Spring is just around the corner. After a very wintry winter, how are you really faring? Have you been active all season long or are you instead emerging from hibernation and experiencing rigidity in your body? Are you carrying the postures of trudging through snow and bracing against the cold? Would you like to feel more in tune with the upcoming arrival of spring? Rolfing Structural Integration (or Rolfing SI) — a dynamic and holistic system of manual therapy and movement education — can help free your body from the heaviness and contraction associated with hibernation and hunkering down so that you can expand to feel lighter and more upright while moving with better balance and efficiency.
Many of us have become so used to inhabiting our bodies in a certain way that we become unaware of other movement options available to us. With aging, we slowly accumulate toxic stress, accidents and years of wear and tear from sitting behind desks or performing repetitive tasks — we may find ourselves experiencing chronic pain, losing flexibility or just not having our usual pep. Sitting, standing and moving with ease while maintaining “proper posture” becomes difficult because our bodies have “forgotten” how to find their healthiest centers of gravity. In other words, the weight of the past literally drags us down and impedes our ability to be thoroughly present.
Through the Rolfing SI process, a Certified Rolfer helps facilitate healing with a client’s dysfunctional relationship with gravity. By focusing on manipulating and re-educating specific segments of connective tissue called fascia, a client is taught how to relate differently to his or her environment. Body history and accumulation of armoring or chronic tension patterns are released as the body is balanced around a vertical line through a series of ten sessions.
Addressing alignment issues may not only make you feel more like spring, but it can also positively affect you on multiple levels. As bones and muscles can finally do their proper jobs, energy is freed up and the body can now move more efficiently. Functioning of respiration, digestion, circulation and the nervous system is enhanced and the ability to handle and process stress may dramatically improve. Better balance and body symmetry can shift posture and movement patterns in such a way that chronic pain may often ease or disappear entirely. Many individuals who have experienced Rolfing SI have reported that changes in their physical structure help them connect with themselves in a deeper way, reinvigorating vitality that allows space for emotional and spiritual presence.
Shedding the heaviness and rigidity of winter will help your body transition more smoothly as you move, flex and expand into the warmer months. A spacious, flexible and balanced body is a more resilient and adaptable body that will help you to spring right into summer!
Victoria L. Huss is the Certified Rolfer™ and owner of New Possibilities Integration LLC in Downtown Appleton. She finds joy in helping people unfold and find freedom from rigidity and chronic pain. Victoria offers free consultations. For more information, contact her via phone at 920- 427-7653 or on the Internet at www.wisconsinrolfing.com. Rolfing® is a registered service mark of the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute®.
