The Rolfing® “Ten series” can be viewed as a basic recipe which all Rolfers™ follow to achieve their common goal of balancing the client’s body in gravity. However, individual Rolfers™ work in different ways and also recognise that each client is unique and so we adapt the recipe to suit their style and their client’s needs. This description can be viewed as a general outline of the goals and procedure for each session.

01: Freedom to breathe

In addition to starting work on any specific structural issues, the main goal of the first session is to free the breathing – As a Rolfer™, I aim to evoke a more balanced and efficient breathing pattern by freeing fascial restrictions around your torso, shoulders, neck and head. I also begin the process of mobilising and horizontalising the pelvis by working around hip joints and legs. You will be shown the benefits of enhanced breathing awareness and typically recommended simple things to notice to address your specific breathing issues.

02: Finding support

I work mainly with your feet, lower legs and knees to establish a more stable and adaptive base of support for changes that will take place later on in the upper body. An improved awareness of your connection with the earth can help you establish a firm sense of ‘place’, a sense of belonging without which it may be difficult to move on mentally and emotionally.

03: Creating space and owning your place

Specifically, front/back balance is evoked through work with the side surfaces of your legs, arms, torso, neck and head. This session continues to free the breath and evoke four way movement in ribs, Energetically, the aim is to bring awareness of energy flow down the lateral sides of your body from sky to ground.

04: Finding your core, connecting earth to sky.

In this session, I begin working to establish a core of support in the legs, from the inner arches of your feet up the inside surfaces of your legs to pelvic floor. I also lengthen and ease the spinal curves and evoke a sense of energy flow up through the core from ground to sky.

05: Activating the core

In evolutionary terms, Humans have only recently learned to stand upright on two feet instead of four. Dr. Rolf observed that in terms of walking with the same efficiency and ease as some of our four legged cousins we are still only at the ‘toddler’ stage. She firmly believed that Rolfing® was here to help Humans evolve through to the next stage in our quest to connect with the stars. The theme of session five is to teach walking with ease. Session five connects the legs to the spine through iliopsoas muscle and follows the flow up through the upper body, using a concept of a spinal engine that greatly improves efficiency and lessens stress and strain on the lumbar spine and hip flexors (so often the cause of low back pain).

06: Freeing the spine

The goal of this session is to continue the work started in session five by working with restrictions in your back, legs and pelvis to enhance somatic awareness and bring 2-way flow of subtle movement to the spine.

07: Getting the head on straight

If you have any trouble with the following; saying “Yes” or “No”, suffer with continual back ache, eye strain, TMJ problems, headaches or vertigo, then it may be because your head is out of alignment with the rest of your body in gravity. Balancing the head on the shoulders is a vital piece of the jigsaw in bringing a body inline with gravity. In the seventh session, I continue to  ease restrictions in the upper back, shoulders and neck and begin work on the muscles and fascia of the face and inside the mouth for a balanced relationship between cranium, spine and jaw. This is often a time that I can  use cranio-sacral techniques to balance the cranial pulse.

08: Putting it all back together

Session eight begins the closure cycle, or Integration. By now, your unique structural issues are in the foreground. Session eight is the final opportunity in this cycle to resolve any specific structural imbalances before bringing everything back together in sessions nine and ten.

09: Integration

Rolfing does not seek perfectionism, just the best that the body will allow in its present state of being. At this point, the Rolfing process has put a vast amount of new information into your body; changed structural relationships and new movement possibilities. We aim to liberate the whole person, however, it’s more of an initiation into a deeper understanding of your conscious and subconscious levels. Therefore, the final two sessions are meant to ensure that new information is integrating to the best effect by the client and that the client has a clear idea of what they want to keep exploring and what they will pass by for now. 

10: Closure

Having worked through all planes of the body multiple times over, enhancing the effectiveness of breathing and resolving old patterns for new ones, it’s time to reflect on what has been gained from the process and what will continue to unfold. .

What is the wave of a session like:

During a Rolfing session, there is time dedicated to the manipulation of fascias and time spent in education in gravity (Rolfing Movement).

I listen to your needs and real life experience and then look at your postural alignment as you stand and walk, and ask you to notice what ever sensations you may notice. These observations, as well as, several manual tests, allows me to approach your symptoms in their globalism along with a personal strategy for your session.

I then invite you to lie down on a massage table and with my hands and forearms, I work progressively with your physical structure, or the substance that connects everything in the body together like a net. Light and deep pressure with direction generate suppleness and fluidity to the different tissues. Little by little, they become organized and balanced and your overall tone improves.

As we progress together through the series, I gradually invite you to welcome new perceptions that these changes provide and propose simple movements to enhance that, helping you to be present to your impressions and your new ways of moving. Enhanced circulation implements itself in the areas being worked, allowing better relationships between different body parts and greater efficiency and ease of movement. The autonomic nervous system also balances itself, permitting a healthy alternation between states of vigilance and relaxation.

Once you return to a vertical position – sitting, standing or walking – I propose a short period of time to pay attention to how your posture is transforming itself, giving access to a new coordination of movements and appreciation for a state of embodiment that you can access and work with at any time.

Many new perceptions emerge: the feeling of the feet being anchored, the sensation of lightness, ease of breathing, the opening of space around you and therefore an upward lengthening of your posture, fluidity of movement with a feeling of overall stability.

The goal of Rolfing Movement is to perpetuate these new sensations by recognising them, naming them and making them your own.

A full Rolfing® series can…

• Improve posture, balance and freedom of movement.

• Enhance energy efficiency for more “get-up-and-go”.

• Help with recognition and release of habitual and restrictive movement and postural patterns.

• Increase whole body awareness and provide new options for how you meet the world.

• Reduce unnecessary tension in the body and bring relief from stress related illness.

• Bring about a more positive self image

• Ease muscle and joint pain

• Improve sports performance

• Help your body to be more adaptable and resilient to future injury.

Subsequent Work

Rolfing® is effective because it remains sensitive to and works with the body’s innate wisdom. Rolfing always changes the body but only at the speed it wants to change. Sometimes there is a feeling at the end of the series that just a few more sessions would complete the process. If this is the case then we can discuss this option with you. The work of Rolfing® and the new body awareness that it evokes, continues to bring change long after the series is finished. It is better, therefore, to wait a few months to see where the body wants to go before receiving more work. After this initial rest period I offer a follow up series of five or three tune up sessions. I believe that movement work helps to more fully integrate and embody your new structural changes. I also am happy to schedule occasional treatments whenever you feel the need.