The Evolutionary Sequence – Part I

Part One Rationale and Principles of Movement Related to Structural Integration INTRODUCTION From 1978 to 1984, Caryn McHose taught Experiential Anatomy at Middlebury College, Vermont.’ The experience of teaching many classes of students confirmed that seeing and feeling specific body and body to space relationships transforms peoples’ movement and changes their physiology. The classes also […]

New Conceptions of Breathing Anatomy and Biomechanics

To understand the role of posture in the breath, we are going to start by looking at the biomechanics of the breath itself. Again, we will be primarily concerned with normal, quiet breathing and focusing therefore on the muscles involved in inhalation. All the muscles in Table One are said to be involved in inspiration […]

Don Hazen’s Neurological Notes

LAMINECTOMY Technically a laminectomy is the procedure of cutting away part of the lamina, the posterior part of the vertebral arch from the transverse to the spinous process, in order to gain access to the spinal canal. A discectomy is removal of part or all of the disc. Fusion is not necessarily part of a […]

Scoliosis: A Case Study

When Amy’s mother brought her tonic in 1993 she was 13. Extremely self conscious of her curvature, she would not look me in the eye, nor allow me to examine her with clothes off. I was pessimistic about how much help I could be to her after observing her trait and other abberant movement patterns. […]

A New Physics and Other Books

INTRODUCTION Those who explore the world of science know that the whole enterprise has but one permanent aspect: like it or not, what we know to be true is always changing. This is, of course, disconcerting to those who are emotionally attached to the explanations of nature they have learned in the past. Real progress […]

What Are Graphics and Why Do We Need Them Anyway

If you have a friend who is a graphic artist and who knows about the Rolf institute, chances are good that your discussions have turned, at some point, to the Institutes graphics, and chances are good that what your friend had to say about the Institute’s graphics was less than enthusiastic endorsement. If you don’t […]

Letter from Donald Soule

I am writing the first part of this letter as a member of the Selection Committee and the second part to share my feeling about the “fixing”/recipie discussion. The Selection Committee is going through some reorganization and I am soliciting your input and feedback. The Committee will surely appreciate points of view other than those […]

Innovations in Back Work

One of the problems with success is that it tends to repeat itself. The back work we do on the bench in Rolfing is probably some of the most successful back work in the business. The client lets their head drop forward as we work downwards in the layers of connective tissue with our elbows […]

Rolfing by the Rules

In striving to gain another level of1 conceptual clarity around our understanding of the Rolfing “recipe”, I remembered a distinction used in philosophical ethics and realized it applies to our work. The distinction is between two kinds of rules: constitutive rules and rules of strategy. Consider any game such as checkers, five-card stud, and the […]