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Balanced~Movement© I have been blessed with a unique profession. I do a rare and powerful form of Therapeutic Bodywork called Rolfing® Structural Integration. Trained at the Rolf Institute® in Boulder, Colorado, I am expert in the field of human physical structure. I became interested in Rolfing after I met Dr. Ida P. Rolf (1896-1979) in 1972. I experienced Rolfing in 1973. I learned through this experience that the human body is not what we have taken it for. It is not what society tells us it is. It is not what the western medical establishment says it is and it certainly is not what we were taught about it in high school physical education. (By the way, Dr. Rolf called “physical education” as it is taught in American schools a misnomer and I can’t help but to agree with her.) My Structural Integration experience demonstrated to me that Dr. Rolf was absolutely correct in her assertion that the body is a plastic medium. She taught that gravity is the therapist. Her life work demonstrates that the human body frame can be released from its chronic pattern of collapse in gravity and aligned with the gravitational field of the earth. What a concept! Imagine the good news it would be to the world that bodies do not just have to collapse, dis-integrate and fail with use and age. Bodies can be put back together. How about that! Early in my Rolfing career, I realized that when a body loses its alignment with gravity, the next thing that disappears is the possibility of balanced movement. I knew this was true because I had experienced it in my own body. I knew that there had to be a practice that would teach the body how to move in a balanced fashion. When I found Lathi, my heart sang because I knew instantly that this was the missing piece. Over the decades, I have drawn some interesting distinctions about Lathi. I knew that the movement of Lathi is a powerful therapeutic tool to help bodies to heal and to move according to their anatomical design. But I also knew that learning a martial art is too far, too much for many people who don’t want to fight; they just want to feel better. There is also another segment of the population who want to exercise in a balanced, sane and sensible way that does not take them apart like most sports and calisthenics do. I knew that I had to find a way to separate the movement from the combat. And that is exactly what I did. I extracted the pure human body movement from the martial art known as Lathi and I created a system of balanced body movement that I named Balanced~Movement. (© 2000—Texas School For Structural Integration.) Balanced~Movement is ancient wisdom for modern times about how the human body moves and how it does not. It is tremendously valuable to Therapeutic Bodywork on many levels. Balanced~Movement taught me how to find my center from where all movement radiates through the body and out into the world. I found that every movement validated what I had experienced about Ida P. Rolf’s work. In Structural Integration, we talk about gravity, line, core, balance, length, extension, order and movement. In Balanced~Movement, I found that I could experience all these concepts on a physical body level. Now as a Structural Integrator, I am better able to transmit this valuable information into the bodies and the consciousness of my clients. As a Structural Integrator, I am especially interested in the effects that Balanced~Movement has upon the body structure. The movement is organized so that every vector of force is counterbalanced by a matching and opposite vector. This takes place in all dimensions, left-to-right, front-to-back, top-to-bottom, and that most elusive of balance—inside-to-outside or as we know it in Structural Integration, core-to-sleeve. The result of this symmetry and balance is that the entire body is in full balanced motion except for only one still point — the center. Structural Integration and Balanced~Movement combined to give me my first experience of a still center. It is from this place that I strive to work and to impart that experience to my clients. In 2000, I established the Texas School For
Structural Integration, the first and only
school in Texas to teach the Ida P. Rolf Method
of Structural Integration. Dr.
Rolf considered that Structural Integration is
incomplete without a balanced movement form and
I agree. Therefore, at the Texas School For
Structural Integration, Balanced~Movement is an
integral part of There are Balanced~Movement classes for the general public taught right here in Austin, Texas. See our school website for the schedule. www.TXschoolforSI.com ©Balanced~Movement is a copyright
(2000) of the Rolfing® is a registered service mark of
the Rolf Institute®, Boulder, Co. |
