ABSTRACT Breath has always been integral to our Rolfing® Structural Integration and Rolf Movement® paradigm. In this column, our faculty authors speak to the foundational nature of breathing in our work.

Q: Most wellness modalities consider breath in their therapeutic interventions. (a) What is unique about how Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement work with the breath? (b) Can you describe one client where the work you did around breath was pivotal to his/her structural recovery and/or the integration of the work? (c) When you are working, how do you consider your own breath?

Editor’s Note: The faculty were asked  this question before COVID-19 was on all our doorsteps, and they provided these answers mostly in pre-COVID-19 times.

Pierpaola Volpones

Basic Rolfing Instructor and Rolf Movement Instructor

Everything starts with a breath in. And ends with a breath out.

Breathing is such an expressive movement of our state of being, in terms of wellness and health.

The act of breathing happens at many layers: from the basic chemical and neurological control of providing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide to assure basic physiological activities, to the capacity to modulate the demand for more air when involved in physical activities. Breathing  is  not  just a neuromuscular activity based in the contraction and release of our diaphragm and other muscles; it is also a chemical activity linked with several other functions–less tangible but not less important, vital unseen functions take place.

Breathing is environmentally dependent: when I imagine being in nature, in front  of the ocean, or surrounded by trees and flowers, I feel my breath full and profound. Walking on a busy street full of cars, or in a smelly place, does not invite my breath to be full and deep. Or when the air is too cold, too hot, too humid, most probably my breathing will be reduced.

Breathing expresses emotions; a free breath creates space for  expansive  emotions  like joy, as much as holding and shrinking are perfectly  expressing  such  emotions as frustration or  inadequacy.  Laughing and crying are expressed by a certain contraction of the diaphragm. Emotions have ways to breathe.

Sometimes a holding in the diaphragm, particularly in its crura, produces back pain as a side effect. A permanent holding particularly in its crura, produces back pain as a side effect. A permanent holding prevents our lumbar area responding and adapting to daily-life activities. It might reflect on the mobility and motility of the organs that have intimate relationship to the diaphragm and the spine, for example the duodenum, the liver, the  stomach, and the kidneys.

Breathing and mobilization of energy go hand in hand: qi gong and tai chi are disciplines based in breathing practice. And energy balance is a sign of wellness and health well beyond traditional Chinese medicine. Looking back to historical roots in the origins of Mediterranean-basin culture, I found something interesting: pneuma is the ancient Greek word that means air – breathing – souffle – spirit – soul as the beginning of life – all of these. Similarly, in Hebrew ruah stands for spirit, breath, souffle. It is interesting to note that in several ancient cultures, the word for breath is the same for life force, creation, and the divine. Breathing is indeed coupled with life.

As we experience every single day, life has a flow, a rhythm, exactly like breathing. Breathing and life have a pulsation, they move in a wave, not as a flat line. A flat line appears when we don’t breathe any

Breathing is my compass and my anchor.

– Pierpaola Volpones, Basic Rolfing Instructor and Rolf Movement Instructor

longer, when our heartbeat stops. Nothing stays the same forever: the change of shape, of rhythm, of flow is in the nature of life, is an expression of life. Sometimes, these changes are unexpected and sudden, unpredictable to most of us. My parents and grandparents experienced World War II; I am experiencing the worldwide diffusion of this COVID-19 virus that is changing our lives. Speaking for myself, it has changed my lifestyle, value system, friendships, and my Rolfing SI practice.

In these months, breathing is what helps me to stay present and oriented, to regulate my nervous system when I feel overloaded by the uncertainty of the future– an uncertainty that is not limited to my personal future, but to the future of all of us, worldwide.

Breathing is my compass and my anchor.

Jörg Ahrend-Löns

Basic Rolfing Instructor

I have to confess that in my personal development as Rolfer™ and physiotherapist (PT) it took quite a long time to embody breathing! In the beginning of my professional path as PT and even as Rolfer it was just something we needed to do in order to stay alive. The entrance to the complexity and different relationships of breathing in my case was  provided  in  a post-advanced workshop with Michael Salveson in Tuscany years back. Michael was looking for a model to demonstrate briefly some structural approaches around the costovertebral joints in the thoracic spine. My intuition let me jump up and before any mindset was preventing me, my body was already on the table. Rather than demonstrating some costovertebral techniques, Michael did an entire breathing session that lasted for at least one hour. Until today it’s difficult for me to find verbal expressions for this breath-opening experience. But what I can say with certainty: my understanding of breathing in gravity is much deeper since then.

Breathing started to become a discovery, and in the following text I want to describe some of my findings – not written in stone

–        rather subjective. The frame for my explanations of the different levels of my experiences regarding breathing are the Rolfing Principles of Intervention and Hubert Godard’s model of four structures (physical structure, coordinative structure. perceptive structure, and psychobiological structure).

First, breathing is space! If we briefly look at the physiological and anatomical implications of this statement, we can approach breathing from different perspectives. We start with looking at the purpose of breathing: the main physiological function is to provide vital-for-life oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide. The more space or volume is available in breathing-in and  breathing- out, the bigger the difference of pressure between the environment and lungs. The scale of this pressure gradient determines the efficiency of the gas exchange. In order for air to stream into the lungs, the pressure in the thoracic cavity needs to be lower than the atmospheric pressure – in other words, pressure is  inversely  proportional to volume. The bigger the inner volume of the thorax, the lower the pressure within the lungs and the easier it is for air to stream into the alveoli.

Let’s have a brief look on how these differences in volumes are provided. From the perspective of Rolfing SI, it’s of course most interesting how every single part of the myofascial system is cooperating and how it affects the ‘spacers’ – the bony parts and their articulations (ribs with the articulations to the spine, the spine itself, the shoulder-girdle clavicles and scapulae, the sternum with its cartilaginous connections to the ribs). Many structures that are related to each other might  affect the breathing movement. One clinical example for structural limitations on the joint level is Bekhterev’s disease, which often is accompanied by severe respiratory symptoms. The diaphragm and the intercostal muscles are  known as the main breathing muscles. All muscles connected to the chest act on the breathing movement. This influence could be accessory but also inhibiting. An example: tension and shortness in the belly muscles – particularly obliques – might limit inhalation by holding the ribs down.

So  far,  we’ve  looked  at  breathing  from  a perspective of the physical structure – admittedly in a quite roughly summarized way. Now the perspective of the coordinative structure needs consideration regarding functional coherences. Core structures play an important functional role, particularly in inspiratory movement and chest breathing. It’s embedded in the ‘postural triangle’ of vestibulum, eyes and feet, the orientation to the substratum, and to space along the line of gravity.

The proprioceptive cooperation of senses provides an activation of the whole core stabilizing system. On the level of the diaphragm this activation – in this case particularly the activation and cooperation of transversus abdominus and multifidi muscles – prevents  the  central  tendon of the diaphragm from lowering (belly breathing) and lifts the ribs instead (chest breathing). In this case active expiration is actually not needed; exhalation happens simply from the elasticity of the thoracic myofascial system and gravity.

Now I’ll consider some of our Principles of Intervention that might help with understanding the complexity of breathing. When there’s insufficient support from below we can see in ‘body reading’ functional inhibitions to inhalation  and/  or exhalation. Adaptability might be limited not only by a lack of flexibility in superficial myofascial structures and/ or articulations, so in regard to creating space we need to look at how superficial and deep structures are in communication

–        structurally and functionally. Finally, palintonicity indicates support, alignment, and orientation in gravity; and in regard to breathing, a respiratory balance.

One last point I want to touch on is the psychobiological. The two layers of the pleura give stability to the lungs within the chest via adhesive forces, a prerequisite for the lungs being able to follow the chest and diaphragm as they move with the breath.

The pleura is strongly innervated by branches of the vagus nerve – part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) – and I see this as one of the key relationships to understanding the complexity of breathing. As breathing is thus deeply connected to our brain and ANS, so it is to our perceptive and psychobiological structures. From my perspective, breathing might be one of the most important pathways to our innermost space or being. This relationship has the potential to determine how human beings

Breathing is one of the most important doors for communication between client and Rolfer.

– Jörg Ahrend-Löns, Basic Rolfing Instructor

relate to the world and to  themselves. Not for nothing, breathing is in almost all meditation traditions and is an important approach to calm down a ‘busy’ mind.

In summary, Rolfing SI for me includes the opportunity to look at a very  basic and vital-for-life function of our  body  from different perspectives. The Rolfing Principles of Intervention and the differentiation of structures are important basic ‘tools’ for Rolfers to get in touch  with their clients in a very specific therapeutical relationship. In this regard breathing is one of the most important doors for communication between client and Rolfer. This determines opening and closure of an individual process.

Larry Koliha

Basic Rolfing Instructor

 Everything starts with the breath. Of all the areas Rolfing SI covers, I feel breath work is the most important because it affects everything in the body. I work to help each client learn to breathe in a balanced way throughout the body, and then build upon that breath education to learn to walk freely. These two things really increase the integration of the body, which  reduces  a lot of the trouble that people often come in with. I find that Rolfing SI is one of the few modalities that both frees the structure with hands-on work and provides the necessary movement education to keep things free.

The process really starts with the first session of the Rolfing Ten Series. It begins with developing the client’s awareness of how s/he is breathing, any restrictions or holdings s/he may notice, and discovering options for improvement. Each session should build on this first session and continue throughout the Series with a deepening understanding of what a breath is, how it affects the entire body, and how one can use breath to enhance other areas of life.

Every client who comes in the door has breathing opportunities. I find that even with people who have practiced yoga, meditation, or other breathing practices, our hands-on approach to breath has a lot to offer. Many have learned patterns of holding or beliefs about how they should breath that often hamper finding ease in their bodies. Breathing shouldn’t be hard work or constrain the body. Manual approaches that help the client identify and sense constraints in the breath cycle provide real potential for improvement.

Good breath work requires a practitioner to have solid touch skills, an understanding of fascial relationships, and a good knowledge of anatomy. The practitioner can use these skills to free restrictions and educate the client to explore any newfound space. Two important concepts to keep  in mind are to simply teach clients where their lungs are and how the breath cycle works. Just the knowledge that the lungs are mostly in the back of the body and extend from above the first rib to almost the twelfth rib are insights they can use to explore the space. Another seed worth planting early is inside-outside relationship. A key learning is finding freedom not just in the outer layers of muscles and bones, but also in the inside structures from the pelvic floor to the crown of the head.

Working with the breath is a whole-body experience. It is not just about the lungs or the thorax but the influence these areas have on all appendicular and axial sections of the body. Rolfing SI takes this breath awareness into freeing structural work and incorporates it in movement. Continue to work with breath through the session — from table work, to sitting, to standing, and then hopefully into walking.

Here are some areas to work and thoughts:

• Breathing is a balance between inhale and exhale with capabilities  to find the full ranges of both. This breath work is very critical in dealing with the ANS patterns associated with some clients and essential to working with structure.
• The inside-outside relationship in breathing is not just moving the tissue on the superficial rib cage. Both practitioner and client need to sense deeply to find freedom in the lungs, heart, and mediastinum in the thorax; the viscera in the abdomen; the structures of the head and  neck (including anterior neck, jaw, tongue, palate, brain); and into the appendicular structures. With each breath, everything (muscles, bones, viscera, and soft tissues) should resonate with the sensation of movement transmitting through.
• The ribs are a huge  factor  in breath freedom. Ribs are a flexible, moveable collection of bones, and not a single unit. As such, the rib cage should respond more like a soft rattan basket than a suit of armor. The rib cage is able to protect our delicate organs not so much because the ribs are strong, but rather because they are adaptable and able to react to outside forces. Many people unconsciously keep the rib cage held. This often creates problems  in  the  shoulder   girdle or rotator cuff because these are unable to integrate arm movements into the lumbodorsal hinge. Teaching clients that the rib cage is supposed to move when they do can be a game changer.
• Another important insight for working with breath is that the first and second ribs must be able to move and that the shoulder girdle must have the freedom to drape on top of the rib cage. With the all-too-common forward-head position and respiratory issues, these areas are a gold mine for Rolfing practitioners.
• Of course, don’t forget the neck, jaw, and head, and the structures within those areas.  Tension  in  the tongue or clamping a jaw restricts the breath cycle and can restrict movements all the way to the pelvic floor. Even in the first

Working with the breath is a whole-body experience.

– Larry Koliha, Basic Rolfing Instructor

session, check to see if the client can relax in those areas or work with a slightly open mouth to check what the difference is between tension or relaxation in the jaw and tongue. Every breath cycle should allow softening in the anterior neck and head; this can’t happen if the tongue or jaw is engaged.

• Use a three-dimensional approach when working with the breath and associated structures. Use two hands when working to help the client experience multidimensional space and movement.  Cue  the client to sense these spaces both interoceptively and exteroceptively.
• I can’t emphasize enough how transformative your work will be if the client can experience integration of breath throughout the body. The body is a series of diaphragmic sections that the breath should transmit through easily. I think of these sections as feet to knees; knees to pelvic floor; pelvic floor to respiratory diaphragm; diaphragm to thoracic inlet; hands to elbows; elbow to thoracic inlet;  thoracic inlet to floor of the mouth; and on up through the palate and top  of the head. Breath should transmit easily through all of these sections, including through the brain itself. The more moveable, horizontal, and integrated these diaphragms, the more likely your client will feel the subtle sense of whole-body breath.

Breath work affects all types of clients. Three of the most common situations that come to mind are as follows:

• The Type A, stressed-out person, who comes  to  learn  s/he  can  still be highly productive without paying a high toll in the body.
• The individual where the experience of trauma resulted in shutting off or ghosting sections of perception. People often cope with past issues or present pain by not allowing breath or movement to go into associated areas. For example, I had a client who seemingly  disappeared  one of his legs because of past trauma: the leg didn’t function properly, wasn’t part of the body schema,  and had pain. All of this contributed to the client holding his breath up and away from that section of the body and trying to work around

Practitioner breath is a regulator for the client. Know that your client’s breath will often mirror your own.

– Larry Koliha, Basic Rolfing Instructor

it with each step. One of the first steps toward healing is getting movement or even the thought of the breath going into those areas.

• Pain is a huge contributor in inhalation- predominant patterns. I’ve seen several clients come in with acute back pain — barely able to move — who significantly improved with a session of mostly breath work. Helping clients breathe into areas of discomfort is essential to working with pain. A good example of this is working with low-back pain, where encouraging clients to allow breath into the pelvic bowl anterior to the sacrum is often extremely helpful.

As for considerations for the practitioner, the practitioner should be present with his/her breath. If you are not aware of the breath cycle and three-dimensional space in your body, the client will feel it and be impacted. Practitioner breath is a regulator for the client. Know that your client’s breath will often mirror your own. This resonance can be used intentionally to facilitate a more functional client breathing pattern, or unintentionally it can alter the nervous system and derail the work. When you are connected with both your breath cycle and the client’s, that is the sweet spot that really make structural work shine.

Hiroyoshi Tahata

Rolf Movement Instructor

The pandemic is  undoubtedly  having  an effect on breathing for many people, even without viral exposure. First, stress about the pandemic is undermining  many people’s sense of safety, leading  to  dissociating  from  their  relationship  to the world. Second, as the primary vector for viral transmission is through breathing either droplets  or  aerosols,  no  doubt  fear  of   catching   the   virus is inhibiting many people’s breathing patterns, with people likely taking  less full breaths. As breath underlies life and impacts metabolic activity,  the  balance of the nervous system, etc., this will have broad consequences. COVID-19 has done more than affect our breath. It has far-reaching impact on our body relationships. For example, news about the pandemic arouses fear that stimulates a defensive orienting responses and puts us into a state of alert. Many people are also getting much more screen time than usual, and that visual stimulation places a disproportionate emphasis on the head, making grounding more difficult. Finally, and obviously, social distancing inhibits interrelationship with others and reduces contact, including touch.

As Rolfing practitioners, ‘touch’ is commonly through our hands, and such contact definitely has the potential to function as an interface to reestablish relationship to others. However, if we don’t feel comfortable working with clients in person during the pandemic, or if it’s not allowed where we live, how can we provide therapeutic interventions without using touch directly on clients, or even meeting them in person?

I’ll offer here a case study, from a session I conducted online recently for a sixty- three year-old female client who was suffering from COVID-19 infection and could not breathe easily. She also had chronic tension in her shoulders and back. From what I could observe online, she showed signs of distress. My intention for the session was to reestablish the client’s relationship to space and her sense of safety by working with ma (a Japanese concept of how you somatically relate to space and time; see Tahata, 2018).

Prior to the start of the session, I worked with ma for myself by finding an appropriate sitting position to settle in with to feel comfortable in my room. Then, I asked her to find the position where she could feel most comfortable. This is a conditioning process, and is the key to start because this procedure for positioning  helps  us  to find resonance with each other with ease and a connection to resources, even when we are in different spaces. After the conditioning, she noticed a sensation of being wrapped with something when she oriented to a specific direction. She noticed a different quality of olfaction, the sense

COVID-19 has done more than affect our breath. It has far- reaching impact on our body relationships.

– Hiroyoshi Tahata, Rolf Movement Instructor

of smelling a flower like a lily. From these awarenesses, her perception  shifted  to feel more space multidimensionally, which could be interpreted to mean that she recovered an affinity to space. As another step, resourcing specific positioning sometimes gives a cue to open the client’s perception. With this client, she could have a sense of a ‘seating face’; that is to say she could contact the area around the sit bones and hamstrings of her body with the chair. She felt more sense of weight, felt more contact to the chair, she yielded into the chair (see Agneesens & Tahata, 2012). Her pelvis yielded into the chair and her legs in turn yielded to the floor, all this while she was in her seated position.

Her system then allowed her body to settle. I observed her eyes were more open and she commented that she could see more clearly. Finally, she felt less tension in her shoulders and back and also comfortable breathing arose spontaneously. She later told me the remote session was so helpful for her return to daily life ten days later. This client had completed a Ten Series eight years ago, so her body likely had basic support and adaptability that facilitated her self-organizing with the cues given in this remote intervention.

From this perceptual intervention without touch, I realized that simply helping the client to find a sense of safety, as well as a sense of appropriate positioning to feel better, are great foundations for better breathing. Even if connecting to resources and safety does not come easily, my sense is that the positioning strategy to find a sense of good ma could facilitate resourcing and staying out of a trauma vortex. Being conscious about positioning should be of benefit to both the client and the practitioner.

It is not easy to explain work with ma, or yielding, in this brief context, so I refer you to earlier articles for more complete descriptions and exercises (see Tahata, 2018 and Agneessens and Tahata, 2012). Although these ways of working with yielding and ma are recent developments, I find strong support for the methodology in this quote from Dr. Rolf, which shows that psychological anxiety can be reduced when gravitational support becomes adequate:

No situation exists in a human which a psychologist would diagnose as a feeling of insecurity or inadequacy unless it is accompanied by a physical situation which bears witness to the fact that the gravitational support is inadequate.

Ida P. Rolf (1963)

No matter how we approach our clients, our practice has great potential to help people to restore well-being and gain resilient adaptability to counteract pandemic  stress.

References

Agneesens, C. and H. Tahata 2012 June. “Yielding: Engaging Touch, Presence, and the Physiology of Wholeness.” Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 40(1):10–16.

Rolf, I.P. 1963 June. “Structural Integration: Gravity, an Unexplored Factor in a More Human use of Human Beings.” Systematics 1(1):67–84. Available at http://www. duversity.org/PDF/SYSStructural%20 Integration.pdf (retrieved 11/9/20).

Tahata, H. 2018 March. “Working with Ma: Further Refinement of the Yielding Approach through Time, Space, and Intersubjectivity.” Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 46(1):44–51.

[:en]

ABSTRACT Breath has always been integral to our Rolfing® Structural Integration and Rolf Movement® paradigm. In this column, our faculty authors speak to the foundational nature of breathing in our work.

Q: Most wellness modalities consider breath in their therapeutic interventions. (a) What is unique about how Rolfing SI and Rolf Movement work with the breath? (b) Can you describe one client where the work you did around breath was pivotal to his/her structural recovery and/or the integration of the work? (c) When you are working, how do you consider your own breath?

Editor’s Note: The faculty were asked  this question before COVID-19 was on all our doorsteps, and they provided these answers mostly in pre-COVID-19 times.

Pierpaola Volpones

Basic Rolfing Instructor and Rolf Movement Instructor

Everything starts with a breath in. And ends with a breath out.

Breathing is such an expressive movement of our state of being, in terms of wellness and health.

The act of breathing happens at many layers: from the basic chemical and neurological control of providing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide to assure basic physiological activities, to the capacity to modulate the demand for more air when involved in physical activities. Breathing  is  not  just a neuromuscular activity based in the contraction and release of our diaphragm and other muscles; it is also a chemical activity linked with several other functions– less tangible but not less important, vital unseen functions take place.

Breathing is environmentally dependent: when I imagine being in nature, in front  of the ocean, or surrounded by trees and flowers, I feel my breath full and profound. Walking on a busy street full of cars, or in a smelly place, does not invite my breath to be full and deep. Or when the air is too cold, too hot, too humid, most probably my breathing will be reduced.

Breathing expresses emotions; a free breath creates space for  expansive  emotions  like joy, as much as holding and shrinking are perfectly  expressing  such  emotions as frustration or  inadequacy.  Laughing and crying are expressed by a certain contraction of the diaphragm. Emotions have ways to breathe.

Sometimes a holding in the diaphragm, particularly in its crura, produces back pain as a side effect. A permanent holding particularly in its crura, produces back pain as a side effect. A permanent holding prevents our lumbar area responding and adapting to daily-life activities. It might reflect on the mobility and motility of the organs that have intimate relationship to the diaphragm and the spine, for example the duodenum, the liver, the  stomach, and the kidneys.

Breathing and mobilization of energy go hand in hand: qi gong and tai chi are disciplines based in breathing practice. And energy balance is a sign of wellness and health well beyond traditional Chinese medicine. Looking back to historical roots in the origins of Mediterranean-basin culture, I found something interesting: pneuma is the ancient Greek word that means air – breathing – souffle – spirit – soul as the beginning of life – all of these. Similarly, in Hebrew ruah stands for spirit, breath, souffle. It is interesting to note that in several ancient cultures, the word for breath is the same for life force, creation, and the divine. Breathing is indeed coupled with life.

As we experience every single day, life has a flow, a rhythm, exactly like breathing. Breathing and life have a pulsation, they move in a wave, not as a flat line. A flat line appears when we don’t breathe any

Breathing is my compass and my anchor.

– Pierpaola Volpones, Basic Rolfing Instructor and Rolf Movement Instructor

longer, when our heartbeat stops. Nothing stays the same forever: the change of shape, of rhythm, of flow is in the nature of life, is an expression of life. Sometimes, these changes are unexpected and sudden, unpredictable to most of us. My parents and grandparents experienced World War II; I am experiencing the worldwide diffusion of this COVID-19 virus that is changing our lives. Speaking for myself, it has changed my lifestyle, value system, friendships, and my Rolfing SI practice.

In these months, breathing is what helps me to stay present and oriented, to regulate my nervous system when I feel overloaded by the uncertainty of the future– an uncertainty that is not limited to my personal future, but to the future of all of us, worldwide.

Breathing is my compass and my anchor.

Jörg Ahrend-Löns

Basic Rolfing Instructor

I have to confess that in my personal development as Rolfer™ and physiotherapist (PT) it took quite a long time to embody breathing! In the beginning of my professional path as PT and even as Rolfer it was just something we needed to do in order to stay alive. The entrance to the complexity and different relationships of breathing in my case was  provided  in  a post-advanced workshop with Michael Salveson in Tuscany years back. Michael was looking for a model to demonstrate briefly some structural approaches around the costovertebral joints in the thoracic spine. My intuition let me jump up and before any mindset was preventing me, my body was already on the table. Rather than demonstrating some costovertebral techniques, Michael did an entire breathing session that lasted for at least one hour. Until today it’s difficult for me to find verbal expressions for this breath-opening experience. But what I can say with certainty: my understanding of breathing in gravity is much deeper since then.

Breathing started to become a discovery, and in the following text I want to describe some of my findings – not written in stone

–        rather subjective. The frame for my explanations of the different levels of my experiences regarding breathing are the Rolfing Principles of Intervention and Hubert Godard’s model of four structures (physical structure, coordinative structure. perceptive structure, and psychobiological structure).

First, breathing is space! If we briefly look at the physiological and anatomical implications of this statement, we can approach breathing from different perspectives. We start with looking at the purpose of breathing: the main physiological function is to provide vital-for-life oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide. The more space or volume is available in breathing-in and  breathing- out, the bigger the difference of pressure between the environment and lungs. The scale of this pressure gradient determines the efficiency of the gas exchange. In order for air to stream into the lungs, the pressure in the thoracic cavity needs to be lower than the atmospheric pressure – in other words, pressure is  inversely  proportional to volume. The bigger the inner volume of the thorax, the lower the pressure within the lungs and the easier it is for air to stream into the alveoli.

Let’s have a brief look on how these differences in volumes are provided. From the perspective of Rolfing SI, it’s of course most interesting how every single part of the myofascial system is cooperating and how it affects the ‘spacers’ – the bony parts and their articulations (ribs with the articulations to the spine, the spine itself, the shoulder-girdle clavicles and scapulae, the sternum with its cartilaginous connections to the ribs). Many structures that are related to each other might  affect the breathing movement. One clinical example for structural limitations on the joint level is Bekhterev’s disease, which often is accompanied by severe respiratory symptoms. The diaphragm and the intercostal muscles are  known as the main breathing muscles. All muscles connected to the chest act on the breathing movement. This influence could be accessory but also inhibiting. An example: tension and shortness in the belly muscles – particularly obliques – might limit inhalation by holding the ribs down.

So  far,  we’ve  looked  at  breathing  from  a perspective of the physical structure – admittedly in a quite roughly summarized way. Now the perspective of the coordinative structure needs consideration regarding functional coherences. Core structures play an important functional role, particularly in inspiratory movement and chest breathing. It’s embedded in the ‘postural triangle’ of vestibulum, eyes and feet, the orientation to the substratum, and to space along the line of gravity.

The proprioceptive cooperation of senses provides an activation of the whole core stabilizing system. On the level of the diaphragm this activation – in this case particularly the activation and cooperation of transversus abdominus and multifidi muscles – prevents  the  central  tendon of the diaphragm from lowering (belly breathing) and lifts the ribs instead (chest breathing). In this case active expiration is actually not needed; exhalation happens simply from the elasticity of the thoracic myofascial system and gravity.

Now I’ll consider some of our Principles of Intervention that might help with understanding the complexity of breathing. When there’s insufficient support from below we can see in ‘body reading’ functional inhibitions to inhalation  and/  or exhalation. Adaptability might be limited not only by a lack of flexibility in superficial myofascial structures and/ or articulations, so in regard to creating space we need to look at how superficial and deep structures are in communication–structurally and functionally. Finally, palintonicity indicates support, alignment, and orientation in gravity; and in regard to breathing, a respiratory balance.

One last point I want to touch on is the psychobiological. The two layers of the pleura give stability to the lungs within the chest via adhesive forces, a prerequisite for the lungs being able to follow the chest and diaphragm as they move with the breath.

The pleura is strongly innervated by branches of the vagus nerve – part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) – and I see this as one of the key relationships to understanding the complexity of breathing. As breathing is thus deeply connected to our brain and ANS, so it is to our perceptive and psychobiological structures. From my perspective, breathing might be one of the most important pathways to our innermost space or being. This relationship has the potential to determine how human beings

Breathing is one of the most important doors for communication between client and Rolfer.

– Jörg Ahrend-Löns, Basic Rolfing Instructor

relate to the world and to  themselves. Not for nothing, breathing is in almost all meditation traditions and is an important approach to calm down a ‘busy’ mind.

In summary, Rolfing SI for me includes the opportunity to look at a very  basic and vital-for-life function of our  body  from different perspectives. The Rolfing Principles of Intervention and the differentiation of structures are important basic ‘tools’ for Rolfers to get in touch  with their clients in a very specific therapeutical relationship. In this regard breathing is one of the most important doors for communication between client and Rolfer. This determines opening and closure of an individual process.

Larry Koliha

Basic Rolfing Instructor

 Everything starts with the breath. Of all the areas Rolfing SI covers, I feel breath work is the most important because it affects everything in the body. I work to help each client learn to breathe in a balanced way throughout the body, and then build upon that breath education to learn to walk freely. These two things really increase the integration of the body, which  reduces  a lot of the trouble that people often come in with. I find that Rolfing SI is one of the few modalities that both frees the structure with hands-on work and provides the necessary movement education to keep things free.

The process really starts with the first session of the Rolfing Ten Series. It begins with developing the client’s awareness of how s/he is breathing, any restrictions or holdings s/he may notice, and discovering options for improvement. Each session should build on this first session and continue throughout the Series with a deepening understanding of what a breath is, how it affects the entire body, and how one can use breath to enhance other areas of life.

Every client who comes in the door has breathing opportunities. I find that even with people who have practiced yoga, meditation, or other breathing practices, our hands-on approach to breath has a lot to offer. Many have learned patterns of holding or beliefs about how they should breath that often hamper finding ease in their bodies. Breathing shouldn’t be hard work or constrain the body. Manual approaches that help the client identify and sense constraints in the breath cycle provide real potential for improvement.

Good breath work requires a practitioner to have solid touch skills, an understanding of fascial relationships, and a good knowledge of anatomy. The practitioner can use these skills to free restrictions and educate the client to explore any newfound space. Two important concepts to keep  in mind are to simply teach clients where their lungs are and how the breath cycle works. Just the knowledge that the lungs are mostly in the back of the body and extend from above the first rib to almost the twelfth rib are insights they can use to explore the space. Another seed worth planting early is inside-outside relationship. A key learning is finding freedom not just in the outer layers of muscles and bones, but also in the inside structures from the pelvic floor to the crown of the head.

Working with the breath is a whole-body experience. It is not just about the lungs or the thorax but the influence these areas have on all appendicular and axial sections of the body. Rolfing SI takes this breath awareness into freeing structural work and incorporates it in movement. Continue to work with breath through the session — from table work, to sitting, to standing, and then hopefully into walking.

Here are some areas to work and thoughts:

• Breathing is a balance between inhale and exhale with capabilities  to find the full ranges of both. This breath work is very critical in dealing with the ANS patterns associated with some clients and essential to working with structure.
• The inside-outside relationship in breathing is not just moving the tissue on the superficial rib cage. Both practitioner and client need to sense deeply to find freedom in the lungs, heart, and mediastinum in the thorax; the viscera in the abdomen; the structures of the head and  neck (including anterior neck, jaw, tongue, palate, brain); and into the appendicular structures. With each breath, everything (muscles, bones, viscera, and soft tissues) should resonate with the sensation of movement transmitting through.
• The ribs are a huge  factor  in breath freedom. Ribs are a flexible, moveable collection of bones, and not a single unit. As such, the rib cage should respond more like a soft rattan basket than a suit of armor. The rib cage is able to protect our delicate organs not so much because the ribs are strong, but rather because they are adaptable and able to react to outside forces. Many people unconsciously keep the rib cage held. This often creates problems  in  the  shoulder   girdle or rotator cuff because these are unable to integrate arm movements into the lumbodorsal hinge. Teaching clients that the rib cage is supposed to move when they do can be a game changer.
• Another important insight for working with breath is that the first and second ribs must be able to move and that the shoulder girdle must have the freedom to drape on top of the rib cage. With the all-too-common forward-head position and respiratory issues, these areas are a gold mine for Rolfing practitioners.
• Of course, don’t forget the neck, jaw, and head, and the structures within those areas.  Tension  in  the tongue or clamping a jaw restricts the breath cycle and can restrict movements all the way to the pelvic floor. Even in the first

Working with the breath is a whole-body experience.

– Larry Koliha, Basic Rolfing Instructor

session, check to see if the client can relax in those areas or work with a slightly open mouth to check what the difference is between tension or relaxation in the jaw and tongue. Every breath cycle should allow softening in the anterior neck and head; this can’t happen if the tongue or jaw is engaged.

• Use a three-dimensional approach when working with the breath and associated structures. Use two hands when working to help the client experience multidimensional space and movement.  Cue  the client to sense these spaces both interoceptively and exteroceptively.
• I can’t emphasize enough how transformative your work will be if the client can experience integration of breath throughout the body. The body is a series of diaphragmic sections that the breath should transmit through easily. I think of these sections as feet to knees; knees to pelvic floor; pelvic floor to respiratory diaphragm; diaphragm to thoracic inlet; hands to elbows; elbow to thoracic inlet;  thoracic inlet to floor of the mouth; and on up through the palate and top  of the head. Breath should transmit easily through all of these sections, including through the brain itself. The more moveable, horizontal, and integrated these diaphragms, the more likely your client will feel the subtle sense of whole-body breath.

Breath work affects all types of clients. Three of the most common situations that come to mind are as follows:

• The Type A, stressed-out person, who comes  to  learn  s/he  can  still be highly productive without paying a high toll in the body.
• The individual where the experience of trauma resulted in shutting off or ghosting sections of perception. People often cope with past issues or present pain by not allowing breath or movement to go into associated areas. For example, I had a client who seemingly  disappeared  one of his legs because of past trauma: the leg didn’t function properly, wasn’t part of the body schema,  and had pain. All of this contributed to the client holding his breath up and away from that section of the body and trying to work around

Practitioner breath is a regulator for the client. Know that your client’s breath will often mirror your own.

– Larry Koliha, Basic Rolfing Instructor

it with each step. One of the first steps toward healing is getting movement or even the thought of the breath going into those areas.

• Pain is a huge contributor in inhalation- predominant patterns. I’ve seen several clients come in with acute back pain — barely able to move — who significantly improved with a session of mostly breath work. Helping clients breathe into areas of discomfort is essential to working with pain. A good example of this is working with low-back pain, where encouraging clients to allow breath into the pelvic bowl anterior to the sacrum is often extremely helpful.

As for considerations for the practitioner, the practitioner should be present with his/her breath. If you are not aware of the breath cycle and three-dimensional space in your body, the client will feel it and be impacted. Practitioner breath is a regulator for the client. Know that your client’s breath will often mirror your own. This resonance can be used intentionally to facilitate a more functional client breathing pattern, or unintentionally it can alter the nervous system and derail the work. When you are connected with both your breath cycle and the client’s, that is the sweet spot that really make structural work shine.

Hiroyoshi Tahata

Rolf Movement Instructor

The pandemic is  undoubtedly  having  an effect on breathing for many people, even without viral exposure. First, stress about the pandemic is undermining  many people’s sense of safety, leading  to  dissociating  from  their  relationship  to the world. Second, as the primary vector for viral transmission is through breathing either droplets  or  aerosols,  no  doubt  fear  of   catching   the   virus is inhibiting many people’s breathing patterns, with people likely taking  less full breaths. As breath underlies life and impacts metabolic activity,  the  balance of the nervous system, etc., this will have broad consequences. COVID-19 has done more than affect our breath. It has far-reaching impact on our body relationships. For example, news about the pandemic arouses fear that stimulates a defensive orienting responses and puts us into a state of alert. Many people are also getting much more screen time than usual, and that visual stimulation places a disproportionate emphasis on the head, making grounding more difficult. Finally, and obviously, social distancing inhibits interrelationship with others and reduces contact, including touch.

As Rolfing practitioners, ‘touch’ is commonly through our hands, and such contact definitely has the potential to function as an interface to reestablish relationship to others. However, if we don’t feel comfortable working with clients in person during the pandemic, or if it’s not allowed where we live, how can we provide therapeutic interventions without using touch directly on clients, or even meeting them in person?

I’ll offer here a case study, from a session I conducted online recently for a sixty- three year-old female client who was suffering from COVID-19 infection and could not breathe easily. She also had chronic tension in her shoulders and back. From what I could observe online, she showed signs of distress. My intention for the session was to reestablish the client’s relationship to space and her sense of safety by working with ma (a Japanese concept of how you somatically relate to space and time; see Tahata, 2018).

Prior to the start of the session, I worked with ma for myself by finding an appropriate sitting position to settle in with to feel comfortable in my room. Then, I asked her to find the position where she could feel most comfortable. This is a conditioning process, and is the key to start because this procedure for positioning  helps  us  to find resonance with each other with ease and a connection to resources, even when we are in different spaces. After the conditioning, she noticed a sensation of being wrapped with something when she oriented to a specific direction. She noticed a different quality of olfaction, the sense

COVID-19 has done more than affect our breath. It has far- reaching impact on our body relationships.

– Hiroyoshi Tahata, Rolf Movement Instructor

of smelling a flower like a lily. From these awarenesses, her perception  shifted  to feel more space multidimensionally, which could be interpreted to mean that she recovered an affinity to space. As another step, resourcing specific positioning sometimes gives a cue to open the client’s perception. With this client, she could have a sense of a ‘seating face’; that is to say she could contact the area around the sit bones and hamstrings of her body with the chair. She felt more sense of weight, felt more contact to the chair, she yielded into the chair (see Agneesens & Tahata, 2012). Her pelvis yielded into the chair and her legs in turn yielded to the floor, all this while she was in her seated position.

Her system then allowed her body to settle. I observed her eyes were more open and she commented that she could see more clearly. Finally, she felt less tension in her shoulders and back and also comfortable breathing arose spontaneously. She later told me the remote session was so helpful for her return to daily life ten days later. This client had completed a Ten Series eight years ago, so her body likely had basic support and adaptability that facilitated her self-organizing with the cues given in this remote intervention.

From this perceptual intervention without touch, I realized that simply helping the client to find a sense of safety, as well as a sense of appropriate positioning to feel better, are great foundations for better breathing. Even if connecting to resources and safety does not come easily, my sense is that the positioning strategy to find a sense of good ma could facilitate resourcing and staying out of a trauma vortex. Being conscious about positioning should be of benefit to both the client and the practitioner.

It is not easy to explain work with ma, or yielding, in this brief context, so I refer you to earlier articles for more complete descriptions and exercises (see Tahata, 2018 and Agneessens and Tahata, 2012). Although these ways of working with yielding and ma are recent developments, I find strong support for the methodology in this quote from Dr. Rolf, which shows that psychological anxiety can be reduced when gravitational support becomes adequate:

No situation exists in a human which a psychologist would diagnose as a feeling of insecurity or inadequacy unless it is accompanied by a physical situation which bears witness to the fact that the gravitational support is inadequate.

Ida P. Rolf (1963)

No matter how we approach our clients, our practice has great potential to help people to restore well-being and gain resilient adaptability to counteract pandemic  stress.

References

Agneesens, C. and H. Tahata 2012 June. “Yielding: Engaging Touch, Presence, and the Physiology of Wholeness.” Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 40(1):10–16.

Rolf, I.P. 1963 June. “Structural Integration: Gravity, an Unexplored Factor in a More Human use of Human Beings.” Systematics 1(1):67–84. Available at http://www. duversity.org/PDF/SYSStructural%20 Integration.pdf (retrieved 11/9/20).

Tahata, H. 2018 March. “Working with Ma: Further Refinement of the Yielding Approach through Time, Space, and Intersubjectivity.” Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute® 46(1):44–51.