I just took a wonderful workshop with Ron Murray, Advanced Rolfer, Osteopath, and Berry Method teacher. We explored the relationships in the ankle, knee and thigh between very mobile and less mobile but pivotal areas. These are termed lemniscate relationships. A lemniscate is a figure 8 and infinity symbol, and as such in the body describes a spirallic interrelationship of parts to each other and to the whole. When, in the body, the sacroiliac joint ( a much less mobile area) is out just a little bit, it has a major effect on the hip joint ( a much more mobile moment center). It can also be that the tissues that relate these elements can get stuck in a dysfunctional orientation ( like the fibers of the interosseous membrane of the leg after a sprained ankle). Focusing on these relationships is a way to resolve major muscle and orthopedic issues for clients.
It occurred to me that this way of looking at interdependent elements in a system, and how to identify fulcra for dysfunction and positive change could also apply to our emotional bodies, spiritual bodies, and how we relate to self and others generally. Food for thought, for me, and I believe that our body’s inner knowing responds to this by moving out of ‘stuckness’ in these primary relationships in our bodies and lives towards more freedom of choice and more awareness.
These posts are written for a diverse audience: potential Rolfing® clients who are trying to get a feel for what the work is like, and if it’s for them, as well as newer Rolfers™ looking for ideas for session work, and possibly even more experienced practitioners comparing notes and looking to get new ideas or insights. I do it all the time. Why not? If you’re a Rolfer, red the whole thing! If you’re a potential client, skim through it and see what stands out to you as interesting. It may not all make much sense. Contact me if you have questions. I love talking about this work.
There contemporary client is often like this. DS had major spinal fusions in her lumbar and cervical spine areas after a bad motorcycle accident that she had initially ‘walked away’ from with nothing except knee pain. MRI on the knee revealed no damage, but on the lower spine, later imaging revealed major problems which required surgery.
Today was my second session with her, the first being a month ago. In that one, I mostly ‘put out fires’ by easing peripheral nerves, but also gave her tools to strengthen the support around her lower back and sacroiliac area. Today I decided to start really working to improve her support from the ground. After gentle work to release the nerves in her neck for 15 minutes, I began the deep work into the legs that is one of the hallmarks of Structural Integration: work on the calves and feet to help the back ( we call it “Second Hour” type work). When I do any second hour, I always check the peripheral nerve involvement first, be it from the lower spine, abdomen, thigh or in the leg (calf region). I am also checking the basic shape (morphology) and axes of motion in ankle, knee and hip.
When you pay attention to the nerves, your hands get sensitized to problem areas. They just stand out to me as a tightness or a cable-like feel when they are inflamed or otherwise impinged. Joint levers don’t work normally, either, making a leg or arm feel unnaturally heavy in motion testing ( which I do constantly). Sometimes I focus on treating the nerve itself through slacking, pulsing or stretching it at the depth that I sense will do it some good ( often not very deep, including skin manipulation called dermoneuromodulation created by Diane Jacobs). Sometimes, though, I will work a complementary structure at the other side of a joint that I feel is pulling o that nerve and causing the problem ( ok, I probably will hedge bets and do both, but put more time and attention in one tan the other as appropriate). In DS’ case, strain in the tibial branch of her left sciatic nerve was markedly eased by working to ‘un-bow’ her left knee, including but not limited to rolling the quadriceps tendons medially, work at the back of the knee on popliteous and soles at the line of insertion.
To beginning Rolfers out there: when I do “Session Two” work, I also will ‘feather in’ work from related sessions such as four or six. Deep work along the adductors ( relating to session four) hamstrings ( after that sciatic nerve eased; from Sixth Hour in intent but in First Hour position), and even on hip abductors ( from Thurd Hour, lower body aspects).
It’s also important for me to just respond to the first thing I see. When DS walked, she held her arms very still at her sides. She had always had people remark on that, even before the accident, she said. She is small in stature at maybe 5′ tall, but her arms and shoulders are kind of large. I asked her if she and any feelings about how they looked, and she mentioned that she does feel self-conscious about them. Now this was actually the first stuff we worked on, before we did any “table work” today. I had her just stand and feel into the whole size of her body, and let herself occupy her whole space. I did not look at her while she was doing this, nor when she took that sense into walking, until after a minute of her own experimentation with that. “What is it like to breathe when you let your self fill your whole space like that?”” A lot easier!” “Do you notice you let your arms move more, too”” Yes!”
That ‘body image’ work at the beginning, combined with fascial (we were able to deep neck work in a seated position, opening scalenes and levator scapula through simple head rotations with deep contact from me in these areas), neural, joint release ( we did gentle yet effective osteopathy-derived techniques to release and balance the bones of the pelvis/lower spine) and reviewed her fitness goals ( walking; twisting exercises to cinch up the lumbodorsal fascia through waking up the internal and external oblique muscles). She has been doing lot better since the first time she came in a month ago, and was really happy about the progress, sense of ease and smoothness in gait and lack of lower back pain.
Basically, if you made it this far, you’re probably either another Rolfer or just naturally really curious. Great!!
What do you think? Let me know.
I work with a couple of hair stylists and theirs is a particularly challenging profession when it comes to neck and shoulder pain. Their arms are constantly raised to work with the client’s hair. I asked a client today to show me how they work with a client while cutting hair. She stood with her feet held tightly together holding her arms up, miming working on somone’s hair. In this stance and body attitude she was narrowing her base of support, focusing all of the work into her neck and shoulders. Imagine standing and working like that all day!
In addition to working to release tight fascia in her neck, all around the shoulders and more, I try to teach her how to use the ground to support the work in the arms and hands. Some of the ideas I worked with her on included staggering one leg forward, one back to broaden and engage the base of support; shortening the distance from the front foot to the hair-cutting action to allow the arms to be a little closer to her center line, thus decreasing the effort to hold them up; using that support in a fluid way, switching the forward leg depending on the action taken with the client (i.e., it was easier to bring the same-side leg forward to support extensive work on one side of the client’s head).
A key concept: finding breath and ease at the back of the armpit while allowing the shoulder blades to ‘drape’ over the ribs. This appropriately engages the serratus anterior muscles, the primary stabilizers of the shoulder girdle on the ribs. When we find this use of the breath in relation to a freed up sides of the ribs in breath and a loose feeling in the neck and trapezius, it feels like ‘moving from the back’ or ‘moving from the hips.’ It is a ‘connector’ in that way, allow us to lengthen and expand even while working our body/mind.
It also helps a lot to feel low back support while standing to work in this way. Feeling the whole foot in contact with the floor while working, even when twisting the body can also engage the transverse abdominal muscles, which stabilize the low back/pelvis relationship. I teach awareness of this kind of support as well as twisting exercises for the muscles of the waist ( not shoulders!) with resistance to strengthen the oblique muscles’ pull on the limbo-dorsal fascia ( it attaches there along the lateral rap he of fascia). When this fascia is cinched up in this way, it supports the lumbar vertebra and helps prevent low-back injury or pain.
How did today’s client react to this? After her functional movement check in described above, and deep hands-on work to release her stuck Sacro-Illiac joint ( SIJ) , to open the shoulders from the ribs and neck, free the arms from her shoulder, as well as opening the abdominal fascia, plus work to free adhesions between pleural layers and lungs or ribs, we got a good release.
The degree of shift towards a fully upright posture was a bit disorienting for her. I had her play again with her work position in relation to the ‘rocker stance’ described above. She then gained a much better awareness of the natural postural sway in the body, as if coming to the realization that fluidity and motion are the natural way to avoid getting stuck in painful and awkward positions at her work. After receiving the hands-on work, it was easier for her to implement the functional and postural changes in how she stands and moves to work.
This is how I work: free the nerves; mobilize major fulcra like the SIJ, open fascial adhesions, work on body awareness and movement behavior, work to train weak muscle groups that need to be stronger to buttress and support the change we want.
Working with a client today with back and rib pain, and a lot of scoliosis. We started ‘the big project’ today of unraveling things from the ground up. For someone with a lot of scoliosis, this means ( for me) working on a particular restricted pathway or joint in the legs, then having them stand up and see what happened.
Sure enough, after doing work on her legs and thighs, the scoliosis asserted itself much more visibly even just in standing still. It’s as if we decompensated her legs, meaning that we worked to release a lot of the compensatory holding in her legs and hips caused by the scoliosis. You could see this as a corkscrewing action into the ground that enables someone whose spine is fairly twisted to face forward. Once the legs are uncoiled, the scoliosis is free to express: one knee way in front of the other, one hips way forward, hips skewed far to the right with the torso way over to the left and so on. Then we worked to release the ‘driver’ of this pattern, in her case ( and everybody is different!) strong restrictions in fascial tissues in the area near where the descending colon becomes the sigmoid, as well as around the kidney, bladder and down into the hip itself. A flattening in the torso above has been straining her ribs, causing them to pop out, and I worked with her to open related fascias. But, again the legs looked a little disconnected. Solution for today? Tracking, i.e. getting the joints to work properly in simple knee bends by guiding them with my hands in standing. For me, this is about finding the counter-rotational movements at tibia and femur, in addition to engaging the client’s nervous system while relating to gravity. The result: hips back over the feet, also an absence of pronation ( which has been a problem) and noticeable increase in space at the waist ( and a more even connection to the floor, all the way to the top of her head.)
That was just our third session, though ( and, in my mind, was a “Session 2′ in Rolf speak, as in “initiating bilateral support.” There was no way I was going to do that “2” without using elements of 4 ( the inseam line), because, simply, the pronation and knee knocking were not at all driven by her lower leg. In a test on the table for me to assess motion at the knee, counter rotation between femur (slightly lateral) and tibia (slightly medial) seemed perfect to me. So…maybe this gives you some idea of all the stuff that goes through a Rolfer™’s mind?
Small epiphany: magic is available to us every day, in the everyday; a lot of this has to do with how available we make ourselves to experience and to others, and to our own bodies. Frans deWaal, in his “The Bonobo and the Atheist” show how what we think of as essentially and solely human qualities such as altruism and fairness are actually deeply rooted in our animal heritage. So, our deeper embodiment, and opening into our ‘animal selves’ could actually help us open up more to our inner kindness and generosity, benefitting all of our relationships and social bonds, making us better human beings. Nice reason to get some body work, huh?
