What is Rolfing® and the Ten Series? by Christina Kettell
Rolfing is a deep, intense tissue manipulation that realigns the body’s structure. Rolfing creates a more efficient use of muscles, allows the body to conserve energy, creates more economical and refined patterns of movement and significantly reduces chronic stress. People seek Rolfing as a way to ease pain, chronic stress, and improve performance in their professional and daily activities.
Rolfing is named after the creator, Dr. Ida P. Rolf. She began her inquiry into Rolfing more than fifty years ago, devoting her energy to creating a holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education that organized the whole body in gravity. Dr. Rolf discovered she could achieve remarkable changes in posture and structure by manipulating the body’s fascia (connective tissue). She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1920 and continued her education in organic chemistry at the Rockefeller Institute. She studied yoga, osteopathy and chiropractic to gain a better understanding of how the body functioned. Eventually, she developed Rolfing Structural Integration and founded The Rolf Institute in Boulder, CO in 1971.
In creating Rolfing, Dr. Rolf developed the Rolfing 10-series. The Rolfing recipe consists of 10 sessions that, on average, last 1 hr. and 15 minutes. This Rolfing “Ten Series” is a sequence of 10 sessions which focus on certain body structures and goals. The 10 Series is broken down into three separate units.
Sessions 1-3 are the “sleeve” sessions and connect to the superficial layers of tissue. Loosening up the outer layers and improving the relationship between these layers is the first step in leading to deep work.
Core sessions, typically sessions 4-7, begin to penetrate a deeper layer of tissue and emotion that sometimes can be the more intense work of the recipe – I like to think of the core as being a person’s inner soul. Core is a conceptual space in the center of the visceral body, connecting to the deeper layers of tissue. During these sessions, the tissue starts to unravel and new patterns start to form in the body.
The last three sessions are the integrative sessions, bringing together all the previous sessions and completing the series. This is where the Rolfer integrates all the work that has been done into the entire body.
If you would like to learn more about Rolfing or schedule your first session, please check out Christina’s website at www.queencityrolfing.com.
