I was introduced to Rolfing structural integration through massage which I first experienced as part of an Arica Forty Day Training I attended in Carbondale, Colorado in 1974. Chua Ka is possibly a Mongolian tradition that was practiced as a form of self massage by warriors to facilitate the cleansing of trauma and fear from their bodies after battle. After a brief discussion and demonstration the fifty participants in the training paired up to give each other a facial massage. We did not use sticks and stones as tools which this oral tradition claimed was done by the Mongols but we were impressed with how our faces were transformed.

 

Two years later I began studying at the Boulder School of Massage Therapy. At some point during my year of massage training our class was visited by Tom Wing and Heather Starsong, two local Rolfing practitioners who demonstrated their work for us. I was impressed enough with what I learned that I began a series of ten sessions from Tom. My experience after my second session of the ten series, which focused on the legs and feet, demonstrated to me how our physical and emotional history is stored in our bodies and how Rolfing can have a profound beneficial effect.I was born with a common birth defect called club foot. At that time casting each of my leg sand feet in metal braces for several months was prescribed for treatment. I was about three or four years old and I have very little memory of that experience but I imagine that it was uncomfortable and frustrating. Twenty years later as Tom spent the hour stretching and molding the muscles and connective tissues of my legs and feet he facilitated a release of residual memory stored in my body. My plans for the rest of that day aligned perfectly to allow me to express a rediscovered exhilaration of movement. A ten mile ski up and back along a hiking trail in the foothills above Boulder seemed effortless. Later in the evening I joined friends for two hours of folk dancing. I wonder where my crazy legs took me in my dreams that night.

 

I began training at The Dr. Ida Rolf Institute in 1980 to learn Rolf Movement Integration®. Heather Starsong was one of several dedicated teachers who introduced their students to this subtle exploration of movement and posture inspired by Dr. Rolf’s understanding of the human body as a vertical structure supported within the field of gravity. As students we worked with each other and with models; first learning to see restrictive patterns in the body and then to use touch, breath, and movement as tools to release chronic tension while introducing more efficient patterns of movement. Rolf Movement is not direct tissue manipulation but more a retraining of neuromuscular patterns of the body. Through a series of sessions the recipient becomes more aware of limiting patterns while learning to find more balance in their posture and movement. Results can include relief from chronic pain, better balance and fluidity, more stamina, and for some,improvement in artistic and athletic performance. I was certified as a Rolfing Movement Teacher in 1981 and spent the next few years embodying what I had learned while working as a massage therapist, an exercise therapist for developmentally challenged adults, and a Rolf Movement Practitioner.

 

In 1987 I returned to the Rolf Institute to begin my Rolfing practitioner training. The basic training is grounded in human anatomy and physiology with emphasis on how manipulation of the soft tissues can restore order to the body. Dr Rolf’s understanding of the fascia as a network of connection and communication led her to develop a ten session series that treats the body as an integrated whole rather than a collection of individual parts. With informed touch that listens and responds, the Rolfing practitioner encourages balanced tonicity between tissue layers, bones, visceral organs; any individual part or area that has lost its’ ability to movef reely in relationship to it’s surroundings

 

In 1995 I completed the Advanced Rolfing Training taught by Rolfers® Jeff Maitland and Michael Salveson which included introductions to spinal manipulation and cranial sacral techniques. My work as a Rolfer and Rolf Movement practitioner has also been influenced through study with the late Emily Conrad and her students of Dance Continuum; French Rolfer Hubert Goddard through his Four Structures Tonic Function workshop series exploring perceptual and psychological factors in movement; and Didier Pratt D.O. through his visceral manipulation workshops.