all phrases which the wheels of covered wagons (see Figure 1) gave me comfort and support when men as they traveled across the sandstone terrain rejected the truth and did not accept it.” of the American Midwest. As wagon after wagon headed westward during the 1800s, W.G. Sutherland was also conscious of each successive passing of a wheel enlarged the difficulty that large groups have the rut. This process continued until the in maintaining flexibility of thought, a ruts were so unavoidably large that each Figure 1. Covered wagon from the 1800s. phenomenon he referred to as “orthodox subsequent wagon wheel was obliged to Photo by Verne Equinox (Own work) grooves” (Sutherland 1962, 13). (Note the travel within the confines of the same rut. [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons. similarity of the metaphor to that used Some of these depressions were so deep org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia by Still.) Commons. and so permanent that they remain visible Can thinking outside of popular ruts today, 150 years later (see Figure 2). advance our conceptual and practical The problem with ruts lies in the fact that, approach towards the all-pervasive tissue not only are they are easy to fall into, but, known as fascia? Rut-thinking has certainly more importantly, they are extremely been reinforced by how we study fascia, difficult to get out of. Unavoidably drawn i.e. through anatomy atlases and cadaver into a rut and then trapped there is exactly dissections. Neither of these mediums how A.T. Still viewed the traditional offers the “living picture” of anatomy, an medical teaching of previous millennia. He image that A.T. Still urged his students wrote (Still 1897, 285), “Since the days of to acquire (Still 1899, 13, 42; Still 1902, 9, Aesculapius [Greek God of medicine and 89). Atlases offer two-dimensional images healing] the delusion has flourished that with little textual description. Moreover, man must swallow medicine to rid himself virtually all the fascia has been omitted in these images in order to reveal the of disease.” Still accused the medical Figure 2. Large wagon-wheel ruts system – educators, practitioners, and preserved in sandstone are still visible in underlying important structures. Cadavers, even patients – of using oral medicine to the American West. Photo by Ken Lund meanwhile, are completely devoid of fluid. superficially relieve symptoms; they were [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons. A four-pronged rut seems to exist with all, in his opinion, in the same rut . . . a very, org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode)], via regard to the osteopathic conception very deep one. www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/66695096. of fascia. The deliverance of a community from 1. There is an excessive concentration on entrapment in rut-like thinking requires the fibrous aspect of fascia, and thus a a paradigm shift. Copernicus did this, relative disregard for its other important displacing in the minds of Earth’s inhabitants components – the fluid, the cells, and the their unquestionable belief that planet matrix – best described together under Earth was the center of the universe. Still the term ‘liquid matrix’.

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2. There is a preoccupation with its began operating shortly after conception crural fascia from five unembalmed human continuity, versus its contiguity. and that continue operating, even while limbs was examined (Stecco et al. 2009). the patient is lying on your treatment table. The researchers reported that the mean 3. There is a predominant focus on the Fascia exists as the dynamic interaction of thickness of the crural fascia was 924μm; dense, regular category of connective its constituents (water, fibers, matrix, and that it was composed of two to three tissue, rather than the loose connective cells) and its environment, which, when layers of “collagen tissue bundles,” each tissue. combined together, create a tissue that is having a mean thickness of 277.6μm; 4. The practice of elongation as a modality greater than the sum of its components. that each of these layers was separated of release, rather than the providing of by a layer of loose connective tissue with Fascia responds to a whole array of internal spatial separation (and thus fluid flow) a mean thickness of 43μm – a thickness and external environmental stimuli, between layers. undetectable by the unaided human eye. including pressure gradients, tension fields, Finally, the researchers reported that the How was this rut reinforced? Over the last nutrient (inorganic and organic) availability fibers of each layer of the crural fascia were century approximately twenty significant (in the liquid matrix) and assimilation, oriented at a different angle from those of articles on fascia were published in the vascularization, as well as neural stimulation the previous layer. American osteopathic literature (see or lack thereof. It reacts to the addition Additional Bibliography). They are not and withdrawal of mechanical, chemical, While fascia is indeed continuous, a seldom experimentally based; instead, they are all thermal, pharmacological, electromagnetic, examined property is its contiguity. While anecdotal in nature. When summarized, and even emotional stimuli. Finally, if water the term ‘continuity’ is usually reserved they fall into four categories: is absent, the only sure reaction is cellular for the end-to-end linking of tissues, death; none of fascia’s purposeful reactions ‘contiguity’ refers to the overlapping of 1. Articles that emphasize the importance can take place, including the production tissue layers in an interior to exterior (deep that A.T. Still placed upon fascia. and arrangement of its fibers. to superficial) orientation, or vice versa. On 2. Articles that discuss the physical repeated occasions this author has had the The biochemical reactions between water characteristics and properties of the opportunity to dissect the tissue of freshly and phospholipids which serve to reinforce fascial tissue, including its continuity. (one to four hours) killed deer. When the integrity of cellular membranes must also examined visually, the complex nature of the be considered. Fascia’s thixotropic nature is 3. A majority of articles, describing the contiguous fibrous layering is immediately a product of the constant interaction of water anatomical and physiological details of apparent. In fact, the contiguous layering of with the macromolecules (proteoglycans fascial tissue. connective tissue in the region of the thigh, and glycoproteins) of the matrix. [Some unlike the previously given example of 4. A few articles specifically discussing osteopaths have even hypothesized that the crural fascia in humans, appears to be fascia’s fluidic or liquid aspect. this process is necessary for the operation composed not of two to three, but of almost of the primary respiratory mechanism (Lee Based upon these articles, the osteopathic countless, layers. profession has, as have many other 2001, Gabarel and Roques 1985)]. Most of professions, concentrated on the continuous, the body’s biochemical activities, including These contiguous layers can be easily teased dense, regular, fibrous composition of growth, tissue repair, cellular respiration, apart using a scalpel. Some layers are so fascia, attempting to stretch, release, hormone production and transport, the thin that when a single layer is lifted from unwind, manipulate, or normalize it. immune response, the inflammatory its underlying layer, it appears to break response, the resorption of metabolic waste apart, losing its integrity like the film of a Established theory dictates that human products, as well as every neural impulse, soap bubble (see Figure 3). Of even greater collagen fibers align themselves along require a fluid medium for their operation. significance is the nature of the connections lines of stress. Applying this information, between overlapping layers: similar to The above enumeration of fluid function it seems logical that, if a fascial tissue the above findings on crural fascia, the highlights the significance of the rehydrating is assessed as restricted in a particular contiguity of these layers is reinforced by nature of fluid, as it reaches areas of direction, this indicates that the tissue has loose connective tissue. Thus, as one fibrous compromised fascial tissue, including not been subjected to too much force in that layer is lifted off from its underlying layer, a only the fibers, but also the liquid matrix. direction. Treatment is usually focused on stringy mass of fibers resembling Christmas In light of all this information, why then addressing the origin of the excessive force, angel hair is exposed – the loose connective are practitioners still trying to release fascia the effects of the force (i.e., the restricted tissue (see Figure 4). nature of the fascial tissue), or both. and other aponeurotic tissues through mechanical methods primarily focused on Unlike angel hair, which is dry, loose Realistically, however, connective tissue, the fibers, methods that sometimes cause connective tissue is primarily a liquid including fascia, is too intricate a tissular the wringing out of the fluids? matrix. It is permeated with fluid due to system to operate under the simple premise the water-attracting and water-binding Scientific evidence indicates that the tensile that mechanical stress causes collagen properties of its macromolecules (see strength of human fascia lata tissue was fibers to align themselves; this statement Figure 5). Unfortunately, confirming this recorded in 1931 as 7,000 pounds per oversimplifies the entire process. In fact, the observation is very difficult because the square inch. It was found that the fascia very existence of fascial tissue represents moment the layers are separated, the tissue could be elongated by loading it, but that ongoing interactions and reactions among dehydrates. Gas bubbles appear as the it quickly returned to its resting length nonlinear complex sets and subsets of integrity of the tissue layers is mechanically systems and environments, processes that once unloaded (Gratz 1931). More recently,

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Figure 3: A single layer of fascial tissue Figure 4: The ‘angel hair’ look of the fibers in the loose connective tissue layer; from a deer, three hours after death. fascial tissue from a deer, not long after death. Photo © Jane Stark, 2009, used with Photo © Jane Stark, 2009, used with permission. permission. disrupted, opening a previously closed Two observations arise upon further Having revisited all these details of the system and altering pressures (see Figure 6). examination of this contiguous layering: complex nature and operation of fascial 1) the more superficial the layer, the more tissue, it may now be practical to add to However, from this author’s personal excursion it has; and 2) each layer appears the accepted view of fascia as a continuous observations, when two contiguous layers to have a preferred direction of excursion, layer of dense fibrous connective tissue – are left unseparated, their combination of one that is usually different from that of the perspective of fascia as liquid matrix. fluid and fibers remains intact and can be the layer underlying it. How then is it It is possible now to re-examine elongation investigated. The arrangement appears possible to elongate a unit of tissue, such methods in light of the idea that they may to have a twofold mechanical purpose. It as the iliotibial band, if it is composed of actually serve to wring out fluid, instead allows the superficial layer to glide very numerous layers, each of which appears of facilitating its uptake. By combining easily (through a confined range) over its to have a differing preferred direction of scientific research with observation of underlying layer. The fluidic aspect allows permitted motion? fresh tissue it is surely possible to produce the gliding, while the fibers delimit its range a more productive and appropriate and direction of excursion.

Figure 5. The fluid environment of dense connective tissue (in a deer, shortly after death). Photos © Jane Stark, 2008, used with permission.

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These two statements certainly reinforce the salient point of this article, which is to appreciate the loose connective tissue which supports the contiguity of the dense fibrous tissue layering of fascia, its fluid aspect, and to consider the fibers as residing within a liquid-matrix environment upon which their integrity, longevity, and usefulness depends. Investigating and acknowledging our own rut-like thinking is a difficult exercise, potentially as overwhelming as coming to terms with a round planet Earth after centuries of knowing it to be flat. Yet such paradigm shifts have been accomplished in osteopathy, beginning with A.T. Still. This review offers us the perfect forum in which to think outside of popular ruts and to revisit our understanding of fascia from the perspective of a liquid matrix. Figure 6. Gas bubbles in fascial tissue from a deer, forty-five minutes following death. Photo © Jane Stark, 2008, used with permission. Jane Eliza Stark is a 2003 graduate of the Canadian College of Osteopathy (CCO), where alternative to the purely fibrous approach. fluidic or flowing or liquid aspect to it when upon graduation she received the Andrew This new approach would include the in a healthy state. Taylor Still Award for the most representative drawing or attracting of fluid toward thesis on the advancement of osteopathy in In personal interviews with thirty-six loose connective tissue, with the intent of philosophical or sociological research. In osteopathic practitioners (Stark 2007, 194- suspending each contiguous fibrous layer 2006, she received the Andrew Taylor Still 198), each having twenty or more years of dense tissue within the liquid matrix Foundation award for her contribution to the of experience in a manual-based practice, environment provided by the spaces advancement and recognition of osteopathy in only a few discussed the fluid aspect when within loose connective tissue. Is the idea of Canada. She serves on the faculty of the CCO asked, “How do you know when your concentrating on the fluidic nature of fascia and the Collège D’Etudes Ostéopathiques. fascial treatment is successful?” While some new? No! Sutherland suggested it in 1953: She has a master’s degree in clinical research dismissed the idea of being able to separate administration and is the director of research • “The fascia! Even the fascia is water, even fascia from any other tissue and, thereby, for the CCO. She is recognized internationally the bony tissue is liquid . . . water . . . fluid any attempt to treat it individually, those as an osteopathic historiographer, author, . . . Fluid!” (Sutherland 1953, 290) who did discuss specific fascial treatment and lecturer on osteopathic history and on mostly judged their success by observing the biographies of Still, Sutherland, and • “. . . You will find space between [the less tension and more symmetry, motion, Littlejohn. She is a workshop leader on the lines of the fascia] if you have the mobility, and motility. There only two or fluidic approach to treating connective tissue vision to look in between. A microscope three (of thirty-six) mentions of changes and has lectured or taught in ten countries. powerful enough to see the space in fluidity, the quality of the liquid matrix, She will be giving a seminar on the History between.” (Sutherland 1953, 295) circulation, nervous activity, or lymphatic of Osteopathy in November in Toronto; • “When the tide comes in and the waves status as indicators of a successful fascial see http://foundersdayweekend.ca/Seminars/ roll over that rock [comparing the spaces treatment (Stark 2007, 206-209, 346-348). Seminars%20Description/ for information. within fascia to the spaces between the The most fitting response to the question layers of a rock], you will find it [the “How do you know when your fascial Bibliography rock] crumbling into sand . . . Sand!” treatment is successful?” (Stark 2007, 194- Crow, T. 2006. “The Effects of Manipulation (Sutherland 1953, 295) 198) was, “You know when the fascia has on Ligaments and Fascia from a Fluids imbibed fluids the quality of the fascia has Sutherland’s ideas no longer seem to be Model Perspective.” The AAO [American changed because it has recovered fluid reflected in the fascial treatment practices Academy of Osteopathy] Journal September quality” (Stark 2007, 347). Also emphasizing of currently practicing osteopaths. 2006:13-19. the fluidic importance of fascia is a 2006 Qualitative research conducted in 2001- article entitled “The Effects of Manipulation Gabarel, B. and M. Roques 1985. Les Fasciae 2003 demonstrated that an international on Ligaments and Fascia from a Fluids en Médecine Ostéopathique. Paris: Maloine. sample of experienced osteopaths and Model Perspective.” The author, Thomas osteopathic physicians, having a total of Gratz, C.M. 1931. “Tensile Strength and Crow, DO, FAAO wrote, “When you feel the over 1,200 years of clinical practice between Elasticity Tests on Human Fascia Lata.” The flow come through the dysfunctional area, them, did not seem to consider the fluid Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery 13:334-340. your treatment of that area is complete” aspect in the treatment of fascia, even (Crow 2006). though several identified fascia as having a

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Lee, R.P. 2001. “The Primary Respiratory Typaldos, S. 1994. “Introducing the Fascial Kauffman, C.H. 1944. “Physiologic Basis of Mechanism Beyond the Craniospinal Axis.” Distortion Model.” AAO Journal 4:14-18, A.T. Still Technic.” The Osteopathic Profession American Academy of Osteopathy Journal 30-36. 12(2):17- 20, 48, 50, 52. 11(1):24-34. Becker, F. 1975 (Feb). “The Meaning of McConnell, C.P. 1939 (Dec). “Fundamental Stark, J.E. 2007. Still’s Fascia: A Qualitative Fascial and Fascial Continuity.” Osteopathic Fragments: IV Fascia.” Journal of the Investigation to Enrich the Meaning Behind Annals 3(2):8-32. American Osteopathic Association 39(4):204. Andrew Taylor Still’s Concept of Fascia. Pähl, Greenman, P.E. 1975 (Feb). “Fascial Kerr, H.E. 1936 (May). “The Role of Fascia Germany: Jolandos Verlag. [Editor’s note: Considerations in Treatment of the Head in Osteopathic Problems.” The Journal of the Jolandos Verlag is continuing to print a and Neck.” Osteopathic Annals 3(2):34-42. American Osteopathic Association 35(9):418- German edition of this book; an English 420. edition should be forthcoming in the U.S., Cathie, A. 1974. “Consideration of please contact [email protected] for more Fascia and its Relation to Disease of the McConnell, C.P. 1928. “Studies in information if interested.] Musculoskeletal System.” AAO Yearbook Osteopathic Pathology.” The Journal of the 85-88. American Osteopathic Association 28(3):167- Stecco, C., A. Porzionata, A. Stecco, and 170. R. De Caro 2009. “Anatomical Study and Cathie, A. 1974. “Fascia of the Body in Tridimensional Model of the Crural Relation to Function and Manipulative Millard, F.P. 1923 (Mar). “Fascia-Tension- Fascia.” Paper presented at the Second Therapy.” AAO Yearbook 81-84. Light.” The Journal of the American Osteopathic International Fascia Research Conference, Association 22(7):402, 405-406, 417-418. Magoun, H.I. 1970. “Fascia in the Writings Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. of A.T. Still.” AAO Yearbook 159-168. Still, A.T. 1897. Autobiography of Andrew Snyder, G. 1970. “Embryology and Taylor Still with a History of the Discovery Physiology of Fascia.” AAO Yearbook 147- and Development of the Science of Osteopathy. 158. Kirksville Mo: self-published by A.T. Still. “PCOM Class of 1969” 1968. “The Clinical Still, A.T. 1899. Philosophy of Osteopathy. Importance of Fascia,” A. Cathie and R.W. Kirksville, Missouri: self-published by England, Eds. AAO Yearbook Selected Papers A.T. Still. 1968: 87-103. Still, A.T. 1902. The Philosophy and Mechanical Erlingheuser, R. 1959. “The Circulation Principles of Osteopathy. Kansas City, of the Cerebrospinal Fluid Through the Missouri: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Connective Tissue System.” AAO Yearbook Company. 77-87. Sutherland, A.S. 1962. With Thinking Fingers: Snyder, G. 1956. “Fasciae – Applied The Story of William Garner Sutherland. Anatomy and Physiology.” AAO Yearbook Kansas City, Missouri: The Cranial 65-75. Academy. Hitch, S. 1954. “Malalignment of the Sutherland, W. 1953 (January 9). “Liquid Sternum and Fascia Strain.” Journal of the Light.” Included in Contributions of Thought: Osteopathic Cranial Association 1954: 23-30. The Collected Writings of William Garner Sutherland, D.O., Pertaining to the Art and Page, L.E. 1952. “The Role of the Fasciae in Science of Osteopathy Including the Cranial the Maintenance of Structural Integrity.” Concept in Osteopathy Covering the Years AAO Yearbook 70-73. 1914-1954, A.S. Sutherland and A.L. Wales, Foundation SCT, Eds., Portland, Oregon: Hoover, M.A. 1951. “Importance of Fascia.” AAO [American Academy of Osteopathy] Rudra Press, 1971/1998, pp. 289-296. Yearbook 55-72. Additional Bibliography Arbuckle, B.E. 1947 “Reflexes.”Journal of the Significant Articles on Fascia American Osteopathic Association 46(7):405- in the American Osteopathic 407. Literature of the Past Century (in Becker, A.R. 1947 (Feb). “The Fascias.” reverse chronological order) Osteopathic Profession XIV(5):13-17, 36, 38. Crow, T. 2006. “The Effects of Denslow, J.S. 1947 (Feb). “Soft Tissues in Manipulation on Ligaments and Fascia Areas of Osteopathic Lesion.” Journal of the from a Fluids Model Perspective.” The American Osteopathic Association 46(6):334- AAO [American Academy of Osteopathy] 337. Journal September 2006:13-19.

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sorry Rolfers – because that doesn’t make Fascial Fluidity and Contiguity sense! The fibers don’t respond favorably with stretch. When you try and lengthen An Interview with Jane Eliza Stark. them, they reinforce themselves. So why not improve their environment, allowing By Ron Murray, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Osteopathic Manual Practitioner them to float or to imbibe? Well, they don’t (Canada) and Jane Stark, Osteopathic Manual Practitioner (Canada) actually imbibe fluid, but they do and they must exist within a fluid environment. The Ron Murray: You’re an expert on fascia, more you rub, the more you scrape, the and your book Still’s Fascia is being reviewed more you pummel, the more you aggress by a Rolfing® Structural Integration [SI] the tissue, the less fluid you have there. instructor. [Editor’s note: Andrew Taylor Consequently, the fibers are not functioning Still was the founder of osteopathy; the at their optimum level. So I look at it book review appears on page 38.] Is it your between the lines, if you wish, or as William thesis, or is it a book? Garner Sutherland [DO] would say, at the fluidic aspect. Jane Stark: It’s a new edition of my thesis in book format. Another concept to consider is the idea of fascia as a named entity from end to RM: How can Rolfers get their hands on it? end, from head to toe – as all one piece of JS: It’s rather hard to get. The current tissue that we have to name for no other publisher is in Germany. Why would reason than for communication. I’m not so Rolfers want to read it? interested in the continuity of fascia from Jane Eliza Stark end to end, but instead how each fascial RM: Your book is about fascia in the layer relates to the layer below. This is the osteopathic tradition, and osteopathy is contiguity of fascia. Notice the difference part of the lineage of Rolfing SI. Ida Rolf between ‘contiguity’ and ‘continuity’. trained with osteopaths, and she was Contiguity is very important, because each heavily influenced by them. A huge chunk layer needs to glide in relationship to the of Rolf’s work could be considered to be layer below it. about fascia, depending on how you want to interpret ‘fascia’. For this interview, I RM: Do all these layers have names? would love to hear whatever you would JS: Not really. You can’t see these fascial be willing to share about the questions you layers because they are so extremely thin. asked osteopaths for your thesis, as well as I’m going by my memory here, so I hope I some of the answers you received. have the names and the figures correct, but JS: Interesting. Regarding the work I if you look at the work of the Steccos, they do, I synthesized it from everybody in found that the visible fibrous connective osteopathy I’ve spoken with and everything tissue of the human leg consists of three I’ve read from Still. Still didn’t really tell layers – two that are each approximately 273 Ron Murray you in any detail how he treated the fascia. micrometers in width, with an intervening For fibrous fascia, he merely wrote that loose connective tissue layer (containing membranes as epithelial, not connective, he rubbed it, to heat it up and to bring the majority of the fluid) of 43 micrometers tissues. Nevertheless, Still often talked circulation to the area. For serous fascia, in width. The interesting thing is that the about mucous membranes and the plexus he would lift it, because he reasoned that 273-micrometer layers can be seen with of nerves that supply those membranes. But most of the serous fascia was being dragged the naked eye, but the 43-micrometer layer after two years, 4,000 hours, and 900 pages down by the weight of the organs. The cannot. If you can’t see it, you don’t draw it. of research on this matter, I discovered that serous fascia includes the peritoneum and You can’t draw matrix, and you can’t draw Still tended to interchange the terms fascia the mesenteries. The mucous membranes fluid, but you can draw fibers. So we’ve and membranes, and he really didn’t care include all kinds of membranes. Still likely been indoctrinated with fibers because we that he was doing so. referred to a classification system presented can see and draw them, even though it’s by Xavier Bichat in the 1802 book Treatise Considering these concepts, I tend to really the layer underneath that you have on Membranes, which was translated into treat patients through a fluidic approach. to work with. English in 1813. This system was mentioned I know the fibers exist, I know the cells What was fascinating for me was that again in the 1840s in a book written by exist, and I know the matrix exists. But I’m in my dissection of the leg of a recently Johannes Mueller – a physiology text we really working a fluidic approach to the killed deer [dead for about sixty minutes], know that Still owned. So Still classified connective tissue, because you don’t have I found that there were far more than three the fascial tissues as ‘membranes’ and fibers unless you have cells, you don’t have layers. In fact, there were more layers than also as ‘fascia’. The mucous membranes cells unless you have a matrix, and you I could keep track off, each so thin that it Still spoke of were, in fact, of various don’t have a matrix unless you have fluid. was practically transparent and virtually histological classifications as we know There is no point in attacking the fibers – invisible. [Editor’s note: see the images them today. Today, we refer to mucous www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 35 OSTEOPATHY AND FASCIA in Stark’s article “Popular Ruts: Fascia “Help me! Get off me!” Or the fascia might vitality?” The problem is that you and I Revisited” on page 30 in this issue.] have no reaction at all. may mean different things by ‘vitality’. A student at the college [Canadian College RM: So how do you perform this work? RM: When you say “give it a test,” do you of Osteopathy] did a qualitative thesis on listen, or do you induce with your hand? JS: With kind of a suctioning action almost the meaning of ‘vitality’. She found that it on the skin. Rather than pushing, pulling, JS: I don’t think anybody can ever listen was like the story of the blind men and the shoving, dragging, scraping – in other words, because if your hand is on the patient, elephant – we were all probably talking aggressing – I make a space with my hand, you’re touching the nervous system. In about the same thing, but our definitions allowing the fluid to flow from areas of touching the nervous system, I’m touching varied because of tangible and intangible high pressure to the area of lower pressure the fascia. Am I getting a fascial reaction or elements. So I don’t know how to answer where my hand is. At least that’s the mental a nervous system reaction? I don’t know that question unless you can tell me what image I have when I’m working, though I that answer, but this is part of a theoretical you mean by vitality. And then the readers have no proof that it works this way. The model I’m currently working with. For need to know what you mean by vitality. work is so gentle that patients actually have practical purposes, the test comes down to, And I might not agree with your definition. fallen asleep while I treated their iliotibial “Can I feel a motion in the fascia?” The only For me, vitality pretty much means that band with my technique – or, as I would way you can feel a motion is to have a motor there is life inside the body – that there’s an prefer to say, with the technique that I’ve contact with it. And I don’t mean to push it. oomph, that the tissue can convey to you that synthesized; whether it’s originally mine, But if you look at haptics, which is basically it is alive and hopefully kickin’. Yesterday, I don’t know. Nevertheless, that’s what I the study of touch, you’ll find that every I visited an elderly person in hospice care, do. So my approach is fluidic. The fibers contact is always first a motor one; you can’t and I placed my hands on his arms. Other barely exist for me. And a key concept is have a sensory contact without the motor than feeling warm, I couldn’t tell that he that of contiguous layers, versus one layer contact first. So I’m asking if there is a sense was alive. I placed my hands on his legs, in continuity. of movement. Such a sense doesn’t have to and other than feeling very warm actually, I be rhythmical; it may respond to breathing, RM: I don’t have the list of questions you couldn’t tell that he was alive. But his chest it may respond to the osteopathic concept asked the osteopaths in your research, but was still going up and down, and I could of the primary respiratory mechanism, can you share some? see the blood vessels in his neck filling and or it may involve a combination of the emptying. Yet there was no vitality in the JS: The most interesting question was, heartbeat, circulatory pulsations, muscle tissues of his extremities, and it was clear “What does healthy fascia feel like?” I tonus, and other factors. The key point that death was near. And, in fact, he died didn’t define ‘feel’, and I didn’t define is to determine whether the fascia is able about two-and-a-half hours later. To me, it ‘healthy’. Whether they all assumed the to react to underlying body motions, or felt like his vitality was slowly leaving the same meanings for those words, I’ll never is it stuck like a piece of wallpaper to the periphery and housing itself in the center know, but none of the osteopaths asked underlying tissues? just to keep the heart and lungs going for me to provide definitions. Their responses RM: When you work with fascia, do gravity as long as there was still something there. ranged from “you can’t touch the fascia, and posture matter to you as a practitioner? only the surgeon can touch the fascia” to So back to fascia and vitality – the fascia “every time you touch the patient, you JS: Posture absolutely matters, but what’s is going to move, there’s going to be a are touching the fascia” to “you can’t the biggest force on posture? It’s gravity. noticeable movement, a response to that divorce the fascia from anything else in the And once you pass a certain tipping point inner oomph. It’s the life force – what people body.” I discovered that every one of the in your posture, gravity has got the upper have been pondering for hundreds of years. thirty-seven osteopaths interviewed had a hand. So I work with gravity, though “What is life?” It’s that question we always different answer. I could have clumped the probably not consciously. I look at posture come down to. What is life? What keeps us answers into groups, but it would have been all the time. I even do experiments with alive? And how do you know you’re fully like a disco ball. If you had only six sides on plants, trying to get them to stand up alive or when you’re tipping toward death. the disco ball, you had six different answers. straight. I’ve found that unless you’re at the I don’t think it’s the be all and end all in If you made more sides on the disco ball, equator, you can’t get a young plant to stand fascia; it’s in the body, it’s in all parts of the you got more different answers. In other up straight because the sun is never directly body. But the fascia is certainly one of the words, nobody was agreeing. overhead. The plant always leans toward areas where this life force expresses itself. the sun. So as soon as I see it lean toward If I were answering the question “What RM: I have a Rolfing SI-related question. the sun, I turn it around the other way, but does healthy fascia feel like?” myself, I As I understand Rolf’s bigger question or before I know it, it’s leaning in the sunward would want to first ask, “What does it goal, it was, “What happens to the energy direction again. I’m trying to catch it right move like?” – in other words, how does it fields of human beings when they are in in the middle. But the point is, I think that react to the natural waves and motions of alignment in the greater field of gravity? posture really has a strong influence on the the body, like breathing? I think that’s the What happens to the evolution of the health potentials in our patients. most important question to answer. You human being?” can’t put your hand on it and expect it to RM: There was a question you asked the JS: Of the individual in his own lifetime? answer you. You have got to give it a test. If osteopaths about vitalism. That’s pretty simple, that’s a no-brainer I touch you, how do you react? You might JS: Yes, the question was, “What do you question for me. The more your body say, “Hello! How are you? Do you want feel is the relationship between fascia and aligns itself in gravity, the less muscular something?” But I might react by saying,

36 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org OSTEOPATHY AND FASCIA tension you need to use to hold yourself sacks of water and it never really considered for those of us who use our hands on upright in space. If you’re off center and that, at least as I understood it. human tissues—and make it have a direct you don’t do anything to correct it, you’re connection to not only our work, but to how JS: There’s so much pressure dynamics gonna tip over. But your body automatically we perform our work; really, from bench from fluid, I don’t know how you can ignore keeps you from tipping over by making to bedside. He can do that. He can do it it. I got so fed up reading about tensegrity corrections through muscle contractions. for osteopaths, I suppose for Rolfers, for without fluid that when the fluid model As soon as you make a contraction, you’re massage therapists, for bodyworkers of any [biotensegrity] came out, I wasn’t too creating a compression. The compression kind. So we need more Roberts in the world. interested in reading it. But it’s just a mental typically involves longitudinal structures block for me more than anything else. RM: Thanks for your time. I hear your – the vertebral segments. But within the book is getting a rave review in this issue contraction, you also have arteries, nerves, RM: Do you have any thoughts on Robert of the Journal. veins, and lymphatics – so you are also Schleip’s work and the more modern fascia restricting fluids. And you’re using energy research, and the Fascia Research Congress? JS: I’d love to come to the U.S. to teach to hold yourself up – and to counteract the a course to Rolfers if people are really JS: I had teaching conflicts with all three of actions of compression on your vertebrae, interested in a fluidic approach to the Fascia Research Congresses, so I could nerves, arteries, veins, blood, and other fascial treatment. [Editor’s note: contact not attend. But, believe it or not, I’ve known fluids. The energy you’re using to make [email protected] if interested.] I do Robert since 2004, when he was a Rolfer the contraction is being taken away from think we take the same approach, [though] living in Germany. I had just finished my the energy you could use to function, whenever you ask Rolfers what they do, own thesis and he had gotten a photocopied such as the energy needed to maintain they say they can’t tell you about it, and you copy of it from somebody. He met me in the automatic systems of your brain, your have to take the ten sessions to find out. But Germany when I was teaching there and digestion, your breathing. Energy can’t be in the little bit I’ve seen, you take crooked wanted to know more about it. He hadn’t created or destroyed, it’s only transformed people and try to make them straighter. gone into his PhD yet, but he was more somewhere else. So if you are using it to interested in what I had done than any RM: Well, there’s more to it than that. I’ll hold yourself up in space, you could be osteopath was. At that time, Robert had a fill you in! keeping it from going where it really needs lot of information and experience to share to be – maintaining or restoring your health. Jane Eliza Stark is a 2003 graduate of the with the profession as well as the academic Canadian College of Osteopathy (CCO), where, RM: Any other thoughts you have? world. But you know that academics really upon graduation, she received the Andrew talk among themselves, so as I recall Robert JS: Remember that I don’t have a complete Taylor Still Award for the most representative explaining it to me, it was difficult to get the picture of the Rolfing philosophy, but thesis on the advancement of osteopathy in attention of academics because his primary I think we [Rolfers and osteopaths] are philosophical or sociological research. In credential was that of a Rolfer. I recognize going for the same goal. The Rolfer may 2006, she received the Andrew Taylor Still that bias as well. Whether he had already be concentrating on the fibers. I want the Foundation Award for her contribution to the intended to get a PhD or not, I’m not sure, person straight, in the sense that I want advancement and recognition of osteopathy in but now that he has his degree his voice is him to use the least amount of energy he Canada. She serves on the faculty of the CCO a recognized part of the scientific world. can to maintain himself in space. Given that and the Collège D’Etudes Ostéopathiques. the state of his tissue maybe never reaches I think it was he and his partner in Ulm She has a master’s degree in clinical research my ideal, it is a matter of optimizing his who discovered the myofibroblasts in the administration and is the director of research potential. So I just do it, I think, in a much fascia around the organs and in the visceral for the CCO. She is recognized internationally softer way, because if I give him the fluid, ligaments and mesenteries. Still had been as an osteopathic historiographer, author, he will begin to autocorrect himself. And I saying that for a hundred years, but here and lecturer on osteopathic history and on don’t know myself what his correct position came the proof that mesenteries could the biographies of Still, Sutherland, and might be. contract and react under neural influence. Littlejohn. She is a workshop leader on the As far as I know, nobody had brought fluidic approach to treating connective tissue RM: Do you have any thoughts on so-called that to the attention of the people who and has lectured or taught in ten countries. tensegrity? worked with those kinds of tissues before. She will be giving a seminar on the History JS: I’m a mental moron with tensegrity. So I really like what Robert did. I haven’t of Osteopathy in November in Toronto; I’ve been taught it at least five times, been been following his career, and I don’t see see http://foundersdayweekend.ca/Seminars/ taken by the hand to structures and been him very often, but I did take a course Seminars%20Description/ for information. told, “that’s a strut . . .” But I can’t stand in Montreal from him, and I found that Ron Murray studied at the Rolf Institute® it, unless you had biotensegrity, because everything he taught, I didn’t teach, and completing Unit 1 in 1985, Basic Training the human body is not tensegrity, it’s 70% whatever I taught, he didn’t teach. So we in 1988, and Advanced Training in 1996. to 80% fluid. So I’d rather not talk about completely complemented one another as He graduated from the Canadian College of tensegrity – I’ll not contribute anything of far as “What is fascia, and what can you do Osteopathy in 2003. He is a Loren Berry Method importance. I don’t consciously pay any with it, and what do you have to take into Instructor since 1990 and a professor at the attention to tensegrity because I don’t think consideration when you are doing things Canadian College of Osteopathy since 2006. about the fibers. with it?” He’s also the only instructor I’ve He also teaches workshops (see his website had who can take a purely scientific paper RM: Yes, for me tensegrity’s big blind spot http://osteoron.com). He can be contacted at that is abstract in every way – meaning is that it left out fluid hydraulics. There are [email protected]. it seems to have no direct application

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Although Still does not write exclusively A Review and on fascia, it was the framework, the matrix in which all of Still’s ideas of the body’s physiological processes of Commentary on Still’s Fascia conception, growth, birth, construction, demolition, and of death took place. By Carol A. Agneessens, MS, CST, Rolfing® and Rolf Movement Instructor Further it was evident that in Still’s Editor’s Note: Jane Stark will be giving a seminar on the History of Osteopathy in November in view of the functioning of the human Toronto; see http://foundersdayweekend.ca/Seminars/Seminars%20Description/ for information. body, no part of the body held more importance than any other part (Stark 2007, 127). Attempting to distill Jane Eliza Stark’s book One of Still’s initial writings dealt with Still’s Fascia: A Qualitative Investigation to the interconnectedness of bones and the Still’s instinctual knowledge of the body Enrich the Meaning Behind Andrew Taylor functioning of the body as a whole. This as a complex system was revolutionary Still’s Concept of Fascia (Jolandos Verlag, intellectual orientation to the nature of for the time. Although not naming 2007) into a simple overview is like trying ‘wholeness’ appears to have been influenced ‘complexity’ in his theories, he noted to paint the most elegant sunset with a by the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg that fascia with its interconnectedness to one-color palette. Impossible! Stark’s book, on spiritualism, fascia, and membranes. all other systems of the body, including which served as her graduate ‘thesis’ from However, Still’s work with fascia was the environment, defined what today we The Canadian College of Osteopathy, is a not limited to the writings of the day but would call a ‘complex system’. Essential to masterpiece of rigor and research. It is also garnered through hands-on dissection of the functioning of a complex system is the exquisitely referenced, leaving no ‘pebble’ the animals he gutted and studied in the harmony brought by unobstructed flow. unturned. There are 387 pages with double wilds. Not only does Stark review Still’s columns of print on each page. Additional concepts of fascia, she also identifies a Stark (2007, 127) highlights five ‘governing material was omitted due to publishing precise chronology of his writing, revealing laws’ in Still’s writing; he believed these considerations. Still’s Fascia is a work of the evolution of his thinking about fascia were immutable laws of nature, given by superb magnitude. I have to admit that as essential tissue that places it well within the creator: initially I was intimidated by the sheer the philosophy and practice of osteopathy. • “the connected oneness of the fascia volume of her inquiry. However, as I Through this unremitting pursuit emerges committed to its reading, Stark’s writing Still’s understanding that no system works • the dynamic flow of fluids through and imbued Dr. Andrew Taylor Still (the founder in isolation from fascia. within the fascia of osteopathy) with a multidimensional • a force that was responsible or driving reality before my eyes. His brilliance, the fluids fortitude, and commitment to discovering natural approaches to wellness are a story to be revered. Volume 1 of the book is a thorough tome on the life and thinking of Still (see Figure 1). Initially, Stark delves into the essential character of Still. She identifies four essential traits: purpose-ness, human-ness, cognition- ness, and spiritual-ness. Yet, Still’s essence goes “deeper than these characteristics . . . the Still-ness of Andrew Taylor Still” (Stark 2007, 58). Still’s life and early practice as a physician on the bloodied fields of the Civil War, his devotion to extensive study and learning of medicine, his life and learning with the Shawnee Indians as a young boy, his involvement with the Masons and spiritualism, and his pull to treat the whole person are all part of the initial image Stark conveys. He was an exceptional individual possessing a relentless drive to understand the complexity and vitalism of living systems. In spite of criticism from the medical profession, poverty, being run out of towns for his beliefs and practices, as Figure 1: A.T. Still from the cover of Jane Stark’s book Still’s Fascia. Printed with well as horrific familial losses, he carried on. permission of the publisher, Jolandos Verlag.

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Elements Quality Manifestation Approach

Material body or physical The matter, the physical substances of the body such as Matter Mechanic being or manner. belts, pulleys, levers, i.e. bones and their attachments.

The physical machinery.

The engine of the body.

Spiritual being in a vitalistic The principle of action, irritability, sensibility, Action Vitalistic sense or physiological sense. contractility.

The arteries, veins, lymph, nerves, etc., which primarily carry the vitality.

The biochemical or genetic secrets of the body.

Being of mind or spiritual The directing principle that orchestrates the body and Motion Spiritual being in a religious sense. gives action, directed purpose or motion.

Soul, the Indweller, the spirit The truth of life beyond the grave. Spiritual Spiritualistic of man in a spiritualistic sense. Substance?

Table XI. Still’s View of Man: Elements, Qualities, Manifestations, and Osteopathic Approaches

Figure 2: Still’s view of Man (Table XI from Stark 2007, 135). Reprinted with permission.

• feedback systems to monitor the fluid the ability to hold all the elements of cerebrospinal fluid, brain fluid, lymph flow complex systems and dimensions of man chyle, pancreatic juice, acids, alkalies, oils . . . within a session. Stark also investigates lubricants and solvents” (Stark 2007, • a mechanism to alter the flow” Still’s concepts according to mechanistic, 139). His vitalistic view again cites the For Still, the symptoms that an individual vitalistic, and spiritual views. These aspects harmony of flow to be essential to health in presented allowed him to apply specific were native to working with the complex complex systems. mechanistic adjustments allowing the systems of man. In reading both quotes Stark (2007, 140) cites the following vitalistic life force to flow. He felt the key was and the research synopsis of Still, familiar five quotes as exemplary of Still’s to create harmony, particularly through the understandings from Rolfing training are vitalistic orientation: unobstructed movement of the fluids. He linked to their origin. In 1897, Still was wrote: “What is harmony but health . . . describing fascia as a “kind of lubricant, • “In the fascia is all the soothing and vital It [health] takes perfect harmony of every which together with synovial membranes, qualities of Nature.” nerve, vein and artery in all parts of the permitted one muscle to glide over, under • “It gives nourishment to all parts of the body” (Stark 2007, 128). or around others and not irritate the body.” harmony by friction” (Stark 2007, 138). Although fascia has been the darling of Sound familiar? • “We think we prove conception, growth, groundbreaking research over the past few and causes of all diseases to be in the decades, I appreciated threading through Throughout chapter four: “Concerning fascia.” the early discovery of its function in health Fascia,” Stark elaborates on the three according to its pioneer investigator. Still views Still held about fascia: mechanistic, • “By its action we live, and by its failure wrote about the universality of fascia and vitalistic, and spiritualistic. With each view we shrink, or swell or die.” discussed it in connection with both the she researched the evolution of his thinking • “But the fascia is the ground in which all plant kingdom and animals; for example, and cites applicable quotes that showed the causes of death do the destruction of life.” “The life of the living tree is in the bark shift as Still’s understanding progressed. and superficial fascia . . . and the life force spiritualistic According to Still’s mechanistic view, all Still’s view emerged from acted through the fascia of man and beast” complex systems must have structural both his Christian orientation as well as (Stark 2007, 133). characteristics. Fascia as understood by his interest in the Spiritualism movement that gained popularity in the nineteenth Throughout Stark’s book, there are charts Still was matter, material and tangible century. Stark details the meaning behind in which she clarifies elements of Still’s (Stark 2007, 138). Still recognized that fascia his spiritualistic orientation, showing that understandings with regard to various functioned primarily as a medium or conduit Still believed in a life force as a principle qualities, manifestations, and osteopathic for the passage of nerves, vessels, blood, that was imparted to man by a supreme approaches. An example is her Table XI, lymph, and glands. He also recognized fascia being – God. For him, “fascia seemed to be Still’s view of Man (see Figure 2). as the interface with the environment. the union of the spiritual with material. This The carryover for me into a Rolfing His vitalistic orientation cited the elements idea was carried one step further adding Structural Integration (SI) practice is in of “life force, magnetic or electric flow, the idea that the mind with a lowercase

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 39 OSTEOPATHY AND FASCIA

to contemporary research on fascia and Still’s View Current Terminology the manner in which Rolfers™ view and engage it. Some of the questions she posed could ignite a fruitful conversation within Connected Oneness Unity our community. For example: Complex System • “What does assessing the fascia tell you?” • “How do you know when you are Mechanistic Mechanical or Structural touching the fascia?” • “What does healthy fascia feel like?” Vitalistic Physiological or Functional • “How do you perceive fascia?” • “Have you found that all your patients Spiritual Spiritual need fascial treatment?” • “What is your goal when you treat Table XIII. Still’s View of the Body and Current Terminology fascia?” Figure 3: Still’s views of the body and current terminology (Table XIII from Stark 2007, • “How do you know when you have been 169). Reprinted with permission. successful?” • “What do you feel is the relationship ‘m’, which was the portion of the Mind of the fascia in order to reveal the underlying between fascia and vitality?” God, was the necessary connecting link organs, muscles and vessels . . . instead he between the body and the spirit – or motion was exposed to fascia and membranes in Based on this extensive interviewing, in a vitalistic sense. Thus the statement, ‘the their most natural state, shortly after death” Stark summarizes the responses of each soul of man with all the streams of pure (Stark 2007, 164). osteopath. She also inquired as to their living water seems to dwell in the fascia of current understanding and reading of The preceding overview has focused on his body’, represented the union of body, Still’s ideas with the question: “Have you Volume 1 of Stark’s published thesis. Volume motion (or spirit) with mind, Still’s triune continued to read his writings or study 2 records questions and conversations with nature of the body” (Stark 2007, 156). his work?” (Stark 2007, 176). This question osteopaths regarding their understanding could easily be asked of practitioners in our Stark (2007, 153) cites a number of quotes and application of ‘Still’s fascia’ in their community: Do you read Dr. Rolf’s words? that illustrate Still’s deep devotion, spiritual modern osteopathic practice. Similarly well beliefs, and reverence to a Creator – God researched and reported, she conducted Conclusion and Nature. Here are a few chosen words: thirty-seven interviews addressing the question: “How are Andrew Taylor Still’s My attempt to write an overview of Still’s “That powerful life force that is concepts of fascia understood, in particular Fascia that imparts well-deserved accolades bequeathed to man and all other beings, his philosophical and spiritual concepts, and tribute to the brilliance of Stark’s and acts through the fascia of man and and utilized in a manual based practice inquiry has inevitably fallen short. However beast.” by experienced Osteopaths?” (Stark 2007, intricate and time-bound the reading of her “It [the fascia] is the house of God, the 169). Figure 3 shows the expert manner thesis was for me, it was a revelation of the dwelling place of the Infinite so far as in which she delineates Still’s view with root and origin of some of Rolf’s ideas. I man is concerned.” current terminology. came away with a fuller understanding of the mind of Still, who investigated “[Life] . . . the highest known principle In drawing conclusions, Stark recognized and lived by an understanding of fascia’s sent forth by nature to vivify, construct that an exact fit between Still’s views and multidimensionality as a dynamic element and govern all beings it is expected to modern osteopathic thinking could not be in the health of man. Rolf contributed be the indweller and operator, and one made in a one-to-one comparison. Because greatly to this understanding as she brought of the greatest perceivable and universal of advances in physiological understanding forward the work of Rolfing SI into the laws of nature.” in the past century, many of the vitalistic human potential movement of the 1960s views can now be explained. She also Stark concludes Volume 1 of her book with and 1970s, highlighting uprightness in the found that current interpretations – such a reminder to the reader that although Still field of gravity through engaging this mind- as fascia being holographic, or that it holds was well read with regard to the study of blowing fascial network. memories – could not be placed in one of medicine and physiology, he “credited no Still’s three assessments. Carol A. Agneessens, MS began her study at scholars or texts for his ideas but rather the Rolf Institute® in 1981. Since then she has his introduction to fascia came through I found Stark’s questions and the responses cultivated a life-long inquiry into the nature observation. As a young boy, he hunted, she collated provided a thorough of the body and its multi-dimensionality. dressed, skinned and butchered animals for exploration into the orientation, treatment, Over the past fifteen years she has been hides and food. With no books to guide him, and understanding of the osteopathic exploring the field of human embryology and it was proposed that Still did not strip away community. Her questions are relevant

40 Structural Integration / September 2016 www.rolf.org PERSPECTIVES the movement of formation. As a member of the Rolf Institute faculty since 1993, she weaves The Ankle-Lean Sequence the understanding of these formative processes ® into her classes. Carol also teaches courses in By Jeffrey Maitland, Advanced Rolfing Instructor biodynamic craniosacral therapy. Recently, I stumbled upon a surprisingly client walks before and after applying this Bibliography effective intervention sequence that technique. facilitates establishing horizontality in the Stark, J. 2007. Still’s Fascia: A Qualitative 1. You can begin with any horizontal plane, body. I call it the ‘ankle-lean intervention Investigation to Enrich the Meaning Behind but I like to begin with the diaphragm. sequence’. It does not look anything like Andrew Taylor Still’s Concept of Fascia. Pähl, Sit on your Rolfing bench and ask your our Tenth-Hour technique, and it is not Germany: Jolandos Verlag. [Editor’s note: client to stand in front of you (see Figure meant to replace it. The ankle-lean sequence Jolandos Verlag is continuing to print a 1). With your palms facing the floor, place is much more global in its application and German edition of this book; an English your fingertips on each side of the thorax affects. Metaphorically, it is like loosening edition should be forthcoming in the U.S., just a bit above the diaphragm. Instruct horizontal barrel straps. It is safe, simple, please contact [email protected] for more your client to keep the front of his spine easy to apply, and highly effective. It works information if interested.] long. Ask him to lean slowly and gently well at the end of a session, especially when forward at the ankle joint, surrendering Stark, J. 2013. “A.T. Still’s Fascia.” you want to see more fluid coordinated his weight bit by bit into your fingers. Lecture at Hidden Treasure Research movement. Don’t be afraid to experiment. It Your client should not be experiencing Conference at Sutherland Cranial College of can be applied almost any time to anybody, pain, and you should not be exerting Osteopathy. Video available for viewing at but seems to work best with responsive much effort. Ask him to continue leaning www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLD7gm_xT84. clients – as do most of our techniques. into your fingers until you feel yourself I am still trying to figure out why this connected with his structure. Do not try particular intervention sequence works to take a lot of weight into your fingers. so well. Some of the more consistent The idea is to take just enough weight results you can expect to see are enhanced into your fingers to connect with his verticality, more coordinated movement, structure via the horizontal planes of core lengthening, owning one’s space, his body. When you attain some level of and an enhanced sense of belonging here. balance and connection, just stay where I am interested in seeing what results you are and do nothing. Wait for his other practitioners observe. After you body to respond. Wait for the dance of have experimented with the ankle-lean the tissues, their softening, their release, intervention sequence for a while, if you are their ‘horizontalization’ and orthotropic so inclined, please send me a description of elongation as his body appropriates the your discoveries ([email protected]). next available level of order. How to Establish Horizontals Let’s take a moment to visualize the horizontal planes with which we will be concerned. Imagine cross-sectioning the body into a stack of horizontal discs. Each disc is a horizontal plane. Now imagine each disc is connected not only above and below, but also throughout the body. As a result of this connectivity, you can readily see how order-thwarters anywhere might disturb the integrity of the body everywhere. It only stands to reason that working with these large horizontal planes should have a profound effect on the body. Before you apply this intervention sequence, perform a thorough assessment across the five assessment categories (also known as the taxonomies). Note where the major order-thwarters are and in which taxonomy they appear so that you can clearly recognize the results of your efforts. Be especially attentive to how your Figure 1: Ankle-Lean Intervention.

www.rolf.org Structural Integration / September 2016 41 PERSPECTIVES

2. You may have to give more support Jeffrey Maitland, PhD, has spent most of his and guidance to neck positioning when adult life deeply investigating the mystery of the client is leaning forward. If your existence, Zen practice, philosophy, and the client is having trouble managing his nature of healing. He is a Certified Advanced neck while forward-leaning, allow him Rolfer™ and Advanced Rolfing Instructor, to first find his optimal balance when a former tenured professor of philosophy at In Memoriam standing. Instruct him to slowly and Purdue University, philosophical counselor, Structural Integration: The Journal of consciously move the back of his head energy healer, and an ordained Zen monk. the Rolf Institute® notes the passing back (posteriorly) just a bit. At the Maitland has published and presented many of the following member of our same time move the top of the head up papers on the theory of somatic manual therapy, community: (vertically). Take the newfound balance Zen, philosophy, and Rolfing Structural Emmett Hutchins, into forward- bending at the ankles. (I Integration. His research, articles, and book Advanced Training Instructor believe this neck technique comes from reviews are published in numerous professional Mabel Todd.) journals. He is also the author of four books, three of which have been translated into other 3. Step back and ask your client to walk. languages. They are Spacious Body, Spinal Assess the results. How has his rib cage Manipulation Made Simple, Mind Body changed? How did the sleeve respond? Zen and Embodied Being: The Philosophical How did his body as a whole respond? Roots of Manual Therapy. He lives and 4. Choose another horizontal plane. For practices in Scottsdale, Arizona. example, place your fingers on his thorax a bit above the horizontal nipple line and complete the process. 5. Choose another horizontal plane – say just below the clavicles – and complete the process. 6. Apply the same technique in the abdomen or to the psoas. To work with the psoas, you employ the same technique but with a different placement of your hands. Rest your hands on the iliac crests and place each thumb on a psoas. Instruct your client to lean forward at the ankles taking his weight into where he feels the pressure of your thumbs and complete the process. 7. Apply the same technique to the back. Instruct your client to turn his back to you. Pick a horizontal plane. Use the same placement of fingers on the back as you did on the front and ask your client to lean backwards at the ankles, slowly bringing his weight on your fingertips. Complete the process. 8. Perform ankle-lean at least five times in five different places and assess after each intervention. There you have it. Within ten to fifteen minutes of applying this technique, I predict that you will be thoroughly astonished by the results. Why and how this technique works so well, I will leave to your speculation. I will also leave it to you to discover the common results among clients. The more you connect with the whole body through the horizontals that are circumscribing the body, the more effective you become.

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