Ray: Louis, I’m very interested in the path that led you to Rolfing- as well as why you played such a critical role in the development of the anatomy lead-in for you trainings. Let’s start with your educational background.

Louis: I started out as a biology major and received my Ph.D. in endocrinology and biochemistry in the middle 50’s at the University of Wisconsin. I did a tour of two years in the Army, where I did clinical re search in the field of tuberculosis. Then, got a position teaching anatomy at the University of Colorado Medical School. Like Dr Rolf, I have never had a formal course it human anatomy. I learned on the job. M3 early postdoctoral research was in the field of embryology. Early on, from the mid- to late 60’s, I was fortunate to receive a five year fellowship to study cellular transport in Belgium in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate Christian de Duve. When I re turned to the U.S., I obtained a second field low ship at UC-Irvine in 1972. 1972 proved a critical year for me.

Ray: How so?

Louis: Well, it was a year of experimentation for me. While working in south California I attended workshops and trainings in Gestalt therapy, encounter group therapy, Bioenergetics, Parent Effectiveness Training, Transactional Analysi,, and spent a week in Esalen. I also had my first experience with Rolfing. When I re. turned to Denver, I decided to quit my university teaching position. I had lost interest in the restrictions of the academic world and decided to take a break from it.

Ray: What did you do after you quit teaching?

Louis: Actually, I sort of hung out for z while on the beach in southern California, trying to figure out what I wanted to dc next. I soon moved to San Francisco because I was offered a job as a cook in a gourme breakfast restaurant. Around this time decided I wanted to try the Rolfing train ing. I wrote a letter to the Institute [the Guild at that time] and soon heard bad from Rosemary [Feitis] who was Dr. Rolf’ right-hand at that time. She replied that certainly sounded like a good candidate and that was it.

With no follow-up, I decided to take a trig to Denver in order to be closer to the Institute and to evaluate the situation. By that time Richard Stenstadvold had assumed the executive duties of the Guild and he fount my letter in the file. He contacted me and since I was already visiting Denver, I we up to meet Dr. Rolf. Dr. Rolf was interested in my biology background and proposed that I consider teaching the anatomy lead in for her basic classes. This was fine will me. She wanted me to go into her next class but I had some obligations to finish in California. I also had problems with the idea o being in her class at that time. I was still pretty rigid after 15 years of medical school teaching and I had the feeling that we would clash. I was still trying to incorporate into my life the many experiences and training from my last year and felt too vulnerable to deal with her personality at that time.

You know, to this day, I still tease Rosemary about never getting back to me after the line me what a great candidate she thought would make. Despite that, we became great and lifelong friends and have worked together many times since.

Ray: What happened next?

Louis: I moved back to Denver to audit with Emmett [Hutchins], went back to San Francisco to cook for financial support, and returned to practition with Peter [Melchior] Between the phases, I decided that I really needed to get more experience in touch before doing my practitioner phase, so I went to a massage school in California and completed their program. This experience led to an attitude shift that helped me be more committed and interested in applying myself to Rolfing. Up to that time, I had been uncertain that I really wanted to do this work and had many reservations about the work and how we were being taught. The time away really clarified the value of the work and helped me seriously commit myself to it. After that, I returned to Boulder fully committed to the practitioner training with Peter, which went really well. Also, I lived with Peter and Susan [Melchior] during the training, which was really a wonderful experience for me. During this time, I also met Judith Aston, with whom I would later work.

Ray: What did you do after you completed the basic training?

Louis: As I said earlier, Dr. Rolf had expressed an interest in my developing and teaching an anatomy lead-in for the basic training because of my science background. Since I was not really trained as an anatomist, I was concerned about my lack of experience in this area, especially in living anatomy. However, I found myself thrown into this training almost immediately. While I was teaching, I also began a Rolfing practice in Denver, which I kept for the next two years. It was in these early anatomy classes that I came up with the idea of the body stocking. I would bring in nylon sleeves for the arms and legs, explain my ideas about the fascial net and have the students wear them as a way of instilling this notion of the superficial fascial net as a sort of body stocking. These ideas were well-received. For the next few years I traveled around teaching anatomy to Rolfers all over the country. Before I left Colorado, I assisted Peter in a basic class with Ron Thompson.

Ray: Was it around this time that you did the first dissection?

Louis: Yes, that was in 1975, in Philadelphia, on my way to New York City. Ron [Thompson] assisted me and photographed the dissection with Jim Asher’s assistance. It was at this time that those familiar fascial anatomy photographs were taken. Ron created a presentation using these slides, which we all adapted for our classes and anatomy teachings. We also did a second dissection in the late 1970’s after I had moved to New York.

During this time I trained in three class with Judith Aston between 1974 and 197 in what was then called Structural Patterning. Judith and Dr. Rolf had a rather rock relationship. For instance, when Judith her first movement demonstration on vide for Dr. Rolf in the mid 1970’s, Dr. Rolf fell asleep. Judith had great respect for Dr. Rolf although she disagreed with her on man, matters. For instance, it was Judith who recommended using pillows for support under the head and between the legs whet doing lateral position work which many o us agreed’ with. Dr. Rolf did not use pillows The arguments became pretty sharp on this and other matters, which resulted in Judith leaving the teachers’ class and soon starting her own school.

Ray: When did you do your advanced training?

Louis: In 1976. Dr. Rolf informed me that she wanted me to do the advanced training that year, so I did the advanced training with her in New Jersey. I had decide( to move East in 1976, the bicentennial year and during the training began practicing ii New York City on weekends. I later also worked in Philadelphia before finally settling in New York City permanently. This was also the time during which we did you: second dissection in Philadelphia.

Ray: Tell me a bit about the history of the New York school and some of the challenges you faced at that time.

Louis: For a few years, three of us, Rosemary, Owen James and I worked on creating a separate integrated training program one that was more comprehensive and ambitious than the current basic training, in Boulder. When we presented this to the faculty, it was shot down. It was longer that the program in Boulder, a different schedule, and would have required local teachers, which we did not have for the Rolfing part. Using the current program of the time (remember this was before Europe, Brazil, or Australia), our first New York training took place in 1981 and was really a tremendous effort. We did manage to integrate the first two weeks of anatomy and Rolfing movement. We did a total of three of these semi-integrated classes in New York before we were shut down by Richard and Michael [Salveson]. One of the reasons given at the time was that it was a much more expensive program. You know, Ray, we were really -hurt by the Institute’s lack of support, particularly since Dr. Rolf had clearly intended that there be several schools under the umbrella of the Rolf Institute. It is actually in her will, you know. We had spent ; great deal of time creating this “Gestalt’ unified program that brought together many elements not originally included ii Dr. Rolf’s basic series. The irony here is that the Institute eventually began teaching integrated trainings, soon after, in Munich.

At this time, in 1981, we did our first European training in France. I taught with Gael [Ohlgren]. During this training we again presented an integrated movement and anatomy. Unfortunately, this European integrated training was also soon dropped Again, the main reason given was the expense of paying two full-time teachers Sometime later, I was able to do a completely integrated training of anatomy Movement, and Rolfing in Florida with Stacy Mills [the early 1980s]. A bit later still in the early 1980s] I did two combined studies programs in Brazil and in the first basic training in Adelaide. The convenience it these occasions was that I could wear the hats of anatomy, movement, and Rolfing itself.

Ray: That’s a really interesting piece of history, I think. Now, let’s shift gears a bit here and talk about your books.

Louis: Let me try to briefly summarize what I call the “endless saga of The Endless Web.” The discussions of this book first began it the early 1970’s. Dr. Rolf strongly encouraged me to write this book and kept asking me how it was going. When I finally admitted to her that I was simply unable to make any progress on it, she told me to call Rosemary and ask her to help me complete the project. Rosemary and I talked and initially tried to write while we were working in New York City. This proved impossible owing to interruptions with the New York school and our very full practices. We could never have any sustained work time, the phone just rang all the time. So, we decided that the only way to make any real progress on the project was to get out of the city and isolate ourselves. We made a few trips and wrote in short bursts in isolation.

Over the next several years we took trips to Upstate New York, Mystic [Connecticut], Fire Island, the Florida Keys, and Rio Caliente in Mexico. Rosemary did her premed and DO training in the midst of this. We did a training and quite a bit of writing in Paris. One of the more memorable writing excursions took place in Pigeon Key, one of the first of the Florida Keys. Dr. Rolf had done a training here so we decided to see if returning to this place would inspire us. Well it was miserably cold and rainy the entire time and we had a disastrously hard time working, often with our feet literally in the oven. We had to drive to Key West to eat. It was an unpleasant experience for us both, but we dictated and wrote like crazy and really got a lot of the beginning work done. Later we went to Toronto to have another go at completing the book. All this time we were both teaching and maintaining our full-time practices. It was a major challenge for us both.

Around this time I began to think more and more about my dream project, my male pelvis book. While we were editing The Endless Web, Rosemary had the idea of putting together a memorial for Dr. Rolf’s 100th anniversary, Remembering Ida Rolf. The goal was to have people who were involved with Dr. Rolf during the trainings and at different times of her life share their memories of working and being with her. Getting interviews proved really difficult and took incredible patience, cajoling, and downright harassment. If I had not harassed some folks, Judith [Aston], Joseph [Heller], and Peter [Melchior] in particular, we never would have gotten several of them to speak at all. We were pleased with the book, it was a real labor of love, but a tough project to bring together. We edited each of the contributions, sent them back to the writers, and then put them in some kind of order for publication.

Ray: You mentioned your male pelvis book, Out in the Open: The Complete Male Pelvis. It is really a remarkable and unique consideration of a difficult and challenging subject. Please tell more about it.

Louis: It is a very personal book; one that I had been thinking about for over twenty years. I wanted to write a personal book sharing my experiences as a man and my work with other men. I had written The Endless Web for Dr. Rolf but I wrote Out in the Open for myself. As I was writing, more and more men, both friends and clients, opened up to me about their own experiences and these went into the book. One of the things that really pleases me is that both gay and straight men have reacted positively to the book. Both found much that directly related to their experience. This was very satisfactory to me since I always thought of it as a book about men’s issues and not a book just about gay male sexuality or my personal issues. The balance I had sought apparently had been achieved.

Ray: The photographs are quite unusual and explicit. I am interested in how difficult it was to put them together.

Louis: A photographer friend of my office partner, Marcelo, took them. All three of us, Marcelo, the photographer, and I were all involved in recruiting subjects. Our goal was to get six models: two ectomorphs, two mesomorphs, and two endomorphs. We did not have that much difficulty getting models (since, as you can see, we did not photograph their heads). But, as you might expect, getting endomorphic models (the heavy-set ones) proved the trickiest. Clearly, no one wants to think of themselves as fleshy or overweight. We actually lost one of the endomorphs during the process and had to rely on just one model for our comparative process. Other than this minor glitch, the models were remarkably open, comfortable, and generous throughout. They were also very well paid!

Ray: Another interesting thing you mentioned to me earlier was that you did not use the same artist for the drawings in the second book. They are remarkably different. Why did you decide to change artists?

Louis: The emphasis was different. The photographer (for the second book) knew an interesting graphic artist and felt strongly that her work would be perfect for the illustrations. When I first saw her work, I was very resistant, these beautiful and delicate pencil drawings were just not what I had in mind. She and the others all felt that her style was a perfect complement to the often very explicit photographs. Over time I saw the wisdom of this and I ended up really loving the artwork. I am so glad they held firm against my initial reservations. The results are I think really spectacular.

Ray: A remarkable achievement, I agree. So, catch us up on what you’ve been up to since then.

Louis: Well, I’ve had some health problems. I have long suffered from chronic neck problems and in 1998-had neck surgery. I had a plate implanted in my neck to stabilize it. I have also suffered from DDD (degenerative disc disease) for many years and my L5 is now totally gone. My gall bladder is now in the trash can and my lungs need to function. I walk with canes but can still get around fairly well. Since I knew that my health concerns would limit my work, I decided to train someone in my style of working. I had known Marcelo, who has a background in dance, for some time and asked him if he would like to train with me. He was very enthusiastic. This training process occurred in 1996 and 1997. In 1998 he did his basic Rolfing training and now has a full practice. We have formed a partnership with its website: VillageRolfing.com. I still do sessions, especially on the pelvis. We also do some post-10 four-handed work. However, seldom more than one session a day, for me.

I still love the work and occasionally still do some teaching and mentoring. I often agree with my mother’s saying, “Whoever called them the “Golden Years” was full of crap.” It’s a sense of humor which keeps me going and I truly use the clich6′ of looking at the glass as half-full. I have been blessed with loving peers, students, and proteges. Their continued success and support keep me positive.

Ray: Thank you so much, Louis.

Louis: My pleasure.