What is Rolfing?
What is Structural Integration?
The Rolf method of Structural Integration straightens the body and creates space in the joints and spine. There are a series of 10 sessions each aimed to liberating certain areas of the body. The goal is to optimally balance the body's lines and planes, creating more length in the spine so one may rise up more vertically with better posture and have a healthier relationship with Gravity. It also creates balance by loosening and lengthening the fascia throughout the body in its various layers. A feeling of being free!
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When the legs, pelvis, torso and head are centered, the body is balanced. You may feel less tension and be able to make movements effortlessly.
Many chronic and unexplained pain, especially in the neck and back, could be successfully treated with the Rolf method of Structural Integration. Research in recent years confirms the fascia as an organ of resilience and as an intelligent structure that connects and keeps the entire body in communication. |
What is a Session Like?
The main goal of Structural Integration is to bring the body into a natural balance with the earth's gravitational field.
This is achieved through ten sessions of approximately 90 minutes in which the fascia network is systematically stretched and reorganized.
Normally the practitioner first analyzes your body structure while standing, sitting and walking. Then you generally lay down on a massage table, and the practitioner begins giving the session. It kind of looks like a massage, but when you receive it you realize it's much different. It's slower, works directly with the fascia which each session is based on the previous one. During treatment you usually lie down, sometimes sitting or standing.
This is achieved through ten sessions of approximately 90 minutes in which the fascia network is systematically stretched and reorganized.
Normally the practitioner first analyzes your body structure while standing, sitting and walking. Then you generally lay down on a massage table, and the practitioner begins giving the session. It kind of looks like a massage, but when you receive it you realize it's much different. It's slower, works directly with the fascia which each session is based on the previous one. During treatment you usually lie down, sometimes sitting or standing.
Brief History
Structural Integration, also known as Rolfing, was founded by Dr. Ida P. Rolf integrating over 50 years of research and practice. Ida developed the 10-Series, her goal was to organize the human bodily structure in relation to gravity. Dr. Ida P Rolf earned her PHD and was a biochemist. She studied yoga which had an influence in the creation of structural integration. She began creating Structural Integration in the 1940's and began teaching it at Esalen Institute in the 1960's! Since then, her work continues to live on.
“When the body gets working appropriately, the force of Gravity can flow through, then spontaneously, the body heals itself.” — Ida Rolf
“You can't get beyond the body unless you free the body itself.” — Ida Rolf
“When the body gets working appropriately, the force of Gravity can flow through, then spontaneously, the body heals itself.” — Ida Rolf
“You can't get beyond the body unless you free the body itself.” — Ida Rolf
What is fascia? Why is Rolfing different than a massage?
Structural Integration is different in that it works directly with the fascia with the understanding that fascia is malleable, it can change, and by using a combination of pressure, tension, temperature and frequency. Each session and 10-series is different as the structural integrator will move at an individually chosen application rate, the rate at which the fascia changes. Which can often be very slow and varies person to person. The fascia begins softening in layers and as a result the body begins relating in a new way with gravity.
Fascia is the connective tissue between all of the other structures in the body – the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles – all have a casing around them – similar to the casing on a sausage, or the white part inside the orange that encompasses each slice. Research in recent years confirms the fascia as an organ of resilience and as an intelligent structure that connects and keeps the entire body in communication. It consists of a three-dimensional continuum of both dense and loose connective tissue, which permeates the human body, and which contains collagen within it.
With structural integration you are going into those spaces and separating the adhesions that happen so those structures can glide against themselves again. With massage it's often geared more towards the larger muscle bodies, relieving stress, a session to feel good, whereas with structural integration while it can feel good the goal is more to free the body with specific goals for each session vs. only treating a sore part of the body such as the lower back or neck, we treat the entire human body as everything is connected.
Over time our bodies through trauma such as falling down, a car accident, even birth along with habitual patterning, like sleeping the same way every night or playing tennis with the same leading arm for years, the structures can become stuck together, they lose their ability to go through there extreme range of motion.
If you were to stretch hamstrings that had an adhesion, you could stretch them forever, but unless you go in and work with those hamstrings so they're not bound together, you’ll never fully realize their full-length potential.
With Structural Integration you work with the fascia to release adhesions and create more space and freedom within your body. We’re going into an area that’s been restricted in movement and we’re taking away the barriers to movement and the adhesions that have built up within that fascial system so that the body can return to slide and glide and reach its full potential.
The 10-Series offer a session of 10 sessions that each have specific goals. It's the founder Ida Rolf's recipe. At Gravity Body Academy we love to take before and after pictures so you not only feel the changes but visually see them.
Fascia is the connective tissue between all of the other structures in the body – the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles – all have a casing around them – similar to the casing on a sausage, or the white part inside the orange that encompasses each slice. Research in recent years confirms the fascia as an organ of resilience and as an intelligent structure that connects and keeps the entire body in communication. It consists of a three-dimensional continuum of both dense and loose connective tissue, which permeates the human body, and which contains collagen within it.
With structural integration you are going into those spaces and separating the adhesions that happen so those structures can glide against themselves again. With massage it's often geared more towards the larger muscle bodies, relieving stress, a session to feel good, whereas with structural integration while it can feel good the goal is more to free the body with specific goals for each session vs. only treating a sore part of the body such as the lower back or neck, we treat the entire human body as everything is connected.
Over time our bodies through trauma such as falling down, a car accident, even birth along with habitual patterning, like sleeping the same way every night or playing tennis with the same leading arm for years, the structures can become stuck together, they lose their ability to go through there extreme range of motion.
If you were to stretch hamstrings that had an adhesion, you could stretch them forever, but unless you go in and work with those hamstrings so they're not bound together, you’ll never fully realize their full-length potential.
With Structural Integration you work with the fascia to release adhesions and create more space and freedom within your body. We’re going into an area that’s been restricted in movement and we’re taking away the barriers to movement and the adhesions that have built up within that fascial system so that the body can return to slide and glide and reach its full potential.
The 10-Series offer a session of 10 sessions that each have specific goals. It's the founder Ida Rolf's recipe. At Gravity Body Academy we love to take before and after pictures so you not only feel the changes but visually see them.
Structural Integration is different in that it works directly with the fascia with the understanding that fascia is malleable, it can change, and by using a combination of pressure, tension, temperature and frequency. Each session and 10-series is different as the structural integrator will move at an individually chosen application rate, the rate at which the fascia changes. Which can often be very slow and varies person to person. The fascia begins softening in layers and as a result the body begins relating in a new way with gravity.
Fascia is the connective tissue between all of the other structures in the body – the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles – all have a casing around them – similar to the casing on a sausage, or the white part inside the orange that encompasses each slice. Research in recent years confirms the fascia as an organ of resilience and as an intelligent structure that connects and keeps the entire body in communication. It consists of a three-dimensional continuum of both dense and loose connective tissue, which permeates the human body, and which contains collagen within it.
With structural integration you are going into those spaces and separating the adhesions that happen so those structures can glide against themselves again. With massage it's often geared more towards the larger muscle bodies, relieving stress, a session to feel good, whereas with structural integration while it can feel good the goal is more to free the body with specific goals for each session vs. only treating a sore part of the body such as the lower back or neck, we treat the entire human body as everything is connected.
Over time our bodies through trauma such as falling down, a car accident, even birth along with habitual patterning, like sleeping the same way every night or playing tennis with the same leading arm for years, the structures can become stuck together, they lose their ability to go through there extreme range of motion.
If you were to stretch hamstrings that had an adhesion, you could stretch them forever, but unless you go in and work with those hamstrings so they're not bound together, you’ll never fully realize their full-length potential.
With Structural Integration you work with the fascia to release adhesions and create more space and freedom within your body. We’re going into an area that’s been restricted in movement and we’re taking away the barriers to movement and the adhesions that have built up within that fascial system so that the body can return to slide and glide and reach its full potential.
The 10-Series offer a session of 10 sessions that each have specific goals. It's the founder Ida Rolf's recipe. At Gravity Body Academy we love to take before and after pictures so you not only feel the changes but visually see them.
Fascia is the connective tissue between all of the other structures in the body – the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles – all have a casing around them – similar to the casing on a sausage, or the white part inside the orange that encompasses each slice. Research in recent years confirms the fascia as an organ of resilience and as an intelligent structure that connects and keeps the entire body in communication. It consists of a three-dimensional continuum of both dense and loose connective tissue, which permeates the human body, and which contains collagen within it.
With structural integration you are going into those spaces and separating the adhesions that happen so those structures can glide against themselves again. With massage it's often geared more towards the larger muscle bodies, relieving stress, a session to feel good, whereas with structural integration while it can feel good the goal is more to free the body with specific goals for each session vs. only treating a sore part of the body such as the lower back or neck, we treat the entire human body as everything is connected.
Over time our bodies through trauma such as falling down, a car accident, even birth along with habitual patterning, like sleeping the same way every night or playing tennis with the same leading arm for years, the structures can become stuck together, they lose their ability to go through there extreme range of motion.
If you were to stretch hamstrings that had an adhesion, you could stretch them forever, but unless you go in and work with those hamstrings so they're not bound together, you’ll never fully realize their full-length potential.
With Structural Integration you work with the fascia to release adhesions and create more space and freedom within your body. We’re going into an area that’s been restricted in movement and we’re taking away the barriers to movement and the adhesions that have built up within that fascial system so that the body can return to slide and glide and reach its full potential.
The 10-Series offer a session of 10 sessions that each have specific goals. It's the founder Ida Rolf's recipe. At Gravity Body Academy we love to take before and after pictures so you not only feel the changes but visually see them.