bodywork for every body
PATTERNS Structural Integration is a system of hands-on myofascial bodywork based on the understanding of humans as highly adaptable and self-regulating beings. The way we function and respond to input from the world around us literally shapes our bodies and minds. Human bodies are incredibly resourceful – they organize around stress and strain, laying down protective and supportive layers of connective tissue, including bone, in order to adapt to the demands of gravity and the environment. Throughout lifetimes, we are constantly overlaying patterns into our exquisitely complex bodies. Patterns of movement and stillness show themselves from the surface of the skin to the internal workings of the cells. Patterns may be imprinted upon the body by the demands of jobs, past traumas, learned movement techniques, and even by the shoes we wear. Having taken on certain behaviors and compensations, we become limited in our options for movement. The effort to maintain these patterns often causes more pain than the initial reason for the adaptation. The resulting imbalance hinders our ability to be in clear relationship with ourselves and to others. We lose access to life force, clarity of expression, and connection.
PROCESS Structural Integration breaks this cycle by reorganizing your body in terms of its intrinsic relationships, by releasing strain patterns held in the fascia, and by nourishing your body with new, more efficient and easeful patterns. As compensations are shed and harmony restored, your body learns to right itself effortlessly, rather than struggling against gravity. People who have received this work often describe feeling simultaneously lifted and rooted – this comes from balance and poise within the field of gravity.
Structural Integrators are trained to see both the limitations and the potential in the unique ways you stand, sit, and move. Sessions begin with a conversation about your experience of your body, your perceptions and curiosities. I’ll ask you to walk, stand, and do some simple movements, in order to take a “reading” of your body. From there, I’ll design a Structural Integration session that attends to your particular needs. This is not a passive form of bodywork – during a session, you will be asked to reach, push, breathe, allow, articulate, and otherwise invoke movement and awareness in your body as slow directional contact is made with the layers of your fascia. This contact can range from subtle and light, to deep and weighted. In areas of greater restriction, the sensation of fascia being stretched may be more intense. There is constant communication between bodyworker and client to ensure that you are comfortable with the depth of contact.
FASCIA The fascia forms a three-dimensional web throughout the body. It is considered the “organ of structure”, permeating and ensheathing the muscles, giving them shape and thus determining their function. The fascial matrix is also thought to be a communication network, complementing the nervous system. It is capable of conducting electric currents in response to pressure (a phenomenon known as the piezoelectric effect). This conductivity, the movement of electrons along the crystalline proteins in the fascia, is dependent upon the amount of water in these proteins. Structural Integration hydrates the fascia, thereby making bodies more efficient conductors of energy. More than any other tissue in the body, fascia is both extremely resilient and uniquely impressionable. This means that once “resculpted” by a Structural Integrator, you will (to a large degree) retain your new form. New habits of movement and posture will emerge. Throughout the process I will encourage you to bring awareness to new alignments, to move in unfamiliar ways to reinforce the structural/functional change.
HOLISM Structural Integration is typically done as a series of ten sessions, which build upon each other to bring about change in a thorough and integrative way. Each session addresses a particular territory, with attention to the functioning of the whole person. Over the course of ten sessions, the body comes into balance – front to back, side to side, top to bottom, and (perhaps most importantly) inside to outside.
An integrated body becomes more resilient and adaptable, so after receiving a ten-series, it is unlikely that you’ll need additional ongoing work. It may, however, be beneficial to return for an occasional “tune-up”.
Dr. Ida P. Rolf, who created Structural Integration (nicknamed Rolfing in the 1960’s), believed strongly that this work should not be about merely ameliorating symptoms (although it can be extremely effective as “fix-it” work). She believed that by deeply contacting and repatterning fascia, and by attending to the organization of a whole human being, we call into action the body’s innate healing resources. In her own words:
…many therapies are striking at the pattern of disease, instead of supporting the pattern of health.
When the body gets working appropriately, the force of gravity can flow through. Then spontaneously, the body heals itself.