Let me tell you the history of the project that you?re gonna see. This manual that you have in your hands actually is the result of an empirical experiment that has been going on for 16 years. When I first graduated in clinical psychology ? that was in São Paulo in 1973 ? I joined a study group with Dr.
Gaiarsa. He is a psychiatrist who followed first of all a clinical, drug-orientated style of psychiatry then moved into psychotherapy, then moved into a Jung approach, then studied the reichian approach, and trough that he really started to influence a lot of the young generation that was popping out of the 60?s, out of witch I am one of those. So Brazil was heading his leadership the image and the strength of a man who was honestly connected and committed to playing that bridge between the body and that mind, between sensations and concepts, trying to break some of the traditional parameters out of witch psychotherapy and psychoanalysis were operating on. So this is all very contemporary with the movement of the human potential that was happening here.

It is also contemporary with the appearing of Dr. Rolf. And one of the things that were more important to me and to the exploration that I was going trough at that time was first of all how he guided us into sensation realm, and how much he emphasized properception was being the number one factor, the physiologic factor that would guide us to have our self image to guinde us into our self steem. Constructing our identity or the lack of it. He was guiding his methodology into using sensations as being the avenue trough witch you could not only help patterns to unlock and to move tough them but as well as to build consistent transformed self image and self esteem, giving different quality to that. And that time it was a big laboratory, we were exploring from all sides, like ?Who am I sensority, where?s my body, breaking my armor?s?, wanting something new to emerge, desperately. So that was against repression, into the wild, into my potential. That?s where I started, kind of plain with that. The concept of properception was the key to my whole development, and key to the work that you?re seeing at this point. That?s back in the 70?s, early 70?s. We had 2 very different directions: one was how to open up a pattern and another direction going into how is it that sensorial education could have different maps in your brain, in your cortical perception of yourself. How do you more efficient use these physiological, neurological characteristics. To really allow transformation and change to take place. That exploration led us then not only to the pathological, but also to the profilatic perspective, witch is how we can change people trough the body and sensation, guiding people into sensation, getting them to perceive who they are, and ultimately to operate on it. That was something that guided my exploration in the next coming years. Of course a down side of that was breaking things and not knowing how to put them together. Breaking the reference of the therapeutically contacts, of the therapeutically process, and going into explorations.

So that time I go into Rolfing, witch had for me the light of integration, the light of structure, the light of putting things together. Of course I got in here imagining I was getting a new technique, something to work from. And rather I found a point of view, witch gave me a whole different spectrum to play on. The Rolfing training had a lot of more concret elements for me who was coming from a psychological background: Anatomy, physiology, mechanical relationships of the body. So, getting Rolfed, getting my training, went back to Brazil, worked for a couple years, started getting changes and perceived that my practice was doing very well and I didn?t need; there was a way indeed to go through the psychological anchors that were present at the body, to a new world without going into the cognitive exploration of one?s psychic. That fascinated me, that was a short cut, that?s go for it, into that avenue. A few years later came here for my advanced training, and that was where everything started, in terms of this project. I started stretching, first to find out about anatomical locations. Like, where is it that the traps insert in the occipital? I started first moving my head in relation to my neck, and finding where is it, what?s the sensation of that attachment, how do I feel it, how is this IN ME. First I was studying spots, places, locations, insertions. In the second moment, relationships, like How?s is it that that insertion matches the insertion on the spine in the scapula, the two ends of the traps. Are they short? Can I make them longer? That simple. I went looking for sensations, looking how I could embody those anatomic landmarks in myself.

During that I started playing with that, the recipe and stretches. I beginner trying to build poses, to build exercises that would reproduce the effects of a session. OK, so in session one we go on opening up the chest, how can I stretch and get that sensation in my body? We have to get the legs off the hips, how can I do that? This was the origin of a couple of this positions that you will see documented. At that time there was… Brazil is kind of a melting pot, to those of you that don?t know that. All races go there, they end up getting married, rather than fighting, so we have big influences from America, Europe, Africa. We are always looking from the third world to the first one, trying to know what are the latest trends and incorporate them.

This time there was a certain guy called Phillip Suchar (?). He was a disciple of Madam Meziere (?) who is a French phisioterapist, that was working with global postures, into the miofascial web and she would bring those pre arrenged positions and bring the client into a posture and have the client wait there until the distretch reflex would occur. Discharges would happen and the whole miofascial web would get reorganized out of this timed stretch. The wisdom of that system is that is global. The whole body would always be engaged. I was a client of that, I was very found of that methodology.

Cornelia, my friend here is trained in this methodology, and I learned a lot from thare. Rolfing talks about integrating the whole body, talks about putting every pieces together in function. So I tried to make those positions as global as possible. Because then you would avoid the compensation of moving from one place to another. By being global you would anchor the changes of the miofascial web globaly. So that?s what we wanted. It took me a couple of years to really get that translation finished, translation meaning the translation of the recipe the way i understood it into a clear elegant, concised, flowing sequence of stretches that I could use for all sessions. A couple of sessions, like 8,9 or 10 were kind of more difficult for you to design a series for.

Number 6 was not quite ready, that one doesn?t work, go back, then I found inspiration in some ioga poses, some books and so on. But this were the principles. Properception, guided attention, sensations, global, translation of the recipient. I?d say that in this time I was personally coming very much from the outside in. My desire to break and to open up and to tear myself or something was too big. And I was making streches that were kind of poses imposed to people. And I started doing that in classes. I was beginning to assist, that was 1986, I started assisting Emmet and Peter, assisted by Jeff Maitland, and they all gave me space to play with these stretches in their classes.

Are any of you familiar with the auditing practitioning system? It was a time where the trainings were happening simultanesly, auditors and practioners in the same class. We did 2 and 3 together, but auditors were there mainly watching and observing. Kind of learning trough feeling. Learning from being an audience, not actually doing things. What I did was, ?Auditors come here, let?s try to experience your own bodies, what?s being part. And I did to them what I was doing with me. And guided them to learning body and Rolfing with these series. Because what was already there ? that?s a secret here ? was that I could only do the stretches and get effects on the miofscial web so form would change without the person needing to be Rolfed. It was another technique that was being born at that time. If you did the streches globaly, if you met the resistances, if you stayed there, explored, bla, bla, bla, found out the whole changing of miofascial web would stay. I was playing with the auditors and finding that out, that they would change. I used this as a pedagogical tool. Number 2, I used that in my practice. I started getting clients that were too tough, too charged, so I said; OK, client, let?s take a minute here, let?s do a couple stretches and then we?ll go to the session. So, on that line the stretches served as a preparation for the actual work. They would stretch trough, they would move trough, and they would get the bodies more resilliant.

In a third way, I started using them during the sessions. So the client would kind of move and I would find exactly where the limitation is. So I could just go there and save my time, get a more precise intervention and the clients would have the sensation of their limitations. And then, after having had the sensation, me working, having them participating with the moving or breathing into the place, the release of the extrinsics were happening.

Another use that I found for that at that time was after the sessions.

Like ?What can I do at home?? so I would teach them, give them a little lesson on the stretches make them take care with a couple things where you can get lost, and they would begin to have something to actually do for their own processes. With this in hand I was already having some clinical and pedagogical experience with the stretches. But Rolfing was changing that was the time of the split, new models of looking at the body were coming in, new authors, things came up. And the movement work was taking shape as well. So, the movement work gave me the help I needed for my own personal development, which was pay attention inside, to what?s happening to you inside. It?s not only about your sensations, this is about all of you. When you feel, what comes out of that?

Making a parentesis here, the Rolfing movement was about education, your client, giving them hints so that after your session they would walk differemtly, they would know how to stand up, how to better use their breathing capacity and so on. Still, this is very focused into inhacing the structural work that was just done. So, that was an early vision of the Rolfing movement work. The Rolfing movement brought in the emotion realm, the energetical realm. The experience of the whole being while being Rolfed. Muddy territory, right? How do you track a process trough psichology, trough spirituality, trough movement exercises that need to be done, even to build tonus into a person. How do you do that? The movement work was kind of lost at some point. It was when the principles of Rolfing came in. It helped to organize and strategize their aproach. Talk about what they really were doing.

So, back to the streches here. The traditional Rolfing was from outside in.

The ?brrrr?aprroach, we still pay the bill for that one, don?t we? Rolfing is that deep tissue manipulation that hurts! We were all hurting people at one point. With the Rolfing movement care and with the techniques that started to come up that were more subtle, in their own way we started to have a spectrum of ways to get to the body that were more delicate. In direct all these were important asserts. The Rolfing movement for me gave me the inside out perspective, as I told you, and allowed me to help bridge the emotional and spiritual content into the sensational, the sensation level. So, if when you?re doing streching you stopped the resists and you give yourself time to experience what this resistance is about you transform an exercise into a meditation; you transform an exploration into an active presence itno what?s happening. You?ll be receiveing information from your own experience, you may be hit by an emotion that was anchored there, you may get a birth of joy, or something that was not being permeable and continius to your structure ? I don?t know what; it?s up to you. Whoever is living the experience, will have their own particular experience.

But what I did learn was that if you only do the continuum style or the rolf movement style which means go where it wants to go you have one kind of experience. If you only go on the other spectrum ?so this?, you have another kind of experience. But if you combine those two things which means go in to a form, find the limitations, find the boundaries, stay there, allow the experience of this boundarie into you, move trough that layer, find how to, with micromovements, keep the shape and trigger that space that is he limitation of continuity that you are experiencing in your body; breath into it, allow the experience, but be present. Keep the form. Only change the form at your own presence. That combination of being present in your boundarie, accepting your limitations, challenging your limitations, waiting for the effects of the discharges that are happening while you are doing those experiences: This is something completely different. It?s something completely new. It?s not a regular strech which are wanting only to increase the distance between two points, is not an imposed form, is not a flee flow kind of movement exrecise. It?s something that you play on the edge of the limitation, the release and the anchoring of the new form. As I found out that, I said ?there?s something here, that?s worth to do it.? That was why it took me so long to get here, to get to this place; as I felt these were only ordinary poses before. You know, how many people strech? There are many poses that are more interesting, more sophisticated. You can go into all directions streching yourself but the point is not exactly streching. Streching may be a misleading title. The point is finding the limitations, being with it, exploring it, allowing trough it. And anchoring that into the miofascial web by finding the accomodation of the new that is to come. Then you reajust, you go into another form, you challenge another limitation. You play, you go again, so it becomes a playful thing, out of which you will find…

So the streches were then designed. They got this form. And in this form I realized I was stucked with the recipe. This thin took so long to get ready, that now that it?s ready it?s based on a form that?s not anymore the last fashion. Am I going to put out a project that uses the recipe that we?re having such a criticism on, collectvely? Now I realize that no, you can aplly the recipe and you can deviate from it, and you can find where your limitations are. So this is not about doing the recipe, but rather trough the seven stages that are listed here, go through a complete round in your own structure. There?s one more very important contribution here… I wished I had a lot of charts and flipcharts, but are you ok with the way I?m speaking here?

Not sleeping yet? You?re going to do a little exercise soon.

The experience that I had with Peter Levine and his somatic experience methodology ? are you familiar with that? Brief words: Peter is a specialist in shocking trauma. He comes from medicine, from that he became a rolfer, went back to physiology, and he?s been studying the nervous system and its connection with shock and trauma mechanisms. For now, the important thing is that structures are coupled, physical structures are coupled. And so is the nervous system. Many times the nervous system can not fulfill it?s activity, because it?s going to get into circuits that are connected to each other and they will lead into the same kind of responses. Therefore they?re gonna be rather barreers for your creative life rather than serving your person to live. So, in the phisycal body, as you strech you are uncoupling some of this structures and the nervous system was having this sort of informatioin, sensorial information through movement will begin to discharge and discharge phisiologicaly, so you go into the trauma vortex that was kind of patterned into your system. And you need to wait, you need time for this experience to happen. You go there, you trigger it, there will be authonomic nervous system discharges, signals of the discharge. The goosebumps, deep breath, changes is temperature, quick discharges trough your body, and if you just move too quick, you will go back to the old pattern; but if you stay long enough in this positions, and you allow yourself while the discharges are happening, you will then have a sensation of paradise, in a way; if you keep the form, you will go trough a cool, clear, pleasureble experience. So, the nervous system that had an information of tension, of coupling, of indiscriminated sensations of a spot of your body, then this same nervous system feeds into the brain another dimension, of pleasure, of space, of time. But the game is not over.

Because after you go to one of those cicles, there?s a tendency of going back to the original trauma vortex, in a lesser degree, then back into a pleasureble vortex, untill you negociate between those two guys and you find a layer which is in between that so your breathing gets normal again, and then you could stand up and go home. So, momently, that sort of phenomena is important in the practice of the strucural streches because we are dealing with that. Of course you can just do an exercise and be superficial about it.

But if you want to be deep, if you really wanna use it for the scop of possibilities it has with your clients, you gotta know some about how to wait; how to wait for the discharges, how to wait fot that pleasurable moment. What happens to one when you have experiences of pleasure with your body, rather than experiences of tension? Coupled or uncoupled, if you are experiencing your body, consciently or unconsciently, that?s how you?re related to yourself. Someone who is all tied up, all contracted, or all flubby because they gave up on life, their tissues shows that. How can that person relat to themselves, except by knowing into their own brain that they are that, witch is what they are sensing. This is the basic somatic approach that we are all involved with, collectvely, here, and here you have another represent of this field, who?s inquiring on that level.

So here we are, change in experience, change in the level of the nervous system, that is feeding into yourself, image and self esteem. In a first layer you just stretch, wait for the reflex of the strech, the tone of the muscle is gonna go flat, good. But if you do this I just described you, the staying, the waiting for the discharges, the moving into an intro, that active participating, you are estimulating the nervous system to go from simpathetic, which is the doing, to the parasimpathetic, which is the allowing. Dso you go from the active Mr. Do, to the passive Mr. Allow Receive. So you move into brain activities, the nervous system goes move from a state to another state.

So this is another physiological piece very simply described here. But that just defies take time, go slowly, watch out, allow yourself to get flat and normal again until you are anchored in the new form that is emerging. So, doing and allowing. Staying with it. And then engaging your mind into perceiving, recognazing and being that what is emerged, that has emerged; then you play cortical. Then you know your self image is transformed. So that system, though it looks like a system of exercises and poses, it?s scope go beypnd the simple exercise, can be used that way, but it reaches a different space, a space of transformation. That?s why it?s called Structural Stretches, Self Exploration. That?s why we ain?t cultivating the vertical, because the principles are the same. No balance, but intimacy, and all that support and so on. I?d say that these are the main concepts in which I anchor that practice.

There?s one more, which I love the most. Which is that self regulating, self nourishing orthotropic nature of our bodies. What does that mean? If you have a plant, that is growing up. It?s tendency is to go towards, to light. It will grow up, like ? in Brazil we have a lot of chances to see that ? in a forest, that little tree will ?grrrroooowwwww? until it gets to light. It will grow towards light. And it will develop itself, going along, untill it reaches the light. It gotta go above, it gotta show up. Orthotropy ? ortotropia ? it?s a concept that tells us that once trigged, the organism will use it?s enharancy towards order. This is something that Rolfing uses all the time. You bring the tissue, you bring the system, to recognize itself sensorially, you bring the system to have the sensation of itself, as the key to most of the techniques we do. We push ? why? When we push we are not only adding physical sensations, adding physical pressure, we are also getting the system to have the sensation. If that sensation is well conducted enough, is good Rolfing. The tendency to any kind of pattern, when trigged, when it has the opportunity to release, is to seek other levels of order. In terms of our body, if you release the tensions that are shorting and reducing one?s possibilities, we have a natural tendency to towards uprightness. That is inside of our archetypical nature, like… you can say to anybody: evolution never got into chaos, evolution always go into something that has uprightness. That?s something that inherits with us. So, in Rolfing we use that, in the stretches we also do that. You push into the limitation, you find it, it recognizes itself, it resolves itself uncoupling the structures. And it grow towards uprightness. That?s natural, that?s a concept that kind of frames the whole thing. There?s a quote in the book that talks about that.

So, bla, bla, bla, bla, the parrot is getting tired…. but this was how I anchored this practice. And the other element that is present is that the how to do it respects the development of Rolf, the principles of Rolfing, strategizing. Which means you don?t go into stretching without preparing yourself into it. You don?t begin stretching without going trough a slow, graduate approach. That?s preparation. You need to find out what?s not continuous and strech trough that. One needs to look for the support for the changes. There?s no change happening without physical and environmental support. So, all of those considerations take place in one?s strategizing series of streches. So, here you have in the mannual a lot of suggestions, but these suggestions are organized in a way that they begin, they develop and they close, like any decent Rolfing intervention. The same way that we need to consider all the other priciples, you are always dealing with order, you are always dealing with continuity, you are always dealing with a transmission, into the rest of the body ? so then you can build your home. If you have the principles in your mind you can do anything you want. Because you?ll be able to be smart enough to put the things together. A little note: some twisting positions may bring temporary disorganization of some tissues. Some people who have chronichle back pains, and chronic this or that may need to take care and responsable for what they do. It?s not a unharm technique; streches can hurt. If you strech too fast you may tear a lighment. If you strech one side but not the other you may get hurt, so, watch out! That?s why it?s important that you guide your clients into experience, rather than simply trhow them out.
Ok, my dear friends, do you have any crucial questions pr can we start our experience now?
So, in preparing this presentation I felt that I didn?t know how many people were gonna be here, so I developed a little sequence that could be helpful for rolfers after a day of work. A little something you can repeat when you?re tired, before going home, to close up the day. Do this session with a little time and you won?t be stucked with a day of Rolfing sessions into your arms and hands. It counts on 4 basic movements. I?ll show you in case you get lost with my voice.
Take you shoes off, if you may, it will help, I think.
Ok, feet side to side, a little bit of this rocking of the pelvis…sit behind your seat bones… allow the weight to compress your diaphragm. Roll your pelvis up…Front to back, move your pelvis forward and back. Find where you feel the dimensionality of the pelvis, and now relax your pelvis. Contract it once or twice, just to make sure it?s where it belongs.
How?s the rest of your body? The spine, the head…? Good
Here, I?ll invite you to bring your feet to in front of your knee…some of you have the tendency to bring your feet in, or out, or in odd patterns… I?d like you to bring your feet to the opposite of the tendency that you have. Bring your arches up, or down. Feel the sensation in your feet, challenging the shorter arch. You know that this comes together with the knees arrengement, so if knees tend to go in, bring them out and vice versa. That?ll bring a sensation of integration in your pelvis. And you?ll find that in to the sole of your feet, as it opens into the floor. Spreado your toes, poors toes cruched in shoes. Toes open, feet open…just with these movements of your feet you begin to feel a little stretch already. The arches are very important….
Now we?re gonna play with a rotation of the arm, the whole arm. Then the extension/contraction of the palms of your hands. And also sliding the head, bringing the ears towards your shoulders, and head rotations. And a combination of all of those. These are the four basic movements.
It?s important focus that we?re very badly educated to stretch. Everybody overstretches, as if we can?t feel without overstretching. So we?re gonna be cool and go easy on that, ok? Now you have your pelvis, and the connection to your feet, find your breath, from the inside, what?s available… go there and get something going. Find your breathing from inside, find the spaciability in your torax, sometimes just by doing that you estimulate yaunnings. Find the inside and the outside, what wraps this breathinmg, what?s the container. Let?s just observe now your shoulders, letbthem heavy on your pelvis, shake them up and down. Let them rest on your rib cage and find support on your hips.
Now let?s try to feel from head, trough neck, trough shoulder, arms, trough elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers, fingernails. Begin slowly and gradualy to get long into your arm. Bones are heavy, connecting with your breathing… very slowly, get long trough your fingers opening up your palms, and then getting long fingers, open palms. Watch your breathing, make sure not compress your breathing by getting long to your arms. Strech arms away from ears. Yes, yawn, yawn… feel the release, this is the first release.
In this position, rotate your whole arm… and let relax. Take your time and allow this to reach your fingertips… at this point it?s more active, yes. Keep the form, challenging and doing a little active stretch… see what that does to your breathing. The rotation is guided by finding the limitation. So, with your palms opens and fingers long, you rotate: you will find a limitation. You sense something short. That?s the limit, feel that and just stop…feel that for a minute. When you?re confortable with that, go a little further and find another limit. This is gonna challenge you again. Stay there in the second limit until you feel there?s a warm up and you feel you can go a little further, and go a little further. Always revisiting your breathing and your confort. When you?re on that limit, you challenge them with micromovements, little giggles, tic tic, tic tic, stay a little more. What comes to your heart and mind? Do you feel irritaded, pleasured. It doesn?t matter what it is, just feel, it?s you… open up palms and fingers. Something may wanna move, and you follow your dance. Alloe your dance to happen. When you?ve done one side, gently undo the pose, stop in the middle. Allow the whole system to accomodate and start with the other side. If you?ve being doing it in,. Go out now. Find the limitations of that segment and let the rotation. Or medium rotation, depending on where you started. Allow the strech to reach yor fingers, don?t overstretch, be present. If the palms aren?t fully open, be present here. Get the limits and challenge it. Sometimes you get warm inside, sometimes you get feelings. When you?re done, get back to neutral. Micromovements, focus on bretahing, sensation, all the way trough your limbs from the inside of yourself.
I see a lotof responses on diaphragms here. People are yawning, moving…allow that to happen. That?s what wants to take place. You are trigged, you challenge and then something wants to happen. Then it?s your business, allow it to happen.
When you?re done, come back to center, stay connected ith your ground. With the arms hanging, breathing normal, let?s allow our heads to drop. So your forehead is dropping forward and you feel the stretching of your cervical neck. Good, very good. Just the weight of your head forward, your forehead guides. Don?t curve, it?s not a curving exercise… just bend you neck and the forehead is hanging towards your knee with it?s own weight. In that position, allow your breathing trough your lips, so your face is relaxing, your mouth and nose are connected with your core space. Breath in and out trough your lips. Feel the space of your trunk, the connection with your throat, the inner space of your mouth. In that position, with your head relaxing, let?s slowly bring the right ear towards the right shoulder… slide your head and stay there. Find the limitation and the connection. Feel between your left ear and your left achromium. Alloe that stretch to travel trough your arm, into your hands. You?re resting your right ear into your right shoulder, very gently. You?re feeling the stretch on the opposite side, the left one. Think fingertips-ears, all that distance… how is your breath, how does your breath response? Include gentle rotations of your head in that position…it takes the whole neck, shoulder, arm, hand, fingers… feel you?re shooting light to the floor with your fingers. In the space between your fingertips and your nails, you?re long…rotaions with the arms, with the head, challenging short segments of that stretch. Stay there, breathe into it, allow the cycles to happen. Integrate your arm into the head rotations. When you think you?re done, back to center. Feel the differences between two sides. How?re your legs, are they different now? Does the leg that you stretched the arm on the same side feel longer than the other? The leg also responds. Gently relax the fromt of your throeth… allow your head to drop, breathe trough your mouth, diaphragm. Left ear to your left shoulder and now let?s stretch from your right ear to your right shoulder. Then beyond, into your arm and hands, and then include rotations of the head, of the arms. Stretch from your head to your hand, unlocking whatever pattern you find on the way. Allow your shoulders heavy, away from your ears, hands long trough your arms. It?s your game, if anything wants to move, allow it to move. See what?s new, is it a feeling, an idea, a new set of body relationships? Is it a thought that need to be completed? Isn?t that great? Find the limit, stay there… challenge it. From your breathing, from your hearts, trough your shoulder, elbows and hands. Feel free…
A last one. This one counts on everything we did so far, and it?s about find your heart, find your place, you?re here, this is your pelvis. This one is easy! You may notice that some of you have yoiur arms more this way, or this way. Let?s find the position that connects to your center, and challenges your pattern. If you?re this way, play this one and vice versa. Let?s unlock our elbows. Gently allow your distretch to go down, forward and up. Down, forward and up. Lock the elbows, unlock the elbows. Hands extended, palms open… unlock your elbows. Your head dropping, relax throat and jaw. Play a gentle rotation to one side, to the other side. You?ll find the limitation extension of this hand-forearm relationship. You?re allowing your palms to really release… you can lock/unlock your elbows. If you find a limitation too hard, relax and allow ths stretch to accomodate itself softly, and then you challenge a little more. This is how the working Rolfing is gonna get out of your system. Include head rotations, slidings, and allow the dance to happen. And when you?re done you stand up. Bring challenge to your feet, kneebands, elbowbands, pushing the table top. Pushing into the floor and into the table top. Explore the way you want. One hand this way, the other hand the other way. That plain. Whenever feels comfortable to you, follow the dance, let your stretch take place. Where does it wanna go? Into one foot, one hand? Find the limitation you wanna explore, stay there and conscientlyu follow the movement into the next thing that wants to stretch. Stay there, in connection to the ground. Where do you go? What do you wanna explore? Is your throat, your jaw, are they relaxed? Different posssibilities of taking, giving, exploring. How are you inside, what makes sense to you, into your feelings? Check the new form that tried to emerge trough the sensations you have in your body. Find what else is wanting to release, go there, connect into the whole of your body and stretch trough it. To your inside, from your inside and back into it. And out of it. And wait. Keep the contact to the feet, allow the system to accomodate, pace yourself, allowing, receiving, processing, keeping it, allowing it to move. Then, the next thing. Care and time. Kneebands, elbowbands…. core into feet, core into hands. Feet into core, core into hands and vice versa, yes. Allow the breath changings. Where does your head belong? Is the front of your neck relaxed? Be responsible for your closure, don?t close overtime, don?t overstrecth. Run two cycles of this, you do it. Allow your eyes to contact reality, the space of the room, our colleagues, and agian, contact with your own reality, feel your boundaries, your presence, what?s new here, what needs accomodation. Make your notes, next time you wanna explore this, or just take the sensations you?re having to a walk. Wlak your new form, walk this state you?re in now. Contact with reality, preserving your own inner dimensionality, space and sacredness. Jsut see how you?re doing, how you?re feeling. What are your sensations of yourselves?How do you sense yourself now? How does it feel in you now? Make the necessary polarities. If you?re too much inside, go outside. If you?re outside, take it inside, we?re gonna talk soon. If you wanna take this to your life, make remarks of waht?s different here, what am I experiencing now that can stay for longer, that I could carry with me? What did I let go? So, whenever you?re ready, a general stretch and back to thinking, to talking!!! Are you all ok?
Some of you have been in parts of this situation before. He studied with me, she was my client, etc., so these are people that have seen this grow trough the years. I?m totally open to see what do you wanna know, if you wanna share your experience, ask something…?
Q. Do you ever use weights or devices to help you with your stretching?
A. No, I never used. It?s a posssibility, though. It?s interersting, I tend to be ? maybe because of my travelling nature ? a experiencer. Weights are great properceptive tools, like with a little pressure it will give the properception of a whole line. The weights can be the touch of your rolf. The other side of this is stretching against the limitation. Stretching to discharge is one thing. The other part, it?s not in the mannual, it?s the exercises towards the charge. People that are more hypo tonned, that you have to instruct them to stretch towards charge, that you reballanced there, the nervoius sytem, and probably the tonus. Feel welcome to play with the stretches and weights and let me know what happened.
( a therapyst describes a ball technique.)
She?s describing a ball technique she uses almost as a teaching, phisioterapeutical tool. Repatternig your movement techniques. What I wanna make here, draw a line is that stretches are old practice. What I?m proposing is a self exploratory way, that will go trough touching these aspects of the nervous system…
(fim da fita 1)
Fita 2
… there?s a purpose, yes.
Q. (Ininteligível)….or there?s a structure or layer, going trough that exercises…(ininteligível)
A. Lots of, I think on this technique they are playing again with building tonus and at the same time you?re finding the inside movement that once we expressed. So I think on that line they are systems that held some connection, conceptual connection… personally I didn?t go enough trough that, to understand it fully…I did a couple of classes and that was it. So I don?t exactly know the system. But I found the continuum aspect there too. And I loved that, the inside exploration. When you put form into it, it?s what I?m exploring.
Q. And how was the experience for you here?
A1. Sometimes stretching own your own is very Individualized, though so powerful. Just breathig can be very powerful.
A2. I agree , I could feel the effects at my whole body, but I felt like…. I came here after 4 sessions today, I usually take a shower, but this… I was having a hard time with my neck, so it really drop my shoulders out, it felt like getting Rolfed.
Q. And did you feel it in your breathing responses, as well?
A. Absolutely, yes!
This was a show up of stretching, but we were receiving effects on the core dimension. So, that holistic perspective that we operate on, if the technician, the stretcher, the rolfer, is aware of those other system in their integration, then you have to think, you?re not doing regular workout. You?re using stretching in Rolfing. But the beauty that we have is that we want holistic approaches. Any of you get in to feelings, at all?
A. Yes, I was stretching and this irritation came out, it came into my mind and I felt irritated, but it was fine, it was good stretching.
It?s amazing how much it?s important sometimes to stay with the irritation, to contact that, because that?s you, you are there. Soon after that will go, the quantum will move and ?puff?, it?s gone.
A. I got a feeling almost of abnouxious sometimes.
This talks also to the monitoring of the nervous system while the experiences happen. So maybe we affected some of the vagal tone, which may have something to do with the way you experienced it in your stomach. This may require a special intervention for you to really move to that. It?s fascinating.
A. We went to different places, like nouxious, or sadness, we went to different spaces and stood there long enough.
One thing that fascinates me is the option and the freedom. That?s our responsability to track our students and clients tothat modulation. We all have complicated things inside, feelings, thougts and stuff…we can touch it, perceive it, and relax the stretch a little bit go back to it gradual approaches, so that then you gradually build a presence in your perception into your being. So, ok, I touched this, I touched that, now, later, if you do too fast, is not that you have the power to control, I don?t wanna say that, actually the opposite is true, sometimes I hope you?re the container of yourself, so that it your experiences can be that reached, and that full…we don?t modulate, but we can modulate some, you can glide trough our own experiences. To see how reach, someone talks about feelings, someone talks about sensations, talked about physical, that?s nice because we can kind of allow the experience of the person trough the sensorial, trough the somathic, into the different realms of the circle of being. That?s what interests us rolfers. We?re psychoterapists, we?re not priests or phylosophical counselers, we are rolfers. Trough rolf, as rolfers, we can move with the client trough those realms, but being anchored by the physical body. That?s our thing.

Pergunta ininteligível…. algo sobre different systems, kind of a new nervous system and muscular work… working with breathe… ?back to muscular which for me is very familiar?…come back and explore something, explore back. Slowing down the pacients, exploring the practice, stretching and feeling, it?s very powerful.
So, my friends, there ir goes. Any other question? No? Well, the thing that I haven?t tell you before is that in terms of elaboration of the mannual it was a magical thing, because it took long, long years of slow cooking, a slow cooking process. One thing was to create, another to use them in class, another thing to use with clients, but it?s a different thing when you have to put it down into a document, with instructions. Instructions that have to be abstract enough to cover different body structures, and at the same time being clear enough so that people won?t trip on that. The photographs were taken in one crazy day, it was seven in the morning, client helping, trading work, another one, give me a kick, let?s do it and then pfffffff!, it was pretty linear the way we stretched and made those photographs. Not all them are very good. I tried to make the descriptions covr the imperfection of the pictures. The instructions cover the nuances that still pictures can not say. They were meant and organized to be done in a gradual way, and they have tons of rolf movements. I think it?s good instructions, because they go from simple to complicated, first day feel your foot, second day front and back, third day front, back and center, in fourth day you trasmite into it. I tried to put some into those instructions… how do you stand up, every time is different, this can be an inspiration that has some word into some of this common rolf movements, techniques you have always to do, teach your client how to stand up, and you find yourself without the words; you may find inspiration there. The way it is now: I had a hundred of those made, sold a couple already, and the boulder bookstore is gonna sell it in constant bases. If this is something that you wanna explore more, if you wanna play with your clients, it can be something you give a client, one thing to do.

So, they can be ordered into the rolfers book page, into the bookstore. They?re gonna cost US$20 at the Boulder?s bookstore, 5% goes to the Rolfing institute, everybody gets happy. It?s costing 15 here, because they are not getting anything, and that?s it, if it works, we can be happy. In the future may exist a small book. Anything you think, any thoughts you wanna share, I wanna use this opportunity to open up a forum, you have my e-mail trough the directory, if this picks up, you guys wanna explore, need feedback, I?ll be most interested and willing to be talking about.