My Los Angeles Rolfing Experience

As discussed in the last post regarding session 8 – session 9 is more of a continuation from session 8 and are intermixed… meaning that session 8 might work on either the upper OR lower body, and then session 9 would focus on the other half.

I like this idea as well as other concepts that Al, the los angeles rolfer that I found, discussed with me, because it sets up the 10 session rolfing series in such a way that there is structure with flexibility based on the individual.

In my session 9, we worked on putting my upper body in order.  It was basically the same experience as session 8, but only with the upper body as the focal point.

One interesting observation is that pressure does not always equal release.  There are several other factors involved.  For example, time, for instance.  I walked into my first rolfing session saying to Al, “Now I can take a whole lot of pressure, I mean I like when people walk on my back, so really go to town as I really want to experience rolfing to the extreme”.

Al kind of laughed (inwardly), and told me that everyone is different and he would use as much pressure only as needed.  In seesion 9 we did a lot of slow, and long movements that were specific to the body.  So when I mean long I am not talking about a long movement like a sweedish massage, but rather a long length of time to release the connective tissue.

I had no idea how much tension I carried.  Al would place his hands in a very specific body part and just hold it there, and at first nothing would happen, and then I would find the muscle tensing up (uncontrollably, like it has been trained to do that from habit), and then out of nowhere it would begin to relax (but spastically like it was fighting the bad habit that did not want to let go), and finally a deep relaxation of the muscle,more than one can achive from just grounding and pounding the muscle alone.

I do not believe that there is any “magic bullet” for everyone… like a magic pill that will help you loose weight, increase your income, build loving relationships, gets you out of parking tickets, and does your laundry for you.  However, rolfing has set me up in such a way that it allows me to find my on “magic bullets”.  I find myself being more aware of my body on a moment to moment basis.  just like yoga emphasises the brreath to bring us back into the moment; rolfing has helped me achieve the same with my body.

The crazy thing is that this takes place several days, and weeks, AFTER the session!!  Don’t know about you guys, but I can not say the same for a massage or a chiropractic adjustment.

Next week we will be putting it all together with the last session of the series…  I love rolfing!

Dave