What is Rolfing?

Rolfing is a global vision of how to de-layer fascia in order to create a full possibility of movement. Each muscle has a layer of fascia around it, and that spider-webs through it. We are a web of fascia that is our shape. Impacts from injuries, patterns from repetitive movement, surgeries, and trauma create compensations in our body. These layered fascial adhesions begin to shift bones, organs, and nerves. The nerves are what the body is always trying to protect. We don’t lose movement through tissue being tight, we lose movement as one fascial layer, above or below another, loses its ability to move across and instead they both move together. When nerves do not have the ability to move freely, they give out pain signals. Pain is the bodies excitement for the possibility of change. Rolfing can create the space through the layers for the nervous system to restore ease. These days when I look at bodies, I see how people are cradling their nervous system.

What is the difference between Rolfing and Chiropractic work?

Rolfers are masters of how soft tissue comes together. They understand the global map of the body and have vision to interpret how each individuals history manifests. A chiropractic adjustment or a traditional massage can often create momentary relief that is followed by some slide back. Rolfing is addressing the reasons for that slide back.

What can it do for me?

When you deal with less pain, you have more energy throughout the day. Rolfing is also teaching efficiency in gravity. It has the possibility of changing chronic pain and teaching the individual about their holding and movement patterns. Rolfing teaches how to start dealing with movements that hurt and bringing new possibility of movement. With each decade of age, the fascial body wears out joints. I find ages 30-50 to be ideal for making lasting change. I work with athletes, people who sit at desks for a living, parents, children, even the elderly find change amidst their lifetime of compensations. Anyone with a body.

Some of the most common things people come to me for are:

-Carpal tunnel
-Sciatica
-Pelvic malfunction/pelvic floor work
-Scoliosis
-Auto accident injuries
-Headaches
-Vagus nerve issues
-Chronic neck/back pain
-Plantar fasciitis
-Restricted breathing

I commonly hear individuals share their journey through the system (doctors, tests, scans, series of other therapy modalities) before finding Rolfing.

Does it hurt?

Early Rolfers used one tool to work fascia which was force and Rolfing was given the reputation of being painful from that. Entering the 60th year of Rolfing, we have a lot more tools available to work with fascia. I spend a lot of time listening, relating and coaxing in order to have the entire fascial body unbrace from its holding pattern. If the individual is tensing up and not breathing, the global fascial body is not in its best integration. This is not a recipe for easy integration. Most people describe my Rolfing as the feeling of stretching. There’s moments of it burning, aching, or hurting in one place when I’m working on another. Most, after experiencing a session, say they were surprised that it wasn’t as painful as expected. Also that it’s different than anything they’ve experienced before. Rolfing works through the body days after a session. Tenderness is common as are shifts throughout the body as it decompensates.