Number Two Rolfer
Anne Hoff has just emailed me to ask if I would like to write a piece for the journal. We met years ago, she reminded me, at a workshop in Virginia with Vivian Jaye. I remember. I’m thinking I won’t write, it’s not my thing, but I’ll ask Maryanne [Gabriel] – New Zealand’s other Rolfer […]
Core Strength from a Rolfing Perspective
Question: In the fitness world the concept of “core strength” is often mentioned as a benefit of certain exercise regimens. Please compare and contrast the concept of core strength /stability from a Rolfing perspective and from a more mainstream fitness perspective. Answer: Core as an Event in Time A Rolfing practitioner must be comfortable […]
The Development of the Rolf Movement Work
Vivian Jaye and Jane Harrington in the late spring of 1991 during a movement certification training. Anne Hoff: Vivian and Jane, when I approached you with the idea of an interview on the history and development of the Rolf Movement work, you had particular reasons for wanting to do the interview together. What are […]
Radial Decompression: Its Origin and Use
Valerie Berg: What is radial decompression and how did you come to create it? Jan Sultan: Radial decompression originally came as an attempt to solve the “pre-Eight” question – is this an upper or lower session? In practice, I’d come to make the simple choice to work the girdle that looked the least organized. Dr […]
The Neurology of Posture
Jan Sultan: How did you first become interested in the nerve work? Don Hazen: Probably my first “niblet” was Robert Becker’s Body Electric, which opened the notion for me that more was happening than our models of neural function explained. A decade later, in chiropractic school there was a lot of buzz about a […]
A Student’s Project: Survey of Trans-structural Experiences in Phase II
The following collection of articles offers insight into part of the current process of training Rolfers at the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration (RISI). The starting point was a Phase II project by then-student Vivian Gettliffe. Her instructor, Thomas Walker, suggested that she write up her class project to submit to Structural Integration: The Journal […]
The Case Study Method: Year Two
Perhaps the greatest challenge for the scientific investigation of our work is its essential holism: the multi-dimensional and holistic attributes that give structural integration (SI) its conceptual richness also complicate the scientific assessment of its results. Segmentation of reality and isolation of phenomena, often used for controlling multiple variables, in our context pose the risk […]
An Informal Case Study of Using Other Maps to Explore the Rolfing® Territory
Through her study of Alfred Korzybski and General Semantics, Dr. Rolf became familiar with the catch phrase, “The map is not the territory.” While one could apply this to Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) in the sense of keeping our conceptual working frameworks relative to the reality of what is presented in the individual, by extension […]
Cranial, Oral, and Nasal Work in Rolfing® SI
Derek Gill: The story is told that Dr. Rolf gave you a mandate to go off and study cranial work with various osteopaths to bring that knowledge back to the Rolfing [Structural Integration (SI)] community. Jim Asher: Yes. It started out when I was in a Rolfing class with Ida in the Florida Keys in […]
Resiliency as a Conceptual Model
Perhaps is it some consolation to know that when it comes to the issue of dealing with pain from the viewpoint of integration, the first Rolfer, Dr. Rolf herself, confronted many of the same issues. When she presented her work to chiropractors and osteopaths in the 50s in the hope they would champion her work, […]