Report on the Pilot Project
In November 1990 we certified ten new Rolfers, who graduated from our first Rolfing/Rolfing Movement integrated training, also called the Pilot Project. There has been much discussion and many questions about the Pilot Project. I offer this report to answer some of these questions and let the community know how it went. The first portion […]
A Conversation with Michael Salveson
Bill: There has been a split among the instructors of the Institute with four instructors leaving, one to start another school. What are the reasons for this split? Are there other than personal reasons? Michael: Yes, I think the instructors reached a stage of development where divergent views of the work resulted in disagreement about […]
The Palintonic Lines of Rolfing
WHAT IS A ROLF LINE? Thomas Hanna once said something like the following: “Bodywork is a practice in search of a theory.” Even though I think conceiving of Rolfing as a form of bodywork is a great mistake, Hanna’s recognition of the need for theory certainly seems to apply to our work. Dr. Rolf already […]
Talking to Fascia – Changing the Brain
About a year ago I wrote the following letter to all faculty members of the Rolf Institute: “RE: THE IMPORTANCE OF FASCIA INTHE ALIGNMENT OF HUMAN BODIES” Dear Colleagues, A few months ago I had a challenging discussion with several leading Feldenkra is teachers and other body workers in Australia. They questioned the importance of […]
Standing on Solid Ground with the Psychological
In the exploration of Ida P. Rolfs work, I have found the power of The Line indisputable. Yet, over the years I felt increasingly dissatisfaction with a restriction in the emotional/psychological approach to the Work. In hind sight, I realize I had worked at arm’s length with people and that a structural curtain of concern […]
Interview with Peter Levine and Bill Smythe
Bill Harvey: I understand you’ve been studying stress and trauma for some time. Peter Levine: Since I was born Well actually I’ve been researching stress and trauma for over twenty years. Bill H: Your dissertation is about trauma. Peter: About stress and trauma. Bill H: Where in your studies of stress and trauma did you […]
The Pull of Gravity and the Black Hole of Metaphysics
Those of us who love Dr. Rolf’s work but never had the chance of knowing her are left only with writings, photos, tapes, and reports of those who delighted-in and endured her. As a new Rolfer, one of the issues which puzzles me most about her is metaphysics. From what she expressed, it seems clear […]
Tubular, dude!
At the International Conference, Professor Maitland spoke of cylinders and their significance in human form: any twisting or bending along the circumference results in a shortening along the axial line. Enter the Rolfer. We are all familiar with the structural image of cylinders within cylinders from Emmett’s models we have used for years. But it […]
The Pink Light Express
Somewhere in the kaleidescoped, quilted pattern of my life, my career as a body worker emerged about ten years ago and I became a Rolfer. Been doing it ever since. For those of us who enter the temple of the human body through touch, changing someone’s structure soon loses its place at center stage and […]
Doing Bodywork as a Spiritual Discipline
MOST OF THE BODYWORKERS I know have chosen their profession as part of an ongoing process of transformation for themselves as well as for their clients. They meditate or pray, they encourage their own self-awareness in order to develop their spiritual riches, they continuously examine, test and revise their values, and often they participate in […]