Dr. Ida Rolf
Dr. Ida P. Rolf, the founder of Structural Integration work, was known by her students and associates to have a sharp mind and tongue. She had an insatiable scientific curiosity and a gift for putting sometimes complex ideas into concise phrases. My teachers frequently used three of her aphorisms to remind us of the basic principles of Structural Integration. Here we will look at the first of them.
“Where you think it is, it ain’t.”
Dr. Ida Rolf
Dr Ida P Rolf (1896-1979) was a respected scholar and medical researcher. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia University in her native city of New York in 1920. For the next nine years she worked at the Rockefeller Institute in the department of organic chemistry. Her search for solutions to her own and family health problems lead her to an exploration of homeopathy, osteopathy and chiropractic healing methods. From her practice of yoga she became fascinated with movement and the relationship between form and function. She determined that impaired function could be improved if form was changed by restoring length to the connective tissue in and around the impaired area. Finding ways to encourage length into these areas is the art of Structural Integration. Continue reading
Dr. Ida Rolf
“Movement is something we ARE, not something we do,” says Continuum Movement founder the late Emilie Conrad. As we breathe and our blood circulates our bodies are in constant motion; indeed, lack of movement is a prime indicator of death. Movement happens when a signal from the central nervous system stimulates a muscle to contract causing the body part to which the muscle is attached to move in a controlled manner. Controlled movement results from the dynamic tension existing in our myofascial/muscle system. Continue reading
by Wayne Still
The founder of Structural Integration, Ida P Rolf PhD, began to practice yoga in the 1920s while she was a research scientist at the Rockefeller Institute. This was decades before the practice of yoga came to be as widely known and accepted as it is today. Through its practice Dr Rolf gained an understanding of body dynamics particularly as it related to developing balance in the body and its fluidity of movement. Continue reading
In 1908 J. Madson Taylor MD penned the following lines:
No single therapeutic agent can be compared in efficiency with this familiar but perfect tool… The Human Hand. It is preeminently the instrument of the artist in all departments. The hand is an ever present agent of skill…. It is capable of infinite adaptation…. If half as much research had been expended on the principles governing manual treatment as upon pharmacology, the hand would be esteemed today on a par with drugs in acceptability and power….
by Wayne Still
The experience of having a bodywork session, whether it be Structural Integration or any other modality, can take us to another realm of feeling and intensity. Coming back to the reality of the session room and the world outside can take a time of reorientation. Here are some tips to help you with that process. Continue reading
Dr. Rolf first called her work Personal Structural Integration and formed a Guild for the practitioners she taught. In the 1960s she was working and teaching at the Esalen Institute at Big Sur in California. The Esalen Institute at that time was the hub of the human potential movement where people were exploring new ideas such as eastern philosophy, yoga, meditation, Gestalt etc, ideas which are now part of the common discourse. Continue reading
