Rolfings founder worked to counter body's "war
with gravity"
After 50 years of studying body structure, Ida Rolf came
to the conclusion that the body functions best when its major segments
are aligned and balanced. Stresses in the body structure disappear;
causes of chronic posture-related aches, pains and dysfunctions are
removed. Rolfing allows the body's natural line to emerge.
She recognized that gravity is the basic shaper of our bodies and discovered
that muscle tissue can be lengthened by skillful manipulation thus restoring
the body to good posture.Her work became known as the Rolf Method of
Structural Integration.
Rolf earned a doctorate in biochemistry from Columbia University in
1916. In the '30s because of a family illness, Rolf turned her attention
toward the causes of poor posture. During her research, she discovered
that the network of connective tissue that contains and links the muscle
system when it's healthy can be used to reshape it when it has been
pulled out "One individual may experience his losing fight with
gravity as a sharp pain" in the back, another as the unflattering
contour of his body, another as constant fatigue, and yet another as
an unrelenting threatening environment.
Those over 40 may call it old age; yet all these signals may be pointing
to a single problem so prominent in their own structures and the structures
of others that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are all
at war with gravity."
In the '60s, in response to demand Rolf began teaching her technique
to others and eventually founded the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colo
1971. Rolfers and Rolfing Movement Teachers can only be trained and
certified by the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration.
Most of the deep-tissue therapies or myofascial release techniques now
used trace their origins to Rolfing.
