A unique method of deep tissue bodywork, Structural Integration is more than just a way of working muscles and deep tissues. It is a systematic process of creating balanced change in deep seeded unbalanced patterns of posture and movement through manipulation and movement education. By releasing soft tissue tension and introducing proper movement patterns to the nervous system, the causes of your problems are addressed by balancing deep and superficial structures, thus, allowing your body to move more freely and efficiently throughout your daily activities. Structural Integration is an effective method to deal with the the ill-results of accidents, injuries, and surgeries, neck, back and joint pain, poor posture, chronic tension, and the effects of emotions. Furthermore, Structural integration can be used as an invaluable tool to help refine your practice or performance in such things as martial arts, yoga, and sports.
Potential of Structure and Function
The Value of Physical Medicine as Experienced Through the Work Called Structural Integration
9 Reasons Why Structural Integration is Effective:
- Anyone who hasn’t experienced the benefits of Structural Integration hasn’t felt true balance, come and experience what others are talking about. When clients’ back pain disappears after a foot session, or a child can run faster because the arches in his foot function for the first time, or a young person gains confidence , when people feel stronger, lighter, quicker to recover from injury or illness, when they have greater energy, when they learn to listen to their bodies and seek to give their body its right, when they start to notice how they reinforce their imbalances, then the power of Structural Integration becomes clear.
- Basic balancing in Structural Integration is achieved in a ten-session process. Each session lasts roughly one and a half hours and sessions are ideally spaced about one week apart. Each session has special anatomical objectives. Each session builds on the last and prepares for the next. The basic goals culminate at the end of session ten. Anatomical goals, greater organization and balance around a vertical line characterize this work.
- The part of the body Structural Integration intends to effect is soft tissue called fascia. Fascia is the most pervasive organ. It unifies the entire body in an uninterrupted relationship. It gives shape, form and structure to every system, organ and cell. Fascia contracts in response to illness, injury and emotion until eventually we become “stuck” in our own patterns. This can sound quite negative but the fascia’s response is a natural mechanism our bodies use to “keep us in the game.” Structural Integration will give you freedom from those limitations by: lengthening fascia, mobilizing joints, increasing range of motion and freeing restrictions that can limit metabolic processes.
“Fascia forms an intricate web coextensive with the body, central to its well-being, central to its performance.”
Ida P. Rolf“The connective tissues not only bind the various parts of the body, but in a broader sense, connects the numerous branches of medicine.”
G.E. Snyder, Doctor of Osteopathy - Gravity is never neutral it is always doing either one of two things: tearing us down or supporting us up. Gravity is the most potent energy in the universe. Structural Integration teaches you to find a more harmonious relationship with gravity.
- Length and expansion that characterize a vertical line have intrinsic qualities that we perceive as grace and strength. The ideal way to balance your body in gravity is by doing so around a vertical line.
“Better than 90% of the brain’s output is directed towards maintaining your body in its gravitational field. Therefore, the less energy one spends on one’s posture, the more energy is available for healing, digestion, and thinking.”
Roger W. Sperry, Nobel laureate who was known for his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres. - “Post-ten” work builds and refines on the work received in the basic ten sessions. Post-ten sessions, the advanced basics, are done in sets of smaller series such as three sessions, or five sessions for those who have been away longer. A structured series rather than a single session allows you to achieve higher potentials and better longer lasting results.
- When major body parts are aligned and a person is balanced top to bottom, side to side, left to right, internally to externally, on the table and in gravity this translates into a lasting sense of ease and lightness. Massage is synonymous with relaxation which is great, but mostly temporary. That state of relaxation is temporary because the causes of high tension and stress haven’t been addressed. Imbalances still remain.
- A practitioner doesn’t only release tension but, more importantly, integrates improved function into the structural changes. Structural Integration incorporates three principles: length (from yoga), structure (from physics), and (the energy of) gravity.
- Anatomical craftsmanship best describes the work of Structural Integration. If you can visualize a silhouette and imagine its story of structural strengths and weaknesses you might then begin to understand the limitations of structure well as underlying potentials and the benefits of organizing structure.