ABSTRACT Rolfing® Structural Integration enhances the relationship between the human body, mind, and athletic performance by exploring physical and perceptual capabilities. In this article, Advanced Rolfing® Instructor Pierpaola Volpones discusses the elegance and harmony of athletic gestures, the historical and cultural significance of sports, and the determination required for training and competition while highlighting testimonies from some athletes.

ABSTRACT All humans are embedded in a gravity project. It is a project where we learn to rest down into the support of the ground while also reaching upward into spaciousness so that we may orient to, and move through, our environment. Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® faculty member, Pierpaola Volpones, describes the gravity journey, some of the common experiences gravity brings to each of us as human beings.

ABSTRACT In this interview, Rolfer Lina Amy Hack talks with the Director of the Associazone Italiana Rolfing, Marina Blandini, and Italian Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® faculty member Pierpaola Volpones about Rolfing® Structural Integration in Italy, the challenges they have experienced during the pandemic, and the strategies that are helping them persevere. Editor’s note: This conversation took place on March 21, 2022.

ABSTRACT In this discussion about what ‘integration’ means for Rolfers®, Pierpaola Volpones explores the many structures involved with integrating the complex human organism, including an exploration of walking and her personal experience of feeling integrated after a Rolfing session.

ABSTRACT This conversation between two Dr. Ida Rolf Institute® (DIRI) faculty members focus on the path Pierpaola Volpones has traveled to becoming a Rolf Movement® Practitioner, a Rolfer®, a Basic Rolfing Instructor, and recently an Advanced Rolfing Instructor.

ABSTRACT This article considers the spine metaphorically, embryologically, and as a location for chronic pain. Faculty member Pierpaola Volpones discusses the journey of learning about backs, doing Rolfing SI back work, and teaching others how to help vertebrae find their way home.

Pierpaola Volpones speaks with Naomi Wynter-Vincent about the eyes of Rolfers, that seeing body patterns happens as a physical event of vision for the practitioner. Volpones has been addressing her eyes with the Bates Method of Vision Education and she discusses the value of allowing herself to have blurry vision with no glasses. Structural states that relate to focal and peripheral vision are described.

ABSTRACT People who seek Rolfing® Structural Integration often notice that their head is located in an unexpected position and Rolfers™ have been ‘putting the head back on’ since Dr. Rolf showed us how. In this article, Pierpaola Volpones discusses the complexity of the head as home to so many tissue systems. She shares some insights from her own clinical work and what it means when Rolfers hold client’s heads in our hands.

ABSTRACT Breath has always been integral to our Rolfing® Structural Integration and Rolf Movement® paradigm. In this column, our faculty authors speak to the foundational nature of breathing in our work.

ABSTRACT The field of Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) and Rolf Movement® is diverse and our thought processes and our work stimulated by many varied interests. Here some of our faculty share what currently excites them in their practices and their teaching.