Animal Healing: The Power of Rolfing® Structural Integration
Briah Anson graduated from the Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration in 1979. Before she had even finished school, she had already experimented with applying the principles of structural integration (SI) to her pet dog. While her practice has always been filled with humans, her passion, curiosity, and innate natural connectedness has always been with animals. […]
Breath Made Visible (DVD)
Reviewed by Robert McWilliams, Certified Advanced Rolfer™, Rolf Movement® Practitioner San Rafael-based modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin is an important dance artist and seminal figure in movement therapy, often mentioned in the same conversation along with Emilie Conrad and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. (These three copresented the Soma Fest in Santa Monica in September of this […]
The Case Study Method: Year Two
Perhaps the greatest challenge for the scientific investigation of our work is its essential holism: the multi-dimensional and holistic attributes that give 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 pose the risk […]
Structural Dysfunction: Strain and Release
A premise underlying structural bodywork may need updating because of the growth of many new release modalities within the Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration (SI) and elsewhere. It has long been held that structural bodyworkers primarily release fascial restrictions. But it is likely that muscles can play a key role in the generation and maintenance […]
A Modern Look at Pain
Pain science has learned a great deal in the past fifty years, but most of this information remains in the separate sphere of academia rather than on the frontlines of pain treatment. Or to put it another way: how do we take theoretical information from the medical literature and implement it in the clinic? In […]
Rehab Notes, Post- Hallux-Rigidus Surgery
Introduction I am writing this now in the hope that my own experience with post-cheilectomysurgery rehabilitation will be helpful for Rolfers working with a client in this situation, or even for themselves. I wrote in an earlier article (“Why I Got Foot Surgery”; June 2011 issue of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®) […]
The Arches of the Feet, Part 2
The feet are part of a living system and, as such, play a role in both cause and effect in the orchestra of the whole body. As, on one hand, they determine much of what happens in the body above them, they are also determined in many ways by the more skywardly-placed parts of the […]
Rolfing® SI with a Twist
Introduction In the classic Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) Ten Series, practitioners work with clients in set positions – supine, sidelying, prone, and seated – as prescribed by the ‘Recipe.’ In the original advanced series, there were again set positions (e.g., ‘Inverted A,’ ‘C Curl,’ and ‘Z Position’) designed to support the goals of the particular […]
Rolfing® SI and CrossFit
The human body is a wonderful organism that is able to adapt to structural challenges. In fact, structural challenge is required for the body to be at its maximum potential. If we don’t load and stress bone it will lose strength and mass. The same holds true for tendons, ligaments, and the nervous system. Challenges […]
Fascial Fitness
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body by Robert Schleip et al.,1 which is scheduled to be published in 2012. For more information on Fascial Fitness see</i> <a href=’http://www.fascialfitness.de’ target=’_blank’>http://www.fascialfitness.de</a> When a football player is not able to take the field because of a recurrent calf […]