ROLFING®

What is Rolfing® ?

Rolfing® Structural Integration is a system of hands-on body manipulation to help align the body within gravity. It focuses on the fascia (connective tissue) but involves the whole body.

Certified Rolfers® use touch and movement to support their clients in improving their posture and movement patterns.

Rolfing® is different from therapies like massage, deep tissue work, chiropractic or osteopathy. But people often present with similar physical symptoms.

When Rolfing® is used?

Most people see a Rolferᵀᴹ to:

  • improve physical and mental well-being,

  • avoid chronic tension and to help with recovery after injuries or operations,

  • help with easing chronic pain,

  • lessen the physical symptoms of trauma

  • expand self-awareness and expression when acting, dancing or playing an instrument,

  • train more effectively and increase performance in athletics and sports

What Rolfing® does

Bodies store physical, mental and emotional tension, trauma and stress. Pain in one area of the body will affect other parts. Rolfing® can improve how your body functions physically, and how you feel emotionally.

Rolfing® will help you:

  • feel flexible and dynamic

  • move with ease

  • feel your body energised and vital

  • find an upright and balanced posture

  • recognise movement patterns that lead to tension and asymmetry. You will discover how your body can move more economically, powerfully and fluidly.

  • realise how historical stress and trauma is stored and impacts the body in our joints and how we breathe.

Read more about the benefits of Rolfing® further below.

How Rolfing® is performed

There are generally 2 ways of experiencing Rolfing®:

1- The Classic Rolfing® Structural Integration ‘Ten Series’ of sessions

Here you’ll work one-to-one with a Certified Rolferᵀᴹ. You’ll usually attend ten sessions about 1 to 4 weeks apart that last around an hour each. The first session is always longer.

The sessions of the Ten Series are structured into 3 parts:

  • sessions 1 to 3 focus on the superficial fascial layers

  • sessions 4 to 7 address deeper fascia and the body’s organisation around a vertical axis

  • sessions 8 to 10 look at aligning the body to improve balance and flexibility

Before the first session, your Rolferᵀᴹ will ask about your symptoms, general health and medical care you're receiving. He or she then observes how you breathe, how you stand and walk. During the manual work on your fascia you will lie on a massage table. The Rolferᵀᴹ will also ask you to participate with simple movements. The sessions usually take place in underwear.

2 – Bespoke series of sessions

For some a short series of sessions to address chronic issues can be offered or a bespoke series in itself. Typically this involves many aspects of the initial ten series with a focus on any presenting needs. Many Rolfers have additional modalities which they may offer to integrate into the work with discussion. For example, some Rolfers are also Somatic Experiencing® Practitioners and integrate the two modalities to address trauma and how this impacts the experience and challenges of being in the body. In this specific example the work would be done at a bespoke respectful pace and rightly takes more time than the traditional 10 series.

Why is it called ‘Rolfing®’?

Rolfing® is named after biochemist Dr. Ida Rolf (1896 – 1979), who developed Rolfing® Structural Integration in the middle of the 20th century. Ida drew inspiration from homoeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, yoga, Alexander Technique, and Korzybski’s work on states of consciousness

Rolfing® Benefits

Do you want to be more flexible? Breathe with more ease? Have less back pain? Feel more in your body and be with the rich emotional life of being more embodied? Then Rolfing® Structural Integration might be right for you.

Below are 7 reasons why Rolfing® can benefit you:

  • DescripRolfing® can resolve unhealthy patterns in the 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.tion text goes here

  • One of Rolfing®’s objectives is to free breathing. Complete and deep inhalation should be as effortless as possible, exhalation should be relaxed and allow a person to let go. In order to breath freely, Rolfing® focuses on enhancing thoracic mobility and allowing each breath to spread throughout the entire body. Myofascial tissues on the front of the rib cage and shoulder girdle are often short. As a result, the ribs cannot move freely with each inhalation – something that occurs 15,000 to 20,000 times every day. Over time, the shortness in these frontal structures often increases not only limiting breathing, but creating restrictions in organ mobility as well. In many cases, even a single Rolfing® session can often bring considerable relief.

  • Rolfing® is a process that systematically reorganises the body by adjusting imbalances in the myofascial tissue so that the body can reorganise itself with less effort. Our bodies get the opportunity to make use of gravity — being supported by it, rather than feeling pulled down. Observing the body from one side during the Rolfing® 10-Series, the ears, shoulders, pelvis, knees, and ankles will increasingly align themselves along this vertical line. The body’s structure becomes balanced.

  • As the body develops effortless upright posture and enhanced mobility, most clients experience a feeling of being lighter overall – while walking and standing. At the same time, they find stronger support from the ground. Their feet make better contact and they perceive their feet and legs to provide a more secure base. As a result, they stand more stably,

  • 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; and, these improvements are mostly long-lasting.

  • Clients re-learn how to feel and experience their own bodies through Rolfing®. For example, they become aware of questions that they might never have asked themselves before:

    How do I breathe?
    How do I stand?
    How do I sit?
    How do I walk?
    When do I pull up my shoulders?
    How does my body react when I’m stressed?
    Proprioceptive learning is promoted through the Rolferᵀᴹ’s manual work, verbal instructions and guided movements. However, clients participate actively throughout. Their newly gained body perception helps them be aware of, quickly identify and eliminate old movement habits. And, if they reappear, it is easier for clients to become aware and correct unfavourable posture or detrimental movements patterns. Thus, enhanced proprioception leads to increased body awareness, which is one key to Rolfing®’s long-term beneficial effects.

  • Body and mind cannot be separate. 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 enhanced sense of security and being centred. Rolfing® clients report more energy overall, more balance in difficult situations, more self-assurance, and an ability to display their inner selves more confidently. The fascia (connective tissue) is modulated by the autonomic nervous system. Long held bracing patterns can be worked with gently to allow the body to release and reveal the story it has been holding.

Rolfing® is a holistic body work process that affects body and mind positively. After only a few sessions you will notice that you are more flexible, you can breathe more freely, and that you have less strain. Every client’s experience is uniquely personal during Rolfing® Structural Integration sessions.

Fascia Expertise & Scientific Research

Scientific Relevance of Rolfing® Structural Integration

Rolfing® Structural Integration is as current as ever. The holistic bodywork method is receiving increasing awareness due to its uniqueness in combining manual fascial bodywork with movement practices and in providing a systematic framework of 10 sessions progressively helping the body to align with and be henceforth supported by gravity. A new solid understanding of fascia, which has only recently been recognized as our richest sense organ for proprioception and which has been found to host processes involved in chronic pain, supports the importance of this bodywork method.

Along with its growing popularity, the Rolfing® method has been gaining scientific relevance in recent years: new findings in fascia research, the 2021 Nobel Prize for the discovery of receptors for temperature and touch, as well as current scientific studies on the effectiveness of Rolfing® sessions all contribute to a growing recognition of Rolfing® Structural Integration..

OUR PRACTITIONERS

John McLane

I’m John McLane, a body oriented therapist, Certified in both Somatic Experiencing® and Rolfing® Structural integration. I am inspired by what happens when people learn to listen to their bodies and rediscover their natural ability to complete what has been held physically in the nervous system.

My path towards becoming a somatic therapist began in 2010 whilst attending extended silent meditation retreats. The importance of embodiment was clear but accessing and remaining with a broad felt sense of the body proved challenging. Fortunately I was steered towards Rolfing® and other somatic therapies. As a whole new world opened up, I felt intrigued and called to train and help others to integrate and heal from the impact of past events which impacts their nervous system and ability to be fully present. I am particularly interested in how trauma affects us physically, as well as mentally, and how touch enables us to process long held patterns of physical and emotional bracing.

I graduated as a Certified Rolferᵀᴹ in January 2017 after studying at the British Academy of Rolfing® Structural Integration. I have since qualified as a Certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) after three years of study with SOS Internationale. I am now an assistant on the full SEᵀᴹ training course in London with SOS Internationale and committed to continued education.

Somatic Experiencing® (SEᵀᴹ) supports the emotional and mental aspects of the mind-body. In SEᵀᴹ, trauma refers to incomplete reactions in the nervous system. It is not an event that causes trauma, it is the nervous system’s capacity that determines whether we integrate an experience or get stuck. This can happen in response to an acute event like a car accident, injury, surgery, combat, etc or it could be from ongoing stress like chaos, abuse in the home or a demanding, fast-paced work environment.

Our nervous system is designed to enable our survival and often does so by overriding the vulnerable expressions of an experience by prioritising what it perceives is needed to stay alive in the moment. When we are unable to remain present during an overwhelming experience, this suppressed energy stays in the body, tethering us to the past. These injuries to the nervous system accumulate, deepening tension patterns and demand excessive energy for the body to manage.

In a safe environment of non-judgment and attunement, I can help you to understand and resolve symptoms of trauma, overwhelm and chronic stress by connecting with your body and understanding the patterns your nervous system has learnt to adopt. As these patterns are gently explored and released, the events and unspoken narrative which informed the body’s need to brace and hold can be allowed to speak, creating long lasting and meaningful change. You will be supported to experience and discover your own resourcefulness and the new possibilities this can bring in order to move forward with curiosity, creativity and trust.

I offer Somatic Experiencing® Therapy (SEᵀᴹ) or Rolfing®, integrated with elements of SEᵀᴹ. Rolfing® and SEᵀᴹ compliment one another as body centred somatic therapies. Trauma is held in the body, particularly in our joints and connective tissue (fascia). Over time this can become compounded and gives rise to the many bewildering symptoms and syndromes of unresolved trauma.

“Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.” – James Joyce, Dubliners

As a Rolferᵀᴹ I work with people from diverse backgrounds, including musicians, athletes, dancers, yoga students/teachers, company executives and people who simply want the classic Rolfing® series and/or a kinder more connected relationship with their bodies.

People also come seeking improved performance in sports and the arts, help with chronic pain, or relief and resolution from the many bewildering symptoms and syndromes of unresolved trauma. As a lifelong musician, I am particularly interested in how creativity and our desire to express is connected to, and either enhanced or hindered by, our posture and habitual ways of being and moving in the world.

I enjoy helping people to enquire into how their posture, presence, and ability to connect to themselves and others is rooted in the narrative and river of their lives via the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Through a rich combination of Rolfing®, movement work and somatic enquiry, our habitual holding patterns and incomplete reactions within the autonomic nervous system can be understood, resolved, and released.

I offer Rolfing® and/or Somatic Experiencing®, independently or integrated.

The combined therapeutic approach of Rolfing® and SEᵀᴹ often shines a revealing light on ‘how’ we have been showing up in life. A compassionate dialogue between body and mind addresses the reasons ‘why’, creating lasting and meaningful change.

I look forward to working with you.

For more information, please get in touch:

Contact details 

Website: https://rolfing-se.com

Email: bookings@rolfing-se.com

Phone: 07511944276