Imagine being comfortable in and with your body—and seeing the same for your child. Imagine your child paying attention, sitting still, and coordinating movement with newfound ease. Imagine yourself and your loved ones with increased range of motion… less tension… greater enjoyment of the senses. Envision Rolfing® Structural Integration.

Almost any individual can benefit from Rolfing®, whose aim is to align body parts to support and work with one another to maintain balance and alignment in gravity: such alignment helps maximize energy, ease current or chronic pain, and reduce the potential for future injuries.

A Rolfing® practitioner, called a "Rolfer," works with the body's connective tissue, called fascia. Rolfing® is thus distinct from chiropractic, which focuses on bones, and also distinct from massage (even "deep tissue" massage), which focuses on muscles. Even slight disruptions in the body's matrix of fascia can effect chronic pains, restrictions of movement, and lower vitality, but Rolfing® can help.

The fascia, which can be as tight as steel cable or as viscous as Jello®, helps protect us: it supports or, when necessary, essentially "takes over" the support function of muscles or compromised joints or bones. Fascia cannot, however, "take over" movement functions. Fascia is wonderfully designed to tighten in areas of temporary vulnerability or injury. (This is especially true for individuals with cerebral palsy, Tourette's Syndrome, Asperger's Syndrome, or an autism-spectrum condition whose nervous systems may deploy muscle tone inefficiently.)

Fascia helps non-injured muscles and joints fill in for injured ones. Unfortunately, fascia doesn't always return to normal once a temporary vulnerability has passed. Its support of weakened muscles or joints, once crucial, now hinders movement of those same muscles or joints, which have since healed. Bottom line: fascia can stay tight, but a practitioner of Rolfing® or KMI can work with fascia to help restore a person's balance in gravity and expand his or her repertoires of movement.

Rolfing® sessions at the McNatt Learning Center, Inc., may also include gentle visceral manipulation, which has been reported to help promote digestive flow, reduce bedwetting, and overcome constipation.

Almost any individual can benefit from Rolfing®, whose aim is to align body parts to support and work with one another to maintain balance and alignment in gravity: such alignment helps maximize energy, ease current or chronic pain, and reduce the potential for future injuries. While Rolfing® is educational in nature and not a treatment for any illness or mental or physical disorder, clients who pursue Rolfing® are often motivated to reduce one or more of the following:

• Difficulties with balance
• Difficulties with coordination
• Spastic muscles
• Hypertonia
• Pervasive muscular or joint pain
• Headaches
• Adhesions
• "Held" muscle tension
• Temporal-mandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction
• Lock jaw
• Cramping (including menstrual cramping)
• Stress

Rolfing® may also be recommended by a physician as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for accident recovery, working through post-traumatic stress syndrome, or restoring freedom of movement, in which case Rolfing® may be covered by medical insurance.

Many varieties of body work and massage can help loosen tight tissue, reduce stress, and foster a feeling of relaxation and well-being—all common elements in testimonies about Rolfing®. What, then, makes Rolfing® unique?

Observation

First, Rolfing® is dynamic. Moving in gravity requires nearly constant adjustments. For example, if when standing, you are told to raise your arm in front of you, the first muscles to contract are not the muscles that move your arm. Rather, the first muscles to contract are those of the ankle and leg, which anticipate how raising your arm will change your center of gravity. Many techniques of physical manipulation rely on antiquated models of motor planning. Rolfing®, in contrast, maintains that there is no "universal" model of optimum movement—and even if there were, trying to imitate it would generally increase inefficiencies. Thus, the Rolfing® practitioner, called a "Rolfer," begins each session by observing a client's sitting, standing, and moving in gravity. Clients wear only undergarments or swimsuits (two-piece for women) in part to facilitate this observation. Since the way each person feels his or her body and perceives the surrounding space is as unique as a fingerprint, a Rolfer depends on observation to understand some of this uniqueness and to guide palpation, which helps further inform each Rolfing® session.

Palpation

Second, Rolfing® is highly personal. As a session gets underway, the Rolfer will palpate, gently touching into the tissue, feeling for imbalances in tissue texture, quality, and temperature to determine where to begin working. Simply being known this deeply—and being truly accepted as the work of God each of us is—can be life changing.

Discrimination

Third, Rolfing® is highly precise. Deeper touch in a Rolfing® session rarely begins "where it hurts." Rolfing® discriminates, separating fascial layers that adhere and muscles that have been pulled out of position by strain or injury. Thus, the deeper touch in a Rolfing® session generally begins in areas that are adhered to or pulling on or away from "where it hurts." Sometimes, we live and move as an amalgamation of disorganized "parts." Simply feeling ways that our "parts" are connected, helping us live, move, and have our being as individuals—and as parts of communities whose inter-connections reflect the same quality of design as our bodies—can also be life-changing.

Integration

Fourth, Rolfing® is purposeful. Other soft-tissue manipulation methods, including massage, may involve some palpation and discrimination; few, if any, effect as much integration as Rolfing®. Dr. Rolf used to say, "Anyone can take a body apart; very few know how to put it back together". How true! Rolfing® does more than help people slough off stress: Rolfing® integrates the body, orchestrating its parts in an improved relationship, bringing physical balance in the gravitational field. Rolfing® is the art and science of reshaping and reorganizing human structure according to clearly defined principles in a systematic and consistent manner. As such, Rolfing® is unique.

Education

Unlike many physical manipulation techniques, Rolfing® is educational. In each session, Rolfers seek to impart insights to clients, to increase awareness and understanding, and ultimately to make the changes Rolfing® achieves truly a client's own. Rolfing® is about changing, yes. Rolfing® is also about becoming a more authentic self.

Certainly, a main value in Rolfing® is its ability to correct long-standing structural imbalances, yet Rolfing® can also be highly beneficial to the young. When children are injured from falls or minor accidents, they may seem fine on the outside since the cut or bruise has healed. On the outside, most children heal readily even from more serious injuries. As any of us heals, however, we are rarely the same as we were before—and children are no exception.

By the time a child heals, minor changes have taken place in the connective tissue, in the joints, and in the muscles that were injured. Small tears or pulls cause the tissue to thicken. Soon, muscles begin to adhere to each other and are less able to function as discrete entities. These changes may express themselves as a slight limp, lower energy, decreased range of motion, or impaired strength. Rolfing® can make a difference.

Early intervention by a Rolfer aware of the unique needs of children can make a profound difference in a child's awareness, comfort level and self-concept. Simply receiving personal, purposeful, and supportive touch can be of immeasurable value to a developing child. Rolfing® of course, provides such touch—and more: it creates palpable, long-lasting changes in a child's connective tissue matrix. During and after puberty, a time of great insecurity and emotional turmoil for most of us, Rolfing® frequently also has a profound effect on the developing youth's awareness and comfort in his or her rapidly changing body-mind—an effect above and beyond Rolfing®'s obvious structural benefits.

Children watch, and children learn, imitating the language, movement, and patterns of expression of their parents and other important adults in their lives. They develop patterns that can be seen in family photos and can become as much a part of their makeup as hair color, height, and predispositions to certain hereditary illnesses. Adult complaints of chronic backache, neck pain and other physical and emotional stressors often originate from such childhood patterns, and Rolfing® can help.

Have you experienced, personally, a pain that not only persists, it gets worse the more you move and the older you get? Do you know any children who may be starting down that familiar path? How long have you endured what Rolfing® may help resolve? How long will they?

Due to the potential for release of tension and toxins stored in tissues, Rolfing may be contraindicated for a person with active cancer; rheumatoid arthritis, leaky gut, or other chronic inflammatory disorder; or restricted lymphatic flow, especially if that person is not using a natural detoxification program. It is the responsibility of each client to weigh the risks associated with the release of tension and toxins when considering Rolfing®.

For scheduling options, service fees, and directions to the learning center, click Services.

To set up an appointment with an area Rolfer, contact
Barb Wendel, Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner
NCBTMB Nationally Certified and Member AMTA

Naperville, IL 60563
(630) 357-5134

Ottawa, IL 61350
(815) 433-9500, ext. 112

To set up an appointment with an area practitioner of KMI, an intervention similar to Rolfing®, contact

R.D. Hunting
Standing Wave Bodyworks
144 Harrison Street
Oak Park, IL 60304
(708) 445-0727.