Rolf Structural Integration

Are you suffering from too much stress, poor posture, fatigue or low vitality? Rolf Structural Integration can help you feel thriving again. Developed by Dr. Ida P. Rolf, Rolf Structural Integration combines structural bodywork (deep tissue & myofascial release), movement education and guided dialogue to realign the body, release tension and stress and deepen awareness of your body, enabling you to adapt more easily to life changes.

Rolf Structural Integration is a unique and scientifically validated system of structural bodywork and somatic education which is based on the inseparability of body, mind, and spirit. It releases the body’s segments – legs, torso, arms etc.- from lifelong patterns of tension and bracing, and permits a realignment back to their natural relationships.

Of all the forces affecting the human body, gravity is among the most powerful. Misalignment in gravity, the stress of daily activities, and physical injuries can pull your body out of alignment. Your fascia gradually shortens, tightens, and adjusts to accommodate the misalignment resulting in inefficiency, imbalance, stiffness, discomfort, lowered vitality and impaired biological and psychological functioning.

Because your body will be better-balanced after Rolf Structural Integration, it will expend less of its vital energies against gravity. This biological energy efficiency is often experienced as a higher level of alertness and vitality – good posture is effortless and breathing is easier, your body becomes more flexible and coordinated, and athletic performance improves.

How Does It Work?

The concept behind Rolf Structural Integration is to resolve underlying imbalances in your whole body in order to realign your body segments by loosening and releasing your chronically tightened fascial & connective tissue, thus bringing permanent relief. Known as “the organ of structure”, this ‘fascial’ network supports your skeleton and soft tissues, positions your bones, determines your direction of movement, and gives your body its shape. Fascia is said to be the web, interconnecting all these tissues. Rolf Structural Integration realigns and balances your body by lengthening and repositioning your fascia. This is done through a systematic release of this fascia network using a variety of gentle yet strong, deep-tissue bodywork techniques. When your restricted fascia is released and lengthened, your body can return to its structurally optimal position.

As your body becomes more open and more aligned, strain and tension are reduced everywhere. This allows one to move and function with greater freedom, and effortlessly maintain a more upright posture. As your mobility returns, your muscles will relax, and your energy and range of motion will improve allowing better circulation and tissue respiration. Sometimes, if there are old injuries, the emotional memory of that injury may come back at the time of the treatment. People who have been Rolfed stand with more stability and less strain, breathe deeper and more easily, move with more natural grace, and develop a wider range of self-expression. As your body opens it creates an enhanced physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

The Ten Series

Rolf Structural Integration consists of ten sessions, each approximately one hour in length. Generally they are given one week apart with each session progressively building upon the last. The practitioner will help the client become more aware of habitual patterns of movement and imbalances in their body, allowing them to change patterns in their daily life. Changes will continue after the Ten Series is complete, sometimes with significant changes months later. Because Rolf Structural Integration deeply changes the body, it is usually advised to wait a few months before additional sessions (usually a “tune-up” 3-series). Occasionally, however, some severe conditions can be considered exceptions, and more attention can be given to such cases.

Rolf Structural Integration is a very personal process. Many report significant loss of chronic pain, cessation of other chronic complaints, less stress, and greater self-confidence. Others feel an opening of emotions, attitudes, belief systems, and behavioral patterns. Realign the physical structure and it will realign the emotional and psychological structure, opening up the individual’s potential. The body is an interwoven net of physical, psychological and emotional influences. Structural Integration focuses on the physical to open, expand and relax all three.