In this short article I do not want to sc much argue for a particular view of the core and sleeve as to correct the distortion,, that Stephen Pare (Stephen Pan!, “On Core (and Sleeve),” Structural Integration, February, 2003, pp. 21-27. Hereafter this article will be referred to as OCS) introduced into his discussion of my ideas and the ideas of others. As a consequence of misconstruing the point of my discussion at almost every turn, Pare mistakenly and without justification characterizes my position as ambivalent, consisting of incompatible definitions and belittles it as a multiple personality theory. Although it appears that he read my book, Spacious Body, it is not at all clear that he read all the relevant sections, and understood or carefully read the sections he quoted. Two obvious mistakes struck in immediately: Pare says, “Maitland dis. cusses what he refers to as objective, subjective, psychological, and phenomenological taxonomies of the core/ surface distinction…” (OCS, p. 22).

Phenomenology is a method I employ. It is not doctrine. As a result, it makes little sense to say I offer a phenomenological taxonomy in the book I discuss the subject and object distinction and show how it arises from pre reflective experience. On the basis of this discussion I then sketch for the genera. reader some ways to describe the core and sleeve objectively, subjectively, and pre reflectively. It is a mistake to refer to these descriptions as taxonomies. They are not taxonomies; they are descriptions. They are also not definitions, as Pare supposes, and they should not to be confused with the taxonomies of assessment. As we shall see, by not appreciating how to use the taxonomies of assessment as perspectives for understanding the core Pare is misled into thinking I and some of the other theorist he criticizes are offering ambivalent and incompatible definitions, when in fact we are describing the core from different perspectives.

The second obvious mistake that took me by surprise was the claim that I confused line and core. Pare quotes me as saying the following: “You can visualize your core as extending through the center of your body from the crown of your head, down slightly in front of your spine, through the inside of your legs, and emerging just in front of your heels on the soles of your feet.” Strangely, Pare concludes that this quote somehow exhibits how core becomes line again (OCS, p. 22).

I find this to be a strange conclusion for three reasons. First, for years I have stated that the line and core are not the same concept and that it is a mistake to conflate them.

For example, in the glossary of Spacious Body, I say, “The Line is the line of gravity. It is not an anatomical concept or structure.” (p. 227). And in an article published in Rolf Lines’ in 1991 I say, “We often talk about the Line and the core as if they were the same thing. But notice the Line is not an anatomical reality.” (“The Palintonic Lines of Rolfing”, Rolf Lines, Jan/Feb, 1991, p. 2).

Given that I have consistently counseled against confusing core and line for such a long time, it seems perversely one-sided for Pare to try to make his case by only referring to what I say about the core while completely ignoring what I say about the line. He says he consulted the glossary for how I understood the core. Why then would he ignore what I say about the line in the glossary?

Second, a moment’s reflection shows that I couldn’t have confused line and core in the above quote. If my little visualization exercise really confuses line and core, then it does it in a way so freakish that no reasonable person would ever embrace it. Notice I say that you can visualize the core as extending down through the inside of your legs and emerging in front of your heels. If the core has really become the line in this exercise, as Pare thinks, then the line must have split itself in two somewhere along the way in order to extend through the inside of each leg and appear in front of the heels of each foot. Except perhaps in the universe regarded as the quantum superposition of coherent space-time activities, a single line, and especially the line of gravity, does not split itself in two and issue forth in two different places.

Third, Pare says he will only concern himself with the objective descriptions from my book. Yet the passage he quotes is an example of what I clearly label a subjective approach. I say in order to keep my clients in touch with themselves during the Rolfing process, I subjective the core. (Spacious Body, p. 181). In some odd and inexplicable way my subjective visualization exercise, which was designed to assist clients in experiencing the core, apparently became transformed in Pare’s mind into an example of an objective definition.

As a result of misconceiving my subjective exercise as an objective definition while at the same time carelessly misrepresenting my position as confusing core and line, Pare fabricates a position that is easy to criticize, but has very little in common with what I actually wrote.

A few paragraphs later, as if bolstered by his careless misrepresentation of my position, Pare quotes another passage from my book, and then groundlessly muses once again with no textual support whether I meant core space or line. In the passage he quotes, I point out that working on the adductors will often “lengthen and increase the core space of the whole torso” (p. 23). My point could not be clearer or more unequivocal: I wrote and meant “core space.” Since the core space and the line of gravity are not the same, it is hard to imagine why Pare would even wonder whether I could have meant the line of gravity in this context, unless, perhaps, he actually believes that the line of gravity might in fact be a legitimate contender for a definition of the core.

The next major area of difficulty concerns Pare’s often repeated assertion that my and others’ characterizations of the core are ambivalent and incompatible with each other. But there is no proof for this claim. It turns out that he just repeats this claim without ever providing one good reason for it. At times he seems to rest his argument on the bizarre idea that it is not possible to describe something from a number of different perspectives. He seems to be saying that if you describe one thing from three different points of view, you are not really doing that, you are really describing three different things. Here are his words: “Perhaps it is reasonable to present three different possibilities, but not to suggest that all three can be true; otherwise it is a matter of three different things, which should then have three different names.” Pare is apparently denying the possibility of describing the core from a number of different perspectives. Although this view is utterly preposterous, he appeals to this specious argument to show that my and other descriptions are ambivalent and incompatible. To capture the absurdity of his view, let’s consider a question that is a little more unceremonious than the ones we have about the core. For the sake of simplicity, imagine how a number of different men and women from different walks of life representing a variety of professions might answer the question, “What is a house?”. A mother might say a house is a place to have a family and raise children. Another might say a house is a shelter from the elements. An especially materialistic American might say it is z place to store your stuff. A house is a home A house is a dwelling place. A house is z big box made of cement, bricks, metal, wood, glass, tile, etc. A house is a place for celebration and parties. A house is a building where a group of people live such as z fraternity. And so on. If we follow Pare’: line of thinking we would have to say that all of these eight characterizations of z house might present eight different possibilities. But what we can’t do, according to Pare, is suggest that they are all true; other wise it is a matter of eight different things which should then have eight different names. But such a claim is manifestly false All these perspectives on what a house is in fact, are all true. We are not talking about eight different things at all. We are talking about one thing – a house – seen from number of points of view. Or consider at example closer to home: what is the ankle’ When we look at the ankle as part of this skeleton, we might say it is the ankle mortise. If your client has a sprained ankle and a fixated talocalcaneal joint, how would you as a Rolfer see your client’s ankle? Would you focus only on the ankle mortise? Wouldn’t you also be interested in the fixed joint as well as all the relevant relationships that go into making that ankle the particular ankle it is? Or suppose that the ankle in question belongs to your beautiful lover and that you are completely infatuated with her legs. As she stands there in all her resplendent beauty, surely it is not her ankle mortise that inflames you. All of these ways of looking at an ankle are different perspectives on the same thing. Depending on your point of view some are more limited or interesting than others. They are not examples of three different things as Pare would have us think.

The same holds true for the question “What is the core?” and many of its answers. Aside from conflating core and line, many of the descriptions of the core are different perspectives on the core. They are neither incompatible with one another as Pare asserts nor are they ambivalent. His claim that they are seems to rest on his preposterous denial of our being able to describe phenomena from many different perspectives. Apparently, Pare does not realize that this spurious logic also applies to his own theory of the core.

Later in his article Pare refurbishes the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction and says, “The distinction has functional as well as structural dimensions.” (OCS, p. 25). Since Pare claims that the core can be seen from a structural and functional perspective, the logic of his position demands that he remain consistent with his denial of a perspectival approach and recognize that his own view must also qualify as ambivalent and incompatible with itself.

For help in understanding the perspectival approach to Rolfing we need to turn out attention to the taxonomies of assessment. I originally conceived of the taxonomies of assessment as a way to capture the many ways Rolfers perceive bodies and to serve as a guide for teaching students how to analyze their clients. The four taxonomie of assessment are the structural/ geometrical, functional, energetic, and psychobiological intentionality (I think it makes more conceptual sense to keep the structural and geometrical approach as one taxonomy, but other teachers think they should be separated; if you separate structure and geometry you get five taxonomies, and if you collapse them you get four). Some well known taxons that fall under the structural/geometrical taxonomy are Sultan’s internal/ external typology and the geometrical taxons of lines, blocks, and cylinders. Gait patterns, movement patterns, and Godard’s description of how the up and down body types initiate movement are examples of taxons that fall under the functional taxonomy. There are energetic taxons that have to do with flow, shape, overcharge/undercharge, Dr. Rolf’s concept of an energetic core, and a host of others.

Under psychobiological intentionality I include the worldview and psychological/ emotional taxons. Then there is Peter Levine’s very interesting concept of a neurologic energetic self regulatory core (“Core: Structure and Function: A Symposium”, Structural Integration, Dec. 2002, p. 19), which falls under the functional, energetic, and psychobiological intentionality taxonomies. By the way, given that Pare’s article purports to be a “review of existing theories” and that Levine’s concept has been embraced by so many Rolfers and instructors, it is troublesome that he ignores Levine’s important contribution altogether. It is also unsettling that his review entirely ignores a concept of the core that was close to Dr. Rolf’s heart, namely, the concept of an energetic core. Obviously, there are many more taxons I haven’t mentioned. But this short list should be enough to get the idea.

What makes these taxonomies relevant to the present discussion is that they provide us with a way to organize our thinking about how to characterize core and sleeve (as well as many of our other key concepts). This means that if there really is a core and sleeve, a more complete description of these concepts requires that they be articulated across all taxonomies. Thus, it ought to be possible, for example, to describe a structural / geometrical core, a functional core, an energetic core, and a psychobiological core. Each description captures some aspect of what we understand by core and no one description is exhaustive.

Aside from the descriptions that confuse line and core, when we look at how the core has been characterized in our community we see that many descriptions fall under one or more of these taxonomies. Some characterizations are structural, some are functional; others, such as the instrinsic/ extrinsic distinction, partake of both structure and function; and some, like the armature in a field metaphor, are energetic. When a Rolfer refers to her client’s core she could be referring to what Wilhelm Reich called the core of the self, what Taoist yoga, Polarity therapy, and Dr. Rolf recognized as the energetic core; she could mean his structural core, in particular, his visceral space and celomic sacs (the peritoneal, pleural, and pericardial sacs), she might be referring to the core beliefs of his worldview, or al: of these aspects of the whole person at once And let’s not forget those wondrous occasions when we observe that difficult to describe “emergent quality” which ofter seems to partake of all or most of the taxonomies all at once, which always manifest, when the whole person achieves new and profound levels of integration and coherence, and which regularly seduces you to wax poetic about what you are sensing These descriptions are all aspects of what we recognize as the core. Some may be better or more useful for certain purposes that others. But they are neither ambivalent no incompatible with one another, and they are no more an example of multiple personality theorizing than describing a house or are ankle from a number of different perspectives. The above approach of describing the core across the four taxonomies is certainly not news and certainly should not have gone unnoticed by Pare. After all, an early poorly transcribed, somewhat choppy and premature version of it (originally published in 1994, and then republished two times since) appeared in the first of the two recent issues of Structural Integration that were devoted to core and sleeve (Ibid., pp 14-21). The concept of the taxonomies of assessment has had plenty of exposure over the years. Besides appearing in the “Symposium,” ” which has been published and republished three times, it has appeared it other articles as well; for example: “Moving Toward our Evolutionary Potential (Rolf, Lines, May, 1996), “Integrating Holistic Manual and Movement Therapy with Philosophical Counseling” (with John Cottingham) (Rolf Lines, Summer 2000), and “Integrating Manual and Movement Therapy with Philosophical Counseling for Treatment of a Patient with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Case Study that Explores the Principles of Holistic Intervention” (with John Cottingham) (Alternative Therapies, March, 2000). But oddly Pare gives no attention to these ideas. Instead o trying to come to terms with the idea o. using the taxonomies as perspectives for understanding the core, he thoroughly misconstrues my point and the project of Spacious Body by fabricating the erroneous idea that I discuss in my book the “objective, subjective, psychological, and phenomenological taxonomies of the core/ surface distinction” (OCS, p. 22).

Nowhere in my book or anywhere else do I discuss such taxonomies. I talk about the psychological core, of course, but that belongs in the psychological taxon which falls under the psychobiological orientation taxonomy. Even though Pare has not provided good reasons for asserting that the many characterizations of the core he discusses are incompatible with each other, perhaps he is suspicious of these characterizations for reasons other than their incompatibility. He says, for example, “It would be very helpful to be able to say whether a given myofascial structure is intrinsic or extrinsic, absolutely and not relatively, or to have some other precise way of distinguishing one from the another.” (OCS, p. 26). Understandably, he wants a more precise definition. He also seems to want the core to be a physical structure, or at least to have a structural counterpart that has a delimited observable boundary. Pare registers his vexation about how and whether these concepts can even be defined and indicates the kind of problems that have led others to reject the whole idea out of hand. Pare’s worries about how to make sense of the core have been the worries of every thinking Rolfer. These concerns may be part of the reason he is suspicious of some of the previous definitions of core. Fortunately Pare’s suspicions do not lead him to reject the distinction between core and sleeve. In the end he succumbs to the allure of the core and offers his own answer to question. His answer, interestingly enough, embraces a structural and functional perspective, which by his own specious logic means that the structural and functional accounts he gives are incompatible with each other. But more surprisingly, he jettisons one of the essential meanings of core, namely, the core as the inside or to state his paradoxical position differently, Pare redefines the ventral surface as the inside. In order to prevent prematurely foreclosing on the usefulness or correctness of some of our perspectives on the core, I want to make some cautionary remarks and register some doubts concerning the appropriateness of Pare’s suspicions about how the core has been understood in the Rolfing community. To begin with, whenever we attempt to understand a phenomenon it is important to be clear about the inquiry standpoint, or what we metaphorically might call the theoretical lens through which we try to grasp the phenomenon in question. If we are not clear about the appropriateness of our inquiry standpoint, we may easily miss the fact that our approach is not capable of illuminating what we are investigating. We may be tempted to dismiss the phenomenon as non-existent and/or be suspicious of the fidelity of other attempts to describe it, rather than seeking another inquiry standpoint more adequate to the job. Let’s look at the desire for precision first. There is nothing wrong with requiring more precision in our endeavors. But we should recognize that depending on our purposes and the nature of what we are investigating there are different kinds of precision. Often those who want more precision do not precisely specify what kind of precision they really desire. There is mathematical and logical precision, there is precision of design and construction, there is precision in how ideas are presented, some Rolfers intervene more precisely than others, a razor blade cuts certain materials more precisely than a butter knife, and so on.

As an example of how the notion of precision can occlude rather than help us to understand a phenomenon, consider the claim that science should concern itself only with what can be measured. This methodological requirement was first put forth by Galileo. Like so many thinkers who were influenced by his inquiry standpoint, Galileo argued that since the experience of red or blue does not occupy measurable space, colors are not objective or real phenomena. They are merely subjective, existing only in the mind of the beholder. The underlying metaphysical assumption that drives this view is one that many people still hold today: only what can be measured is real. But as Heidegger (Martin Heidegger,Zollikon Seminars: Protocols – Conversations -Letters, edited by Medard Boss (Evanston, Illinois, 2001, p. 202). If you are interested in how science is continually influenced by and confusing itself with metaphysics, see also E. A. Burtt’s modern classic, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, revised edition, New York, 1932) was quick to point out, one cannot measure the act of measuring. The self-defeating conclusion that follows from this limited definition of reality is that the act of measuring is not real. Calculability has its place, to be sure. But if we insist on calculability only, some phenomena will never show themselves to us. So as a cautionary note, let us be clear about what kind of precision we want and make sure that it is not the kind that ends up occluding the full reality of the core.

Paré like many others would like to see the core delineated in a univocal way with clear boundaries. Often the desire for the specification of clear boundaries is just a variation of the desire for more precision. Again, there is nothing wrong with the desire for observable, clearly demarcated boundaries. But again, different phenomena exhibit different kinds of boundaries. Part of what make up the boundaries of America are its shorelines. But precisely where are those shorelines? The fact that they are constantly moving has no bearing on the usefulness of the concept. Or consider the concept of baldness. We all have very little trouble distinguishing between bald men and those who are not bald. But we also notice that it admits of a grey area, a borderline, where we have difficulty saying whether someone is really bald or not. Perhaps we want to say these borderline cases consist of men who are balding, but are not yet truly bald. That works as long as you realize that the concept of baldness cannot be made much more precise. The idea that we could make the boundary clearer by counting hairs and specifying the number it takes to qualify as bald is clearly ridiculous. The existence of a borderline does not always invalidate a distinction. The distinction between being bald and not being bald is a perfectly adequate distinction, borderline and all. Similarly, in our pursuit of understanding the core through the various taxonomies and their associated taxons, we should be careful not to seek a borderline-free boundary where it is not appropriate.

When Paré says, “It would be very helpful to be able to say whether a given myofascial structure is intrinsic or extrinsic, absolutely and not relatively, or to have some other precise way of distinguishing one from the another”(OCS, p. 26). 1 can’t tell from his article what level of precision would satisfy him. He does say he wants to see an absolute rather than a relative distinction. But consider a distinction we use all the time that does not measure up to this requirement, namely, the distinction between structure and function. Depending on the level of analysis, the same anatomical reality is sometimes seen functionally and other times structurally. When referring to a cell we correctly locate the cell membrane as part of its structure. But when we become interested in how the cell functions, we must include a reference to how the cell membrane functions. This sort of relative distinction is not a problem. It reflects the fact that a body is not a soft machine made from pre-shaped parts, that every aspect of the body is an expression of the same self organizing, self-shaping, self-sensing, orthotropic liquid crystalline coherent whole and that every dimension of the organism exists for and by means of every other aspect, and every aspect enters into the constitution of every other aspect. A body is not an aggregate of single characteristics that easily lends itself to univocal, absolute definitions. Thus, we should not be too surprised if our concept of the core also does not lend itself to such definitions either. Pare seems to lament the lack of clarity surrounding the many characterizations of the core in his review in two questionable ways. One has to do with his absurd denial of the possibility of describing a thing from many perspectives. The other reason is less clear to me, but seems to come from his assuming, without thinking it all the way through, that any discussion of the core must be univocal and measure up to an inappropriate set of requirements that he doesn’t realize actually occlude the phenomenon in question.

Before I bring this discussion to close I briefly want to look at Pare’s theory of the core and his ambivalent rejection of the core as visceral space. One of the core meanings of core has to do with the idea of an inside and with the notion of the innermost heart of a thing. Both of these meanings are paradoxically embraced and abandoned by Pare. He equates the sleeve with the extrinsics, the extensors, and the dorsal surface and the core with the intrinsics, the flexors, and the ventral surface. But in the same breath he calls the ventral and dorsal dimensions “surfaces” while simultaneously asserting that the ventral dimension is inside. Thus, he says, “dorsal equals outside and ventral equals inside. The quadruped’s ventral surface faces the earth affording the contents of the visceral space a measure of protection … signifying the vulnerability of the ventral surface” (OCS, p. 25). He also says that the ventral dimension is a compartment. Given this inchoate co-mingling of incommensurable spatial designators, I confess I don t understand what Pare is trying to say. Perhaps I am guilty of what I charge Pare with: carelessly misrepresenting his position and of imposing an inappropriate framework of inquiry on the structures he singles out as core and sleeve. I hope my thinking has not deteriorated to where I have become “a literalist of the imagination,” -as poet Marianne Moore aptly described this affliction (speaking of being a literalist of the imagination, Pare quotes me as saying, “These models also insist that the core must extend up past the roof of the mouth to the top of the head.” (OCS, p. 23) and wonders in footnote 23, “Since when can a model insist on something?”. Well, the short answer is: since the advent of figurative language. There is nothing stylistically wrong with the use of such figurative expressions. We do it all the time. We say figuratively that a model demands to be taken seriously or that it demands attention, that it teaches, that it is seductive, charming, or even smells bad. Surely we can also say that it insists upon something).

But it is difficult to understand how the core can be properly represented by something that is a surface – or, to say it differently, since what is inside the body is bounded by the ventral and dorsal surfaces, it is difficult to understand how the ventral surface becomes the inside. Perhaps Pare has difficulty understanding this point also, for in one place he says his theory “embraces the “core as visceral space”‘ and puts the “core as visceral space” “into an easy relationship with one of Rolf’s fundamental concepts: the balance between flexors and extensors” (OCS, p. 25). But in his conclusion he says the “core as visceral space” should be rejected because Rolf “was without a doubt not talking about the visceral space, however defined” (OCS, p. 26). Yet it is all too clear, especially from Jan Sultan’s remarks, that Dr. Rolf really did have some notion of an inside or innermost something in mind, an important event or emergent quality that was both energetic and somatic and this important feature has vanished in Pare’s theory.

As I remember it, the “core as visceral space” was first proposed by Jan Sultan and Michael Salveson. At the time I found this suggestion to be completely useful, and I still think and see in terms of it. Years ago when I first learned about the core and was encouraged to see it, I was given three access points through which the core could be affected: the adductor/pelvic floor, the psoas, and the palate. Today, partly due to the influence of Peter Schwind, I employ more sophisticated ways of affecting the cavities of the trunk that not only includes manipulating the organs, but, more importantly, the celomic sacs (peritoneal, pleural, and pericardial sacs), which I maintain constitute part of the labryrinthine lining of the core. As a result, I regularly observe the appearance of core length, lift, as well as increased internal volume that has, to use Pare’s somewhat awkward terminology, clear intradivisional as well as interdivisional results. And this impact on the visceral space is even more profound than what I used to observe when I was limited to working on the adductors (and the other two access points) an observation I reported in Spacious Body and which Pare claims to find useful. I regularly notice that freer movement develops throughout the entire body when the core space is properly manipulated and eased. Not only that, but you also see new freedom in the trunk. For example, in many cases before working on the core structures of the trunk, the torso seems to respond to walking as if it were one solid thing; after working on core structures, you see deeper dimensions of whole trunk moving in freer independence, just as if they had gotten unstuck from the more surface structures. You also often see the shoulder and pelvic girdles moving in a freer independence as result of work on the core. For these reasons and many more, I am not willing to give up on the idea of the core and I am not willing to give up on the “core as visceral space.”

After all is said and done, perhaps Petez Schwind’s counsel is correct: the concept of the core is just poetry. It may be possible someday to convince me that the distinction between the core and sleeve is so problematic that it should be abandoned. So fax that day has not arrived. If it ever does, l will look back fondly on our fascination with this distinction, as if on a first love, and remember the wonderful things ii taught me and what truly sweet and seductive poetry it was.