Dear Colleagues,

I admit, when I first began reading Jeff Maitland’s article on the use of the cold laser, I was momentarily overcome by the voice of Zero Mostel singing “TRADITION” in my ear. It was a fleeting rendition, before I was catapulted into possibility. Hmmm! Lasers, coherent light beams reconnecting and strengthening miniscule tissue threads and fraying nerve roots; this has potential.

But initially, I was fascinated by my own knee-jerk response: my resistance to what at first appeared as an oppositional approach to this work I have devoted my life to. However, after “chewing” on the subject, I discovered that Jeff’s writing encouraged an expansion of my understanding of the far reaches of structural intervention. What I realized was that the only real discrepancy was the “how-to” this work is done. His practical use of the laser correlated and clarified much of the reading I have been doing in energy medicine, biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and the nature of the body’s connective tissue matrix as a medium for change.

In the early printings of the book, The Integration of Human Structure, Dr Rolf included the famous quote of Gautama Buddha, “Do not believe in anything merely because it is said….” With this as a mantra, I began questioning my own mental plasticity. For example, over the past number of years I have been deconstructing long-held assumptions and beliefs about “what a body is”, “where a body begins and ends”, and the necessary yet artificial separation of the body into distinct systems and parts. This approach, along with other inquiries and additional study, has supported both perceptual and kinesthetic shifts in my orientation and embodiment.

Perhaps there can be no better model for piercing unquestioned assumptions than Dr. Rolf herself. In a lecture she presented at the Center for the Healing Arts in 1975, she moved an audience from a mechanistic view of a Newtonian world to introducing GRAVITY as a source of energy uncontaminated by entropy (reprint, December 1995 Rolf Lines, pg. 7). The coupling of gravity and human structure was inspiration grounded through science. Through her vision and pioneering spirit, she shifted a culture’s mindset that the body is static to one where the body is a plastic and dynamic continuum.

As a community, how do we continue to broaden the spectrum of dialogue and touch, encompassing the far reaches of possibility in the midst of defined tradition? If the goal of Rolfing® is the support of the whole person in the field of Gravity through the manipulation and movement of the human structure, then it seems our goal as practitioners is to openly research the edges of science, while simultaneously exploring our personal boundaries, limitations and self imposed restrictions. Holding the tension of these seeming oppositions ignites both a synthesis and expansion of creative thought.

Respectfully submitted,

Carol Agneessens, MSRe: The Too-Good-To-Be-True Machine