by Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.
The writing of this book has extended over four years - four years of the odd weekend, the in-between couple of months stolen from a heavy schedule of teaching and lecturing, traveling and treatments. The perceptive will notice that it changes pace and level from time to time, the influence of time and discussions as the circle of rolfing has widened, the result of reflection on the questions of students. The book is inten ded for two types of readers: the interested but untrained layman and the professional wanting technical information. We have attempted to marry these two levels of complexity, chiefly through the medium of the illustrations and their captions, which often have more technical information than the text.
Structural Integration is a statement of a point of view. Although we have tried to retain an sense of how Structural Integration fits with traditional ways of seeing the body, the main effort has been to unfold its ideas and implications in light of our experience. The technique of Structural Integration deals primarily with the physical man; in practice, considerations of the physical and inseparable from considerations of the psychological.
Many will read this book hoping that it will answer the question, What is rolfing? It does, of course, answer that question, but perhaps not in the expected form. The book is a demonstration of the principles of the body, the manner in which it is made, and how this creature can change. The technique of Structural Integration is a conversion of these ideas into a therapeutic tool. The technique itself involves a ten hour cycle of deep manual intervention in the elastic soft tissue structure (myofascia) of the body. The goal of this treatment is, in brief, that if tissue is restrained, and balanced movement is demanded at a nearby joint, tisue and joint will relocate in a more appropriate equilibrium.
This is a simplified statement; the reality is more complex both in practice and in effect. We have made an effort to give no helpful hints to those who would enjoy a little home experiementation. The technique of Structural Integration is powerful, and the resultant changes are far-reaching. As practitioner we do not aim for change alone; we wish to induce change towards balance. Change without balance can be destructive. Experience has taught us that recognition of balance and understanding its many ramifications are subtle arts and long term disciplines. Balance in the body does not reveal itself to the diletante; it is a matter of intuition, experience, knowledge, and study.
Structural Integration does not "cure" symptoms. In fact, as practitioners we refuse to consider or diagnose symptoms except to investigate possible reasons for postponing our work (e.g. acute pain or illness of any kind, prolonged or massive medication or addiction). In addition to the obvious change in structure and stance, there are many other varied effects of rolfing. They are best summed up in the phrase "I feel better" (or "lighter" or "easier"). The added ease, the improved vitality are the result of greater balance; this does it own beneficial work on physical and psychological ills.
We are asked if rolfing is permanent. Rolfing enters into the body's proces and changes its course. Unless an accident intervenes, the body will continue along its new course. The effects of rolfing are not simply permanent, they are progressive.
We have included about a thousand photographs and drawings. The photographs give at least a static impression of the changes resulting from Structural Integration and illustrate the definitions and comments on average structure. It should be noted that, with two exceptions, all photographs are of individuals processed by students during training classes. The two exceptions are practitioners of Structural Integration who received additional procesing in the course of their training.
The anatomical drawings presented an unexpected and difficult problem what was needed were drawings that would make graphic the anatomical balances discussed in the text. We soon discovered that the illustrations in standard anatomical books show no balance. Presumably, this is because the models used for these drawings are mostly hospital dissections, usually of bodies that suffered from disease and privation. John Lodge's problem was ot convert this textbook anatomy to balanced, living anatomy. A practitioner of Structural Integration, he accomplished this in drawings that are masterpieces of clarity and style, giving a new look at human anatomy and a new point of view for the student.
As we have discussed the ideas of this book with friends and associates, it has become obvious that one of its contributions will be to the concepts relating psyche and soma. It is an accepted truism that body and mind co-act, express each other, influence each other, yet there are few satisfying constructs defining the relation. Does psyche determine physiology, or is the oppoiste true? Where do the various schools of physical and psychological human improvement fit in? What could be called a valid definiton of human improvement? We are adding to this discussion the evidence of experience with the ideas and the technique of Structural Integration. We hope to reader will gain objectivity from our experience and perhaps shift the level of his understanding.
Rosemary Feitis
New York, 1973
CF-1,2 It is hard to believe that this vital, well-organized young black woman is the same as the dreary, depressed figure on the left. Ten hours of processing over a period of five weeks have accomplished this.
CF-3,4 These pictures of father and son, neither of them processed, demonstrates the similarities to be found in families. Some of this is certainly the result of genetic endowment; bit probably more has to dow ith the environmental and cultural factors fostered with family groups. "Like father, like son."
CF- 5,6,7,8 These solarizations, made from photographs of Mr. H, document his change over a five week period.
CF- 9,10 These record the visable changes in head and neck conformation of Mr. H in one significant hour of Structural Integration - the seventh. At this point in the processing, the entire hour is devoted to organizing the head and neck. In the case of Mr. H, the success of this hour's work is clear. The change in facial expression evoked in personality expression.
CF- 11,12,13,14 These two pairs of photographs record the changes in each of these two men occuring as a result of one hour of processing.
CF- 15,16,17,181,19 The five photographs shown here depict neck movement as it manifests in an integrated body. Mr. R, a practitioner of Structural Integration, has been the subjet of many hours of processing in the course of his training. As a result, his spine shows sturdy resilience. This contrasts with the hypermobile body and posterior lumbar spine he showed as a child, and is evidence of the value of Structural Integration to young people. Note the way his head rotates on deep lying muscles, with little or no disturbance of the superficial shoulder and neck muscles. The way the cervical spine extends upward and lifts as he tips his head backward, and the position of his ear over his shoulder; both are signatures of a more adequate cervical spine. The verticality of the sternocleidomastoid muscle as the neck rotates is an indication of developing balance in the cervical muscles.
CF-20-38 This final set of photographs records the movement of Mr. J during his two training classes as a practitioner - a period covering eighteen months. They are self-explanatory. Fortunately for the record, Mr. J shaved his very becoming beard during the period, and there can be no mistaking even at a superficial glance which are the "before processing pictures", and which are the "after". It is instructive to realize that the basic structural problem in this body is the very anterior lumbar spine area. As this assumed a more normal position, his entire movement pattern changed. This is evident in the knees accepting a straight-forward direction, in the neck slowly becoming longer and further back, and in the freeing of the arms and elbows, thus transferring responsibility for arm movement from arm muscles to the broader, sturdier muscles of the trunk.
12-1 Anterior view: Pictured here are the autonomic centers as well as the spinal (not autonomic) lumbar and sacral plexi. The autonomic nervous system organizes and directs visceral economy through a complicated chain of nerve ganglia lying on the anterior aspect of the spinal structure. In turn, these autonomic ganglia send communicating branches to the central nervous system, enclosed within the brain, and the vertebral canal. Developmentally, the autonomic is the older of the two nervous systems. It seems to function completely outside voluntary monitoring (although recent experiments have cast doubt on this). Distortion of the spinal structure through myofascial incompetence and/or disorganization can transmit structural stress to these plexi and ganglia and interefere with adequate nutrition and, therefore, performance. The next time someone says to you about some physical misery, "Its just your nerves," realize the physical reality he is talking about looks like the illustration.
Lecomte du Nuoy in his Road to Reason said, "As long as we ignore the relations that unite a physico-chemical phenomenon to the vital and psychic phenomenon that can accompany it in a living organism, we cannot say that we thoroughly understand its significance." That inspired worker spent much of his life searching for the whole man. In these words he registered recognition that the summation of seperate parts or even seperate physiological systems accepted in the classical tradition does not constitute a human being.
Something more than an aggregate of discrete parts is needed to see function, to see meaning. Nevertheless, individual costituent parts must first be known and appreciated. One important clue to this riddle of synthesis is available. Gaston Bachelard discussed it in his epistemological profile La Philosophie du Non. In this remarkable insight, he presents five epistemological keys by which a gradient universe of phenomena may be understood. Each of these yields meaning in accordance with the mental sophistication of the observer. In an expanding universe of understanding, the classical linear world explored by Aristotle (the linear world of a cause linked to an effect) gives way to a more subtle spiral universe; here, all parts relate multidimensionally. It is the universe of Einstein, of modern physics. It is the world of biology and physiology. It is a process world, the world of life. The central reality of this universe is relationship. This is our world in which Strucutral Integration has its place. Our problem in communication has been that this world does not readily submit to logical exposition.
In the linear world, where a specific effect is linked to a specific cause, vital psychic function has usually been attributed specifically to the nervous system rather than to other somatic componenets (some workers have included the glandular system in the is world of affect and psychic quality).
12-2 Lateral view: There can be no question that any consideration of the whole man must include some understanding of the physical realities of the nerves -- their relative physical size, their paths through the body, their universal distribution, their wide-reaching effects. The nervous networks, central and autonomic, have long been known, and their roles have been investigated in great detail. While basic, this system is not he only mechanism for communicating within the body. In this book, we introduce a new point of view, that the myofascial system functions as a means of communication. This system is qualitatively different from the neural, for it is mechanical rather than electrochemical. It is nevertheless a tranmitter of information throughout the body. We postulate that lines of strain within the myofascia (i.e. deviation from the horizontal-vertical relation) alter the informational content of the system. (From Spalteholz, ATLAS OF HUMAN ANATOMY, Fig. 1511)
12-3 The world is full of heavy, earth-bound people whose walk dramatizes their misery and is an outward expression of their burdon of grief. This would be a psychological description from th appearance of this man as he walks. A physical assay carries a different evaluation. It reports that in his walk this man is a the victim of a badly rotated pelvis with compensatory limitations in upper spine and shoulders. The anteriority of this neck and head are balancing his anterior lumbar spine. All these distortions interfere with the psoas-rectus balance necessary for a light, free gait.
In Structural Integration, it becomes increasingly apparent that appropriate interaction of the several systems rather than optimal fuction of any one is the key. This means that a man's over-all vital or psychic competance is determined not by the individual energy level of any one component system (e.g. the head, the nerves) but the functioning of all as they interrelate in the total somatic individual. It means specifically that training the nervous system in an effort to produce a superior person cannot be sucessful. On the contrary, his nervous system must somehow be brought into balance with his other somatic potentials, even though it may demand downgrading the apparent competance of the nervous system.
Such reasoning has startling implications. A lesser nervous system paired with other body systems approximately matching its own relatively lower level would make for a more balanced, more viable life pattern than a very highly intellectual nervous competance paired with a lower general somatic capacity. In our experience, this revolutionary conclusion is warranted. Part of the general malaise of our culture is overestimation of the nervous system. If the nervous ssystem is sucessfully to survive the educational, nutritional, and other demands made on it in our current culture, it must be supported from other quarters. Structural somatic balance can add this support. To train our young people for high nervous output, we must give thought to developing a method of raising the energy level of their other somatic systems, to think in terms of of the man-as-a-whole.
The human nervous system, in its physical bulk and complexity, has been generally accepted as the vital element distinguishing humans from animals. It has been logical to assume that training and developing this system is properly the primary goal of educational procedures. This may have been an appropriate assumption at an earlier date. The informational burdon consigned to the nervous system was less in the days of such universal geniouses as Thomas Jefferson, to take one example. There was less to be known and less to the be learned, and the number of people trained for learning was proportionately smaller. In the first quarter of this century, a smaller proportion of the population was exposed to the intensive intellectual training demanded in the best classical colleges. In today's pattern we try to spread the intellectual training so widely that many individuals are faced with nervous demands that their general somatic component cannot support. In this kind of imbalance, vigor (here a synonym for over-all tone level) is consistently drained. The body gives no balanced support to the highly stimulated nervous system. In this sense, the demands on many of our young people are completely unrealistic. They cannot meet them, and in increasing numbers they are electing not to try.
Mainstream research on the nervous system has shed great light on its anatomy and physiology. Nerves transmit electrical currents; these currents can be measured, their rates of transmission and paths studied and recorded. The happenings at the synapse (the junction of one nerve from another), chemical and physical events that together spell the passage of the message, have been worked out in detail. But the study of nerves per se is not the province of Structural Integration. Our work deals primarily with systems derived from the mesoderm. More than any other, these heretofore neglected, seemingly unimportant systems now offer help to achieve a harmonious wholeness of man.
A "whole man" can evolve only when his nervous system is supported internally by his myofascial web and externally by his gravitational field. It is this combination that supports the nervous system, as evidenced by the increased security of the personality when this system comes into balance with gravity. More than any specific nerve therapy or vitamin, myofascial integration gives buoyancy and strength. Many times this change seems almost instantaneous. Such speed is difficult to interpret. Probably this spontineity relates to the myofascial ground substance rather than the collagen fibers, since the fibers are characterized by slow reactions, slow changes.
In Structural Integration, reactions occur that are outward evidence of changes in the nervous system itself. For example, electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements have shown fundamental rhythm changes in brain waves long after actual manipulative work has been completed. Occurence of such obvious basic change tends to generate an undiscriminating optimism with respect to the breadth of the potential of this method. Where relatively superficial behavior patterns are involved, optimism has been justified. For example, as we have worked with young people in acute schizophrenic breakdown, the stress they manifested was lessened, and their behavior pattern changed. After any structural processing, generalized stress is lessened. We have made studies of the chemical content of the blood that show this, but we may still ask whether this changed blood chemistry is the cause or the result of the improvement.
There are many changes following Structural Integration that involve the nervous system. Significant functional improvement, seemingly of nervous origin, can be brought about. For example, the long-term functional effect of the paralysis that follows polio or cerebral hemorrhage can be greatly lessened. Sometimes hemiplegia or paraplegia can be helped. But close observation of these changes shows unmistakably that damaged nerve tissue has not been restored, but that deep-lying shortened muscle, which is the scaffolding for the nervous system, has been lengthened. In this way, the muscular bridging has been repaired and function improved. The picture of the immobilized patient, the so called paralytic, is primarily a picture of chronic contraction of myofascia, usually relating to deep intrinsic structures rather than to more superficial structures. Their rigid spasm is such that agonist-antagonist balance is lost, partly through local contrictio, partly through general compensatory interferences. Such muscular spasm can be relieved at least to a degree, and this can be rated as improvement. But the nerve itself does not mend. The nerve message does not go through.
Relieving ridgidity and improving some measure support from the gravity field gives a degree of restoration reaching beyond local myofascial improvement. Compensatory movement paths are established more quickly and more surely. Often a subject is no longer as consciously aware of his limitations. The objective observer, however will still see a residual lack of function - the failure of the nerve itself and ther persisting damage in individual nerve pathways. Sometimes, movement is so improved that it is difficult to assume (with consensus physiology) that damaged nervous tissue cannot regenerate. Is nervous tissue once destroyed, irreparable, as has been assumed? We have no answer. This question can finally be decided only through the mesurements possible in newer technology. Damage to a nerve through crushing or tearing (as in an automobile accident) is another area where we find ourselves frustrated and unhappy. Once again, we can evoke improvement in function, but we cannot completely erase damage.
Consolidating this data makes the picture more definite: the nervous system per se is not the domain of Structural Integration; we do not directly work with it. But we have come to believe that the observable improvement in nervous function demondstrates the wide-ranging effects of the myofascial system. Reinforcements between the energy fields of man and earth, resulting int he greater competence of man's function, depend on myofascial, not nervous, chemistry. As we have said, the chemical responsiveness of the ground substance and the elasticity within the helical collagen fibers seem to be mechanisms that implement the myofascial regeneration.
As the structure improves,what accounts for the new competence? Various possibilities suggest themselves. Some nerve trunks are embedded in the surface of the fascial framework (for example, the autonomic nervous system); some are protectively enclosed within the skeletal armor of spinal vertebrae (as is the case with the central nervous system). As the fascial framework shifts its span and position for the better, spatial relations of the embedded or encased nerves must also change. This offers an opportunity for improved nutrition and may be a mechanism by which the nervous system profits. Evidence for this conclusion is offered in better physical coordination and more serene, balanced emotional behavior in the individual.
These behavioral indices have long been accepted as signatures of the health of the nervous system. What is going on in our process of balacing that gives this beneficial result? We must admit that we do not know. It may be that a changed ratio between chemical elements contributes, or that unknowns yet unmeasured are responsible. Up to this point, we can evoke improvement, but we can only begin to define and describe the mechanisms through which it comes about. Metaphorically, but only metaphorically, we can say that integration seems to deal with functional levels of energy, of being. Perhaps this statement really points to the activation of different spatial levels at which nervous tissue is delivering its charge to the central monitoring system. The work of Dr. Valerie Hunt at the Movement Behavior Labratory at the University of California at Los Angeles suggests that some of the control of movement originally rather laboriously under the charge of the cerebral cortex is passed on to lower levels (the thalamus, perhaps) as they become more competent. Cortex function and energy are thus freed from mechanical demands.
Researchers under the direction of Dr. Hunt have measured electrical output in various muscle groups through the use of eletromyographic (EMG) techniques. Dr. Hunt's measurements of people whose myofascial systems have approached better balance through Structural Integration reinforce our visual observations that balanced usage gives rise to more efficient movement and dissipates less energy. This more efficient movement involves a changed pattern; in the new, only such muscles are in action as directly contribute. (For example, all too many people walk with neck and shoulders initiating the movement, as evidenced not only by visual observation but also by the presence of a myographically recorded interference pattern from muscles in the area. In the body perrforming efficiently, walking is limited to structures below the twelfth dorsal verebra. Above this level, themuscular pattern should be one of rest.) Dr. Hunt's measurrements show unmistakably the energy economy of this more efficient walk.
A body whose components are symmetrically distributed around a vertical line dissipates less of its energy in meaningless movement and meaningless tensions. Therefore, the electromagnetic energy field that such a body generates around itself remains of necessity greater and more consistent. In such bodies the reservoirs of available energy must stand at a higher level. This may be a component (or a reflection) of the abstraction energy body. At least one definite claim can be made: the balanced body is capable of much better perception, much better awareness. Such enhanced functions may well bridge the levels at which these different energy manifestations take place.
The energy body sought by students of psychic phenomena is defined by them as operating at a great distance without loss of intensity or time; this implies that this type of phenomenon is nonelectromagnetic. Ordinary radiant electromagnetic energy disappears with distance - it lessens according to the square of the distance from its source and the time of its radiation. This rate can be measured. Thus we must be dealing with two different kinds of phenomena, semantically confused by the ambiguity inherent in the word energy as we use it. We have seen some evidence indicating a relationship between the two. We believe the integrated body to be a more efficient radiator of its electromagnetic energy. It may well be that this has implications for psychic energy as well. This is something that only time and better technology can demonstrate. Perhaps there is another, or several other, realities. Is "balancing" actually the placing of the body of flesh upon an energy pattern that activates it. The pattern of this fine energy would not be as easily disorganized and might well survive, relatively intact, traumatic episodes that ordinarily distort flesh.
This pattern of flesh called for by balanced structure is very definite and is essential for economy of function. Departure from this map gives rise to energy confusion and waste - in other words, to inadequate performance. This is what electromyographic assays on twelve unprocessed bodies have shown. In the human energy complex, perception, evaluation, and intervention are simplest at the most dense level, the physical body, where confusion shows as malfunction.
This in now way invalidates our hypothesis that the basic villain is gravity. Any energy system can function in the abstract; our real world demands a patterned system. It is real gravity in the real world that drags down the unbalanced material body and displaces it. By then, distortion of the whole is well under way. Material particles, wherever found, are the expressions of a force field generated by the relationship between their moving molecules. (These may or may not be the only energy patterns in a body.) As the body loses equipose and therefore integrity, the basic set of relations is disturbed (although the mechanism of the distubrance is still undefined). Disruption at this level will show in personal behavior, both physical and psychological. At an earlier date, speculation about force fields of matter might have seemed fanciful. Today, scientists both overseas and in this country are speculating on a basic world of nonelectromagnetic, causational energy underlying material manifestation. To date, such speculation has been verbal and limited to workers in the field of ESP. The task of demonstrating and measuring such a field will not be simple; adequate assaying instrumentation has yet to be devised. Indications are that this is a new and different type of energy requiring new measuring devices. Since so many highly qulaified investigators are now addressing themselves to this problem, its solution cannot be far off. With this solution will come new insights into answering the question, What is man?
If the balance that offers a man so much greater well being is really a more precise superimposing of a coarse body on an energy element, many physical and psychical phenomena can be understood. If such a hypothesis approximates reality, the remarkable speed at which man changes and perceives his own change for the better (as seen also by any onlooker) would be understandable. Answers and the measurements that establish them cannot be far away. Our concern, however, is less with the speculative question that it is with the more practical related query: How can man be changed so that his energy - his capacity for creativity - may be greater?