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Rolfing, treatment of dysfunction - Samuele Serreli

Rolfing, treatment of dysfunction

Rolfing or Structural Integration is a systematic program of postural re-patterning via connective tissue manipulation. My intent is to define the scope, history and the difference and similarities between Rolfing and other therapies.

Dr. Ida P.Rolf was born in 1896 and obtained her doctorate in biochemistry in the late 1920’s, she experienced spinal arthritis and started exploring human function and structure in order to help her condition. Her earliest inquiry was into yoga and when she first started working with clients it was via yoga postures with the added twist that where the client’s tissue would not accommodate the position, Dr. Rolf use to stretch the tissues to help the client achieve the depths of the postures. This technique formed the fundamental basis for her evolving method. While in vacation in Colorado a kick by a horse left her with symptoms like pneumonia, an osteopath put her back together, bringing traditional manipulative osteopathy, another major taproot for Rolfing, into her life. We could consider Rolfing to be the soft tissue subset of the osteopathic inquiry, with the exception that Rolfing looks for general systematic improvements rather than specific correction of lesions. But the osteopaths at that time were seeking more legitimacy through demonstrating their ability to deal with specific pathologies as well as structural issues.

Spatial medicine

Like yoga, osteopathy and the Alexander technique, Rolfing explores the domain of“spatial medicine”, what can be improved through changing spatial relationships within the body? Rolfing exploration is really wide considering evolution, maturational development, self-expression, the relationship between spatial arrangement and physiology, and biomechanics. In simple terms when reduced to it’s actual scope, Rolfing seeks to organise the body around the vertical line of gravity and lengthen it along that line. All of this is done with active participation of the client and perceptive work. Sometimes trauma and habits contribute on creating forgotten areas of the body, with sub sequential areas of compensation creating patterns of pain.The source of pain pattern,however,can be distance from the site of pain itself, and may also be grounded in an event which occurred long before the pain appeared. Along with the goal of length along the central axis of posture, Rolfing looks to identify areas of structural isolation and bringing into the fold of structural integration.

Rolfing is system orientated , not symptoms orientated. The aim of rolfing is not to “fix it” but to integrate. The fix it mentality presupposes that there is something wrong with the client and the professional is the expert who is going to repair or restore it. Rolfing looks into bringing the body from one place of balance to another, hopefully more functional, state of balance . Individual session are good to correct specific structural pathology, but working remedially to the exclusion of the whole system is not what rolfing is about. One of the views of rolfing is the tensegrity structure model, where bones are floating within a sea of soft tissue tension, where the position of the floating struts rest on the balance of the tensional bands, meaning ”myofascial network” .if we look at most of the therapies around and old models of thinking, a painful shoulder could only be “ repaired “ by working on the local structures, but because of the tensegrity structure model, the strains distribute in the whole body, working requires that any local changes must be balance globally for long lasting result. In other words the tensegrity structure model fits well with the systematic view of spatial medicine , rather than the symptom based view.

Samuele Serreli

Samuele is a personal trainer and qualified Rolfing practitioner, he specialises in movement dysfunction. www.rolfing-workshop.co.uk

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