I continue in my process of doing the ten sessions with an awareness of the location of acupuncture points, meridians and stripes. This approach continues to yield new insights into human structure and opens new ways of effectively reaching the goals of the individual sessions.

Before examining the inner arch of the foot in the second or fourth sessions, I would like to mention an article by Jim and Nora Oschman, called “Physiological and Emotional Effects of Acupuncture Needle Insertion.”* They present a wealth of information about the effects on different structures – the skin, the perivascular tissue, vasculature, perineurium, nervous system, myofasciae and the periosteum. One of the great values of the article was to extend my knowledge of the microanatomy of connective tissue and cell structure. Their paper gave me many new pictures of the processes set in motion with my hands in the ten sessions and specifically how touching can effectively change the bodies of my clients.

Two hypotheses guided the Oschmans’ exploration:

The first is that acupuncture simulates an injury without actually injuring tissues, and thereby elicits local and systematic wound healing responses that have a variety of therapeutic effects.

The second hypothesis is that the skin surface is not uniformly sensitive to stimulation – certain areas are more responsive than others in terms of their ability to activate particular injury responses and to spread those responses away from the point of stimulation.

As a practitioner of structural integration, I draw many implications from the Oschmans’ paper. First, over the years there has been an ongoing discussion within the Rolfing community about “painless versus painful” and/or “hard and soft” styles of Rolfing.

I have been working effectively for several years using the lightest possible touch at specific places to attain the objectives of the ten sessions. A soft and pleasurable touch is not enough in itself. The touch must be applied at specific points (generally the acupuncture points) if I expect to get real changes.

On the other hand, I suspect that many Rolfers, out of enthusiastic dedication to do the best that they can for their clients, are doing tissue damage.

I read two recently-published magazine articles about Rolfing. Both journalists reported black and blue marks as a side effect of their sessions. In newspaper articles over the years, a dominant impression that the journalists communicate is “painful.” Rolfing has traditionally had this kind of media image and we continue to recreate it.

I often hear Rolfers talk about their shoulder problems. From the soft Chinese martial arts, there is a guiding principle: “do not meet force with force.” A defensive reaction from the connective tissue in the body of a client creates a resistance to the pressure applied by someone doing massage or myofascial release. The harder the therapist pushes, the harder the tissue of the client pushes back. If I push against a door with my hand, the door pushes back on my hand with an equal and opposite pressure. If I push hard into bodies, they push just as hard back into my body. The shoulder joint is often the mechanical weak point for Rolfers, because of the way we stand or lean over the table as we work on our clients.

I think that, as a community, we would have a better reputation and would do better work with less “cost” to our own bodies if we could practice initiating a process of healing that only simulates tissue damage – rather than a process of change that in some cases actually damages tissue. In this regard, the Oschmans’ paper can confirm the theoretical possibilities of effectiveness from a minimum touch applied properly at specific locations.

As I mentioned in my last article about acupuncture points and stripes, I have experienced acupuncture therapists who needled in the superficial connective tissue and others who let their needles bend and follow the loose connective tissue between muscles deep into the body.

Because of the connectedness of connective tissue, changes in the deeper layers can be set in motion by a soft touch in the layer of the superficial connective tissue between the skin and the muscular-skeletal structure beneath. Some people imaginatively refer to superficial fascia as the “body stocking.”

But a soft touch can also continue in depth through the pathways in the loose fascial tissue between individual muscles, muscle groups, or even skeletal structures.

If there is a tension at an acupuncture point, I can feel a slight depression, somewhat like putting my finger tip into a shallow thimble. If I follow the pathway carefully, I notice that the bottom opens out like the base of a funnel. From the shallow thimble on the surface, I can go deeper into the body without force. I have to be willing to follow that tunnel as it opens, as it twists and turns through the muscular-skeletal structure. If I lose the pathway through the tunnel, I start banging my finger onto a wall of resistance.

Additionally, if I do not control my impatience, I can easily start to try to mash my way through the wall of the tunnel. I think that there is a little voice in most of us that says, “Nobody pushes me around! If I find something hard, I push on it until it gives up. I will meet force with force, if I think I can win.”

I remember the first time I heard a Chinese martial artist say the art is to return the fore( from the opponent, and that a good martial artist does not hit the opponent with this own force. After years and years of training, although willing to return an incoming force from an attacker, he was very reluctant to “hit” anyone. His reason was that to the extent that he hurt the other person using his own force, he would also hurt his own body. The trick in Chinese martial arts is to neutralize the other person’s force and to return their aggression back to themselves without adding on to it. The person who started the attack gets back what they put out – on the physical and emotional planes, they get a mirror to their aggressive projection. Martial artists work to confront their own aggression or fear and learn to be free from it.

I work to avoid banging away on hard connective tissue. My role is played in two parts. First, I actively find the tension in my client’s connective tissue. At the first sign of resistance on their part, I change to a passive role. Having initiated a process of healing with the first, minimal stimulation of the tissue to be released, I have started a natural healing process in their body. If I keep my finger lightly on the tissue without adding any more force, I notice that traumatized tissue will release by itself. All I need to do is to give it time, space, and acceptance and to trust the process.

I personally believe that my client’s body has the resources within it to heal itself. My client’s body does not need me to beat down their resistance. It is natural for traumatized or tense tissue to forgive. To “forgive” is to give by returning to the state before the event happened. Tense or traumatized tissue knows itself what to do with information from the lightest touch possible. The tissue responds and rejoices as I passively am aware of the wisdom of the body’s natural healing power as it unfolds under the tip of my finger.

I think that we Rolfers have a lot to learn about the possibility of initiating the process of structural change by simulating rather than creating tissue damage. We can respect the resistance when it arises rather than to overpower it.

As I recall images of my teachers in Rolfing classes, Michael Salveson, Peter Melchior, Peter Schwind, and Van Dam, I remember that they generally applied a soft yet effective touch. Peter Schwind gave us a beautiful model of what he felt as his fingers floated down through the connective tissue until they met grains of sandy resistance – and how these melted in time. But I shudder when I think about what some of my classmates and especially I did to our models. We all used too much force, pushing elbows and knuckles as hard as we could. I observe the same behavior in some Rolfers who studied with other teachers.

I hope that present and future students will be “corrected” away from tissue damage towards soft, effective, trauma release processes. In my opinion, the work of Jim and Nora Oschman, Sutherland, and CranioSacral Osteopathy are not “Rolfing addons,” but should be mainstream in terms of guiding us to find the “how to do it” to effectively achieve the objectives of the ten sessions.

There is a second major idea that I get from the Oschmans’ paper: it points to the importance of acupuncture points. In order to be effective, I need to be specific in terms of where I use my hands. If we are going to be softer as a community, I believe that we will benefit from exploring the possibilities of creating specific structural change from using the acupressure points, meridians, and acustripes.

Dr. Rolf indicated a division of the foot into an inner and an outer arch. I have gone further with this basic idea and consider the inner arch also to be in two parts: the big toe is one part, while the second and third toes are in the other.

The bones of the outer arch go from the phalanges to the metatarsals to the cuboid to the calcaneus. The bones of the inner arch go from the phalanges to the metatarsals to the medial, intermediate or lateral cuneiforms. The three cuneiforms meet the navicular, which is in touch with the talus. The outer arch relates to the calcaneus and the inner arch to the talus.

When I look at a foot or an ankle, I notice the relationship of the calcaneus to the talus. At first sight, the talus is often quite obviously medial or else lateral in its relationship to the calcaneus. On closer examination, there is always a rotation as the two bones meet in two distinct joints. Getting the talus to rest where it should on the calcaneus is critical to achieving the aims of the second, third, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth sessions.

To realign these two bones, I like to free up the tension in the ligament structure. I hold the calcaneus in one hand and the talus in the other. I move the two bones in relationship to each other and find the axis of movement in the joint. I feel for maximum resistance. Then I gently try to hold the bones in that position. There might be a stretch or an elongation. But many times, there is a “rebound,” as if the tension bounces the body away from the point that will ultimately release the tension. I play cat and mouse, returning the focus of my push on “the spot” until it anchors and then releases. This is a direct technique and it can be applied playfully rather than forcefully.

As for the subdivision of the inner arch, I am fascinated by the placement of the three yin acupuncture lines. For me, an acupuncture meridian is a loose connective tissue structure that differentiates the structures beneath to allow for a maximum of movement.

If you consider the spleen meridian, the middle yin line on the front of the foot, you will see that it divides the big toe into a top half and a bottom half (dorsal and plantar sections). If the relationship between the dorsal and plantar sections is free along the length of the spleen meridian, it facilitates the maximum possible range of movement of the inside edge of the foot in both extension and flexion. Any place along where there is restriction of the movement of tissue over or under the meridian will result in a loss of movement of the inner foot in extension or in flexion.

Do not be bothered that the spleen meridian does not go all the way back along the side of the foot. Remember that a distinguishing characteristic of the primates is that what we call the “heel of the foot” is on the ground. Many other mammals stand and walk on their toes – the heel is up, off the ground.

The liver meridian on the dorsal surface separates the big toe from the second toe. Some points of the kidney meridian seem to do the same thing on the bottom of the foot. For me, these two meridians indicate the possible differentiation of the first toe from the other toes. This follows the evolution of the foot from amphibians, through reptiles and into mammals.

The stomach meridian divides the second and third toes distally, The gall bladder divides the fourth and fifth toes distally, but as it moves caudally, it actually divides the inner and the outer arches, i.e. the navicular bone from the cuboid. The bladder meridian divides the dorsal and plantar sections on the lateral edge of the foot.

Many four-legged mammals rest on what would be the second to fifth toes when their feet are on the ground. The equivalent bones of the thumb and the big toe are there, but they are generally off the ground and at the back of the leg. The calcaneus is in the air.

When primates came down to rest their weight onto the soles of the foot, the big toe migrated partly forward. They can use their big toe in somewhat the same way that human beings use their opposing thumb to help them to grab.

In Homo Sapiens, the big toe has come even more forward and lies parallel to the other toes, flat on the ground. The big toe has come all the way around so that the medial cuneiform is superior to the intermediate cuneiform of the second toe. Ida said that the medial arch should ride on the lateral arch.

It has been interesting for me to carefully consider the relationship between the first and second toes in the formation of the inner arch.

After I looked at enough feet, I began seeing that, on most people, the first toe has moved away from the optimal neutral position: the group of the phalanges, metatarsal, and cuneiform of the big toe has moved further than it should towards the top of the foot – or not quite enough – and is placed towards the sole of the foot. Sometimes there is a twist. The phalanges of the first toe can be held by chronic tension in one direction (medial or lateral) while the cuneiform is often held in the opposite direction.

I use two strategies to improve the relationship between the bones of the first toe and the bones of the unit of the second and third toes: get hold of the adjacent bones and use direct pressure for a release; or work indirectly (by moving in the opposite direction of resistance and waiting about 90 seconds for a release). The best place to get hold of the bones is on pairs of acupuncture points – for example, one point on the liver meridian and another point on the kidney meridian.

We can use the acupuncture points to reposition bones in relationship to one other.

This application of acupuncture points extends the range of applications of therapeutic possibilities of the acupuncture points. Jim and Nora Oschman have indicated use of the points to simulate an injury without damaging tissue to induce the wound-healing effects of therapeutic value. Earlier in this article, I described the use of the acupuncture meridians as a natural pathway, a tunnel, from surface to deep in the connective tissue. And now, there is a possibility of using these pathways to realign one key relationship in the skeletal structure.

There is an acupuncture point, G41. Acupuncturists generally move from this point posterior into the ligaments of the ankle. But from the same point, if you move in a plantar direction, you will come down into the meeting point of four bones: the cuboid, navicular, talus and calcaneus. Push into this and you can free up tension in the connective tissue that has distorted the fascia between the inner and outer arches.

I like to take a finger of the other hand on the plantar surface of the foot and to press up in a direction to meet the direction of the finger pressing in at G41. Coming from both directions gives freedom of movement of the arches. When the weight-bearing foundation of structure of the foot is optimized, there is often a surprising amount of improvement in the organization above – in the knee, hip, spine, neck, and even cranial bones.

* Ed. note: see Dr. Oschman’s bibliography, in this issue.

Eric Jacobson

Lots of people have all kinds of junk, bumps, corduroy, pebbles, etc., on their tibias. It will change if you Rolf it, so I assume it’s myofascia. I can’t resist one IPR memory here. In class one day a student who was working on a model said, “Dr. Rolf, come here!” She did. He touched part of his client’s leg and said, “Dr. Rolf, what is this?” Dr. Rolf extended her old hand and palpated, brows furrowed thoughtfully. After a moment she sat back, gave the student a serious look and declared in her most emphatic tone, “That is gunk. And it’s your job to get rid of it!” Actually happened.[:de]I continue in my process of doing the ten sessions with an awareness of the location of acupuncture points, meridians and stripes. This approach continues to yield new insights into human structure and opens new ways of effectively reaching the goals of the individual sessions.

Before examining the inner arch of the foot in the second or fourth sessions, I would like to mention an article by Jim and Nora Oschman, called “Physiological and Emotional Effects of Acupuncture Needle Insertion.”* They present a wealth of information about the effects on different structures – the skin, the perivascular tissue, vasculature, perineurium, nervous system, myofasciae and the periosteum. One of the great values of the article was to extend my knowledge of the microanatomy of connective tissue and cell structure. Their paper gave me many new pictures of the processes set in motion with my hands in the ten sessions and specifically how touching can effectively change the bodies of my clients.

Two hypotheses guided the Oschmans’ exploration:

The first is that acupuncture simulates an injury without actually injuring tissues, and thereby elicits local and systematic wound healing responses that have a variety of therapeutic effects.

The second hypothesis is that the skin surface is not uniformly sensitive to stimulation – certain areas are more responsive than others in terms of their ability to activate particular injury responses and to spread those responses away from the point of stimulation.

As a practitioner of structural integration, I draw many implications from the Oschmans’ paper. First, over the years there has been an ongoing discussion within the Rolfing community about “painless versus painful” and/or “hard and soft” styles of Rolfing.

I have been working effectively for several years using the lightest possible touch at specific places to attain the objectives of the ten sessions. A soft and pleasurable touch is not enough in itself. The touch must be applied at specific points (generally the acupuncture points) if I expect to get real changes.

On the other hand, I suspect that many Rolfers, out of enthusiastic dedication to do the best that they can for their clients, are doing tissue damage.

I read two recently-published magazine articles about Rolfing. Both journalists reported black and blue marks as a side effect of their sessions. In newspaper articles over the years, a dominant impression that the journalists communicate is “painful.” Rolfing has traditionally had this kind of media image and we continue to recreate it.

I often hear Rolfers talk about their shoulder problems. From the soft Chinese martial arts, there is a guiding principle: “do not meet force with force.” A defensive reaction from the connective tissue in the body of a client creates a resistance to the pressure applied by someone doing massage or myofascial release. The harder the therapist pushes, the harder the tissue of the client pushes back. If I push against a door with my hand, the door pushes back on my hand with an equal and opposite pressure. If I push hard into bodies, they push just as hard back into my body. The shoulder joint is often the mechanical weak point for Rolfers, because of the way we stand or lean over the table as we work on our clients.

I think that, as a community, we would have a better reputation and would do better work with less “cost” to our own bodies if we could practice initiating a process of healing that only simulates tissue damage – rather than a process of change that in some cases actually damages tissue. In this regard, the Oschmans’ paper can confirm the theoretical possibilities of effectiveness from a minimum touch applied properly at specific locations.

As I mentioned in my last article about acupuncture points and stripes, I have experienced acupuncture therapists who needled in the superficial connective tissue and others who let their needles bend and follow the loose connective tissue between muscles deep into the body.

Because of the connectedness of connective tissue, changes in the deeper layers can be set in motion by a soft touch in the layer of the superficial connective tissue between the skin and the muscular-skeletal structure beneath. Some people imaginatively refer to superficial fascia as the “body stocking.”

But a soft touch can also continue in depth through the pathways in the loose fascial tissue between individual muscles, muscle groups, or even skeletal structures.

If there is a tension at an acupuncture point, I can feel a slight depression, somewhat like putting my finger tip into a shallow thimble. If I follow the pathway carefully, I notice that the bottom opens out like the base of a funnel. From the shallow thimble on the surface, I can go deeper into the body without force. I have to be willing to follow that tunnel as it opens, as it twists and turns through the muscular-skeletal structure. If I lose the pathway through the tunnel, I start banging my finger onto a wall of resistance.

Additionally, if I do not control my impatience, I can easily start to try to mash my way through the wall of the tunnel. I think that there is a little voice in most of us that says, “Nobody pushes me around! If I find something hard, I push on it until it gives up. I will meet force with force, if I think I can win.”

I remember the first time I heard a Chinese martial artist say the art is to return the fore( from the opponent, and that a good martial artist does not hit the opponent with this own force. After years and years of training, although willing to return an incoming force from an attacker, he was very reluctant to “hit” anyone. His reason was that to the extent that he hurt the other person using his own force, he would also hurt his own body. The trick in Chinese martial arts is to neutralize the other person’s force and to return their aggression back to themselves without adding on to it. The person who started the attack gets back what they put out – on the physical and emotional planes, they get a mirror to their aggressive projection. Martial artists work to confront their own aggression or fear and learn to be free from it.

I work to avoid banging away on hard connective tissue. My role is played in two parts. First, I actively find the tension in my client’s connective tissue. At the first sign of resistance on their part, I change to a passive role. Having initiated a process of healing with the first, minimal stimulation of the tissue to be released, I have started a natural healing process in their body. If I keep my finger lightly on the tissue without adding any more force, I notice that traumatized tissue will release by itself. All I need to do is to give it time, space, and acceptance and to trust the process.

I personally believe that my client’s body has the resources within it to heal itself. My client’s body does not need me to beat down their resistance. It is natural for traumatized or tense tissue to forgive. To “forgive” is to give by returning to the state before the event happened. Tense or traumatized tissue knows itself what to do with information from the lightest touch possible. The tissue responds and rejoices as I passively am aware of the wisdom of the body’s natural healing power as it unfolds under the tip of my finger.

I think that we Rolfers have a lot to learn about the possibility of initiating the process of structural change by simulating rather than creating tissue damage. We can respect the resistance when it arises rather than to overpower it.

As I recall images of my teachers in Rolfing classes, Michael Salveson, Peter Melchior, Peter Schwind, and Van Dam, I remember that they generally applied a soft yet effective touch. Peter Schwind gave us a beautiful model of what he felt as his fingers floated down through the connective tissue until they met grains of sandy resistance – and how these melted in time. But I shudder when I think about what some of my classmates and especially I did to our models. We all used too much force, pushing elbows and knuckles as hard as we could. I observe the same behavior in some Rolfers who studied with other teachers.

I hope that present and future students will be “corrected” away from tissue damage towards soft, effective, trauma release processes. In my opinion, the work of Jim and Nora Oschman, Sutherland, and CranioSacral Osteopathy are not “Rolfing addons,” but should be mainstream in terms of guiding us to find the “how to do it” to effectively achieve the objectives of the ten sessions.

There is a second major idea that I get from the Oschmans’ paper: it points to the importance of acupuncture points. In order to be effective, I need to be specific in terms of where I use my hands. If we are going to be softer as a community, I believe that we will benefit from exploring the possibilities of creating specific structural change from using the acupressure points, meridians, and acustripes.

Dr. Rolf indicated a division of the foot into an inner and an outer arch. I have gone further with this basic idea and consider the inner arch also to be in two parts: the big toe is one part, while the second and third toes are in the other.

The bones of the outer arch go from the phalanges to the metatarsals to the cuboid to the calcaneus. The bones of the inner arch go from the phalanges to the metatarsals to the medial, intermediate or lateral cuneiforms. The three cuneiforms meet the navicular, which is in touch with the talus. The outer arch relates to the calcaneus and the inner arch to the talus.

When I look at a foot or an ankle, I notice the relationship of the calcaneus to the talus. At first sight, the talus is often quite obviously medial or else lateral in its relationship to the calcaneus. On closer examination, there is always a rotation as the two bones meet in two distinct joints. Getting the talus to rest where it should on the calcaneus is critical to achieving the aims of the second, third, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth sessions.

To realign these two bones, I like to free up the tension in the ligament structure. I hold the calcaneus in one hand and the talus in the other. I move the two bones in relationship to each other and find the axis of movement in the joint. I feel for maximum resistance. Then I gently try to hold the bones in that position. There might be a stretch or an elongation. But many times, there is a “rebound,” as if the tension bounces the body away from the point that will ultimately release the tension. I play cat and mouse, returning the focus of my push on “the spot” until it anchors and then releases. This is a direct technique and it can be applied playfully rather than forcefully.

As for the subdivision of the inner arch, I am fascinated by the placement of the three yin acupuncture lines. For me, an acupuncture meridian is a loose connective tissue structure that differentiates the structures beneath to allow for a maximum of movement.

If you consider the spleen meridian, the middle yin line on the front of the foot, you will see that it divides the big toe into a top half and a bottom half (dorsal and plantar sections). If the relationship between the dorsal and plantar sections is free along the length of the spleen meridian, it facilitates the maximum possible range of movement of the inside edge of the foot in both extension and flexion. Any place along where there is restriction of the movement of tissue over or under the meridian will result in a loss of movement of the inner foot in extension or in flexion.

Do not be bothered that the spleen meridian does not go all the way back along the side of the foot. Remember that a distinguishing characteristic of the primates is that what we call the “heel of the foot” is on the ground. Many other mammals stand and walk on their toes – the heel is up, off the ground.

The liver meridian on the dorsal surface separates the big toe from the second toe. Some points of the kidney meridian seem to do the same thing on the bottom of the foot. For me, these two meridians indicate the possible differentiation of the first toe from the other toes. This follows the evolution of the foot from amphibians, through reptiles and into mammals.

The stomach meridian divides the second and third toes distally, The gall bladder divides the fourth and fifth toes distally, but as it moves caudally, it actually divides the inner and the outer arches, i.e. the navicular bone from the cuboid. The bladder meridian divides the dorsal and plantar sections on the lateral edge of the foot.

Many four-legged mammals rest on what would be the second to fifth toes when their feet are on the ground. The equivalent bones of the thumb and the big toe are there, but they are generally off the ground and at the back of the leg. The calcaneus is in the air.

When primates came down to rest their weight onto the soles of the foot, the big toe migrated partly forward. They can use their big toe in somewhat the same way that human beings use their opposing thumb to help them to grab.

In Homo Sapiens, the big toe has come even more forward and lies parallel to the other toes, flat on the ground. The big toe has come all the way around so that the medial cuneiform is superior to the intermediate cuneiform of the second toe. Ida said that the medial arch should ride on the lateral arch.

It has been interesting for me to carefully consider the relationship between the first and second toes in the formation of the inner arch.

After I looked at enough feet, I began seeing that, on most people, the first toe has moved away from the optimal neutral position: the group of the phalanges, metatarsal, and cuneiform of the big toe has moved further than it should towards the top of the foot – or not quite enough – and is placed towards the sole of the foot. Sometimes there is a twist. The phalanges of the first toe can be held by chronic tension in one direction (medial or lateral) while the cuneiform is often held in the opposite direction.

I use two strategies to improve the relationship between the bones of the first toe and the bones of the unit of the second and third toes: get hold of the adjacent bones and use direct pressure for a release; or work indirectly (by moving in the opposite direction of resistance and waiting about 90 seconds for a release). The best place to get hold of the bones is on pairs of acupuncture points – for example, one point on the liver meridian and another point on the kidney meridian.

We can use the acupuncture points to reposition bones in relationship to one other.

This application of acupuncture points extends the range of applications of therapeutic possibilities of the acupuncture points. Jim and Nora Oschman have indicated use of the points to simulate an injury without damaging tissue to induce the wound-healing effects of therapeutic value. Earlier in this article, I described the use of the acupuncture meridians as a natural pathway, a tunnel, from surface to deep in the connective tissue. And now, there is a possibility of using these pathways to realign one key relationship in the skeletal structure.

There is an acupuncture point, G41. Acupuncturists generally move from this point posterior into the ligaments of the ankle. But from the same point, if you move in a plantar direction, you will come down into the meeting point of four bones: the cuboid, navicular, talus and calcaneus. Push into this and you can free up tension in the connective tissue that has distorted the fascia between the inner and outer arches.

I like to take a finger of the other hand on the plantar surface of the foot and to press up in a direction to meet the direction of the finger pressing in at G41. Coming from both directions gives freedom of movement of the arches. When the weight-bearing foundation of structure of the foot is optimized, there is often a surprising amount of improvement in the organization above – in the knee, hip, spine, neck, and even cranial bones.

* Ed. note: see Dr. Oschman’s bibliography, in this issue.

Eric Jacobson

Lots of people have all kinds of junk, bumps, corduroy, pebbles, etc., on their tibias. It will change if you Rolf it, so I assume it’s myofascia. I can’t resist one IPR memory here. In class one day a student who was working on a model said, “Dr. Rolf, come here!” She did. He touched part of his client’s leg and said, “Dr. Rolf, what is this?” Dr. Rolf extended her old hand and palpated, brows furrowed thoughtfully. After a moment she sat back, gave the student a serious look and declared in her most emphatic tone, “That is gunk. And it’s your job to get rid of it!” Actually happened.[:fr]I continue in my process of doing the ten sessions with an awareness of the location of acupuncture points, meridians and stripes. This approach continues to yield new insights into human structure and opens new ways of effectively reaching the goals of the individual sessions.

Before examining the inner arch of the foot in the second or fourth sessions, I would like to mention an article by Jim and Nora Oschman, called “Physiological and Emotional Effects of Acupuncture Needle Insertion.”* They present a wealth of information about the effects on different structures – the skin, the perivascular tissue, vasculature, perineurium, nervous system, myofasciae and the periosteum. One of the great values of the article was to extend my knowledge of the microanatomy of connective tissue and cell structure. Their paper gave me many new pictures of the processes set in motion with my hands in the ten sessions and specifically how touching can effectively change the bodies of my clients.

Two hypotheses guided the Oschmans’ exploration:

The first is that acupuncture simulates an injury without actually injuring tissues, and thereby elicits local and systematic wound healing responses that have a variety of therapeutic effects.

The second hypothesis is that the skin surface is not uniformly sensitive to stimulation – certain areas are more responsive than others in terms of their ability to activate particular injury responses and to spread those responses away from the point of stimulation.

As a practitioner of structural integration, I draw many implications from the Oschmans’ paper. First, over the years there has been an ongoing discussion within the Rolfing community about “painless versus painful” and/or “hard and soft” styles of Rolfing.

I have been working effectively for several years using the lightest possible touch at specific places to attain the objectives of the ten sessions. A soft and pleasurable touch is not enough in itself. The touch must be applied at specific points (generally the acupuncture points) if I expect to get real changes.

On the other hand, I suspect that many Rolfers, out of enthusiastic dedication to do the best that they can for their clients, are doing tissue damage.

I read two recently-published magazine articles about Rolfing. Both journalists reported black and blue marks as a side effect of their sessions. In newspaper articles over the years, a dominant impression that the journalists communicate is “painful.” Rolfing has traditionally had this kind of media image and we continue to recreate it.

I often hear Rolfers talk about their shoulder problems. From the soft Chinese martial arts, there is a guiding principle: “do not meet force with force.” A defensive reaction from the connective tissue in the body of a client creates a resistance to the pressure applied by someone doing massage or myofascial release. The harder the therapist pushes, the harder the tissue of the client pushes back. If I push against a door with my hand, the door pushes back on my hand with an equal and opposite pressure. If I push hard into bodies, they push just as hard back into my body. The shoulder joint is often the mechanical weak point for Rolfers, because of the way we stand or lean over the table as we work on our clients.

I think that, as a community, we would have a better reputation and would do better work with less “cost” to our own bodies if we could practice initiating a process of healing that only simulates tissue damage – rather than a process of change that in some cases actually damages tissue. In this regard, the Oschmans’ paper can confirm the theoretical possibilities of effectiveness from a minimum touch applied properly at specific locations.

As I mentioned in my last article about acupuncture points and stripes, I have experienced acupuncture therapists who needled in the superficial connective tissue and others who let their needles bend and follow the loose connective tissue between muscles deep into the body.

Because of the connectedness of connective tissue, changes in the deeper layers can be set in motion by a soft touch in the layer of the superficial connective tissue between the skin and the muscular-skeletal structure beneath. Some people imaginatively refer to superficial fascia as the “body stocking.”

But a soft touch can also continue in depth through the pathways in the loose fascial tissue between individual muscles, muscle groups, or even skeletal structures.