Rolfing is a scientific and intuitive system of balancing the physical structure in gravity; its fundamental and unique idea being that this omnipresent force will be received optimally by a body which is organized around a truly vertical principle of support. Dr. Ida Rolf is the founder of the system, which she named Structural Integration, but which her students dubbed Rolfing.

The Rolfing series, or ten series, is a wholistic approach to well being, considering the relationship of the part to the whole and the whole to the part. Each session is like a lens, trained on a particular facet of physical structure. Dr. Rolf created the series to catalyze the process of Structural Integration.

Sessions last about 60 minutes. At the start of each, the practitioner views the client’s structure. Observation and table work are done with clients in underwear or bathing suits. Breathing, sitting and walking will be considered in the course of the series, as well as the routine activities specific to each client. Individualized “homework” is suggested. Sessions are generally spaced between once/week to once/3 weeks.

“Our business as Rolfers is to understand that we are working in a gravitational field. Nobody else has done this; nobody else has sat down and said: ‘I have to learn to use gravity as a tool.’ “

--Dr. Ida Rolf

Why Rolfing® works:

Swathing the entire human frame like a second skin, enveloping every muscle, bone, nerve and organ is the ubiquitous and unbroken system of tissue known as fascia (connective tissue). Fascia separates, supports, compartmentalizes and organizes the content of our bodies from structures gross to minute. Ideally, the fascia creates and maintains right structural relationships throughout the body. Physical or emotional trauma, illness, habit or chronic strain can result in the fascial sheets sticking where they should glide, becoming twisted, dry and restrictive where they ought to be spacious, moist and breathable. When the fascia winds tight, the legs, pelvis, back, arms and neck compress and rotate. Ease of motion suffers, and pain often results.

Rolfers are trained to see and to palpate patterns of strain in the facial network, and to release these with a variety of strategies including hands-on work, movement cues, breathing exercises and education in body-awareness and use. Gradually, tensions in the facial system are brought into balance: front to back, side-to-side, surface to deep. Fascial planes become lengthened and distinguished and the body organizes in a more upright, more functional alignment. As vertical order is approached, the true support of feet, knees, pelvis, etc. becomes realized. Every structure above is endowed with support from below, and on an instinctive level, the body understands it can relax.

“The body process is not linear, it is circular; always, it is circular. One thing goes awry, and its effects go on and on and on and on. A body is a web, connecting everything with everything else.

—Dr. Ida Rolf