Rolfing® Structural Integration
What Are the Benefits of Structural Integration?
Do you want to be more physically adaptable? Be able to breathe fully with ease? Have less back pain? Then Rolfing Structural Integration might be right for you. This holistic body work is based on the discoveries of American biochemist, Dr. Ida Rolf. Let me tell you seven ways that Structural Integration can benefit you.
1. MOBILITY
Rolfing can resolve unhealthy patterns in your body’s fascial network. After Rolfing, fascia and muscle layers glide more freely on each other and joint mobility is enhanced. As a result, mobility and flexibility are promoted throughout the body. Range of motion increases, and movement becomes smoother and more graceful.
2. BREATHING
One of Rolfing’s objectives is to free breathing. A complete and deep inhalation should be effortless. Exhalation should be relaxed and allow you to let go. In order to breathe freely, Rolfing focuses on enhancing thoracic mobility and allowing each breath to spread throughout the entire body. You will learn to experience your body through the breath and to feel the life within you!
3. POSTURE
Efficient upright posture is the result of an open and balanced myofascial system. Rolfing is a process that systematically reorganizes the body by addressing imbalances in these tissue. As the work progresses you will notice an effortless alignment between the ears, shoulders, pelvis, knees, and ankles. You will feel lighter in movement and more connected to the ground.
4. BALANCE AND STABILITY
As your body develops an upright posture and enhanced mobility, you will experience a feeling of being lighter overall. Balance improves and complicated movements are easier. You will notice how movement anywhere in the body affects the entire body.
5. REDUCED PAIN
Strain and discomfort in the body resulting from tensional imbalances and movement impairments can be relieved through Rolfing. This is how back pain, painful tension in the neck and shoulders, headaches, as well as hip, knee, and foot discomfort can be alleviated and resolved.
6. PROPRIOCEPTION
Enhanced proprioception leads to increased body awareness, which is one key to Rolfing’s long-term beneficial effects. Proprioceptive learning is promoted through the Rolfer’s manual work, verbal instructions and guided movements. Unlike massage and chiropractic care, a Rolfing session requires your active participation for maximum benefit. You will learn to be aware of inefficient patterns and how to quickly identify and eliminate bad habits.
7. WELL-BEING
Body and mind cannot be separated. This becomes clear over and over during Rolfing sessions. Freer breathing and more opening of the rib cage also implies more openness toward our environment and other people. An increased feeling of stability and support through the ground provides an enhanced sense of security and centeredness. Rolfing clients report more energy overall, more balance in difficult situations, more self-assurance, and an ability to display their inner selves more confidently.
Ida Says
“Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over forty may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are at war with gravity.”
