A Client
I saw her come in today, and she looked like she had been put together by a committee. It was hard to love her. I could hear the lurching lack of coordination as she opened the outer door and thudded into the hall. She had a strange, indescribable scent to her that was old and […]
Rolfing: a Holistic Vision of Structural Integration
Presented at the First International Holistic Conference in Brasilia, Brasil, in March, 1987. A very important word in my life, since it set me on the search for self-healing, is hypochondria. At age eighteen, the medical doctors I had been appealing to for help told me to go away, that my problems were all in […]
Coxarthrosis Research Discussed
I read with interest your summary and analysis of the German booklet, “Standing Upright,” but I confess to being disturbed and puzzled by a number of questions about its content. I have decided to respond in Rolf Lines, since this avenue is likely to have the most benefit. To begin, I am not familiar with […]
Coxarthrosis Post Script
In the previous issue (of Rolf Lines) I wrote an article on “Pelvic Tilt and Coxarthrosis”. Afterwards I found out that the term “coxarthrosis” does not exist in English. It is a degenerative disease of the cartilage of the hip joint. It is extremely painful and in its progressive stages it is treated by surgery […]
The Need to Know
It is the privilege of the newcomer to question the basic concepts of the new field, (and) I once wrote and tried to prove that the tensegrity model is no correct anatomical model. Then the only reaction in Rolf Lines was a letter consisting of one word: “Phew” I am not a total newcomer anymore, […]
Explorations
As a starter, I want to try to answer one of our favorite questions: “What is Rolfing?” There are many points of view from which one might attempt to answer this question, and this time around I want to give a philosophical answer. Let me begin by offering a definition of freedom that I worked […]
Observations on Sultan’s Body Classification System
I would like to share with you some observations about the relationships of myofascial tensions in the head to what happens below. I remember in my introductory anatomy class, Louis Schultz told a story about Ida. Louis and two other anatomy teachers were doing a dissection to better understand the structure of fascia (rather than […]
How to Involve Clients’ Movement During Rolfing Work
Just recently I started to understand the value of asking our clients to do certain movements while we work with them. It not only makes the mechanical “sculpturing work” easier and helps to sort out the different fascial layers; but it also can serve as an excellent tool to change or expand the movement patterns […]
Stress-Reduction Speaks to Media
Recently my Rolfing colleague Owen Marcus and I have received some media attention when one of the local TV stations wanted to approach Rolfing from the point of view of stress reduction. So I called John Cottingham and asked him what I could legitimately say about stress reduction on the basis of his research. What […]
Crior and Collapse – Part I: How We React to Trauma
All sentient beings that I have observed react to trauma in specific, predictable patterns: to the extent they are able, they withdraw; to the extent they are unable to withdraw, they collapse. Poke an amoeba, an elephant or a human and it will immediately pull away; poke it hard enough and it will break down. […]