Rolf Structural Integration: What is it?
Rolf Structural Integration is more than just massage, it is a process of physical change towards better balance, symmetry, and adaptability than your body has ever known.
Fascia, the Organ of Structure and Support
Structural Integration works with connective tissue, specifically connective tissue called fascia. Fascia is a thin clear membrane that surrounds and connects all muscles, bones, organs, systems and major body segments in an uninterrupted web. It envelops every fiber from the surface throughout the entire body and down to the cellular level. When fascia is eased, muscles lengthen, the nervous system is released of its chronic “charge,” joints move with freedom and balance, and the body finds vertical alignment. The experience is lightness, ease, support, strength, and physical and mental clarity.
Conditions Treated
- Back Pain, Neck Pain, Shoulder Pain, and Knee Pain
- Car and motorcycle accidents
- Repetitive Stress Injury
- Chronic Poor Posture and Scoliosis
- Sprains and Strains
- Poor posture
- Headaches
- Sports Injuries
- Chronic Pain
- Post-surgery Recovery
- Scars
The 10-Series
“The 10-Session Series”, is unique to Rolf Structural Integration. Most people think in terms of more conventional treatments which have outlooks such as the “fix it” approach, or “treat the problem” model.
The success of Rolf Structural Integration is due to the systematic progression of the 10-series. In other words, you receive 10 unique sessions where we don’t focus only where you’re feeling pain that day. It’s more effective to ease imbalances throughout the global, to mobilize joints which affect fluid and nerve flow, to better relate neighboring parts, all of which support the secondary issue of tight muscles. To a Structural Integrator it is shortsighted and myopic to think that an imbalance or pain is simply localized. Pain is the end point of strain and strain is always coming from areas beyond the local lesion.
Each session has specific goals, each session is different, each builds off of the last and prepares for the next. It’s a sort of weaving back and forth, to to bottom and inside to outside. The tenth session is the conclusion and a higher level of balance is achieved.
The 10-Series is time-tested and has helped thousands of people attain stability, strength, support, lightness, and ease, as well as a sense of integration, wholeness, and vitality. Each session lasts for approximately an hour and focuses on a particular area of the body.
What’s The Process?
The process begins with a free 15 minute phone consultation. I listen to what’s going on, take your history, understand your goals, and we schedule the first session which lasts for 1 ½ hours. I recommend the 10-series to all of my clients.
Your commitment to do the ten isn’t required at the onset, try one, two, or three sessions. If you decide the work has been helpful and you want to experience the complete benefits of Structural Integration the fourth session is the point where I strongly recommend you commit to the ten.
From the fourth session on we’re working with deep structures and organizing your very core so it’s important to complete the series at this point. The 10-series involves bodywork and education, it is my job to do the bodywork and your job to embody the work.
The homework is customized for you to deepen the connection to what’s going on in your body, this element is, just as, if not more essential to changing patterns as the manual bodywork I do.
After the 10-series you’re advised to let the work settle for a period of time. When you feel ready post-10 sessions are the next stage of your journey.
The post-10 work further progresses structure, function, and understanding and unlike other forms of work you begin to grasp why pains occur and how your participation or lack of it affects your well-being.
The Ten-Sessions in Short:
- Session 1 Freedom and Expansion: Your spine, pelvis, and rib cage are aligned and free. Your breath capacity is increased and core structures relieved of superficial restrictions.
- Session 2 Support and Length: Foot arches and the function of your lower legs is improved. As a result, your spine and rib cage can come out of compression and experience length and optimal potential without effort.
- Session 3 The Third Dimension: Your shoulder and pelvic girdles are free from your body and your body’s lateral sidelines gain ease, length, and lightness.
- Session 4 Core Freedom: Your inner legs lengthen and pelvic floor balanced. The inner legs are almost always in constant contraction, a detriment to a healthy core.
- Session 5 Core Function: Your psoas muscle connects your spine to your legs, it is the deepest muscle of your body and most important to structural integrity. In this session your psoas function is improved and vital nerve centers that run through are refreshed.
- Session 6 Sacral Motion: Movement is restored to the critical junction between your hips and spine by restoring freedom of your sacrum and tail bones.
- Session 7 The Cranial Core: Your head, neck, and shoulders gain freedom from deep, long held contractions.
- Sessions 8 and 9 Refining Functional Lines: These sessions connect large planes of connective tissues and functionally relate the limbs to the body so that your movements and functions are smooth, easy, and integrated.
- Session 10 Sound Structure and Functional Integration: You’ll experience this session as physical clarity, structural support, and experiential wholeness. Fascial planes are free to glide over each other and the body uses gravity as a healthy reference point rather than an opposition.