An Unlikely Pairing
Prelude It was December of 1964. I was seventeen years old and failing eleventh grade for the second time. My mother gave me three choices: Get a job. Go to a trade school. Join the armed service. The first two options weren’t particularly enticing, and since my friend John Lockwood had led the way when […]
Even the Ants Are Red in the Grand Canyon
Last August I spent one week immersed in Mother Nature on a river trip in the Grand Canyon in Colorado organized by fellow Rolfers. We went rafting, hiking, and climbing, and also learned new approaches to the work we all love. I’d like to share some of the moments that I feel have become defining […]
My Love – Hate Relationship with Rolf Movement® Integration
I experience earth-moving epiphanies and mind-blowing change every time I go to a Rolf Movement workshop. I love Rolf Movement workshops. I experience sense-numbing terror and frightful disorientation every time I go to one of these workshops. I hate Rolf Movement workshops. The setting was a Rolf Movement workshop on perceptual core stability, taught by […]
The Case Study Method: The Latest from the ABR/Uniitalo SI Postgraduate Program
Perhaps the greatest challenge for the scientific investigation of our work is its essential holism: the multidimensional and holistic attributes that give Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) its conceptual richness also complicate the scientific assessment of its results. Segmentation of reality and isolation of phenomena, often used for controlling multiple variables, in our context poses the […]
Joint Restriction in SI
Introduction Movement restrictions in the joints of the axial skeleton produce an immediate alteration in the client’s structure. These alterations can include such patterns as leg-length discrepancy and changes in pelvic inclination as well as orientation of the spinal curves. They also produce localized inflammation and edema, which is experienced by our clients as pain. […]
A Voyage around the Tongue
The tongue lives in our mouth, like a strange animal chained to the bones of our cranium and jaw. The three sides of the tongue guard the depths of our body, like the three heads of Cerberus keeping watch over the entry to hell in Ovid’s classic poem “Metamorpheses.” If you were to lose your […]
Empathy and Applied Empathy through the Lens of Rolfing® SI and Actor Training
Introduction What brings people together? What builds lasting relationships? How can we facilitate deeper connections to clients? How do you evaluate the performance of an actor? How can empathy transform lives? How can these questions possibly be related? In my third phase of Rolfing Structural Integration (SI) training, my teacher Ray McCall included at the […]
Performing, Creativity, and the Body
Introduction by Heather Corwin: I met theatre director Monica Payne when studying Viewpoint work (actor training) with Alexandra Billings; both Monica and Alex teach classes for Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and in California. Since we all have history in Chicago, Monica and I easily became friends, sharing our experiences of Chicago and our acclimation […]
The Physiology of Singing
Purpose of This Article This article will provide an overview of a specific aspect of voice physiology and its practical use by singers. I will be speaking to the Rolfer who works with singers (or is a singer herself) or has an interest in further study in this area. I will be utilizing a […]
When Flexible Is Too Flexible
One would think that being extraordinarily flexible would be advantageous to a dancer. After all, many forms of dance are characterized by extreme ranges of motion, particularly in the spine and lower extremities. But acrobatic flexibility may in fact be a sign of a system-wide disorder affecting the body’s connective tissues that can cause a […]