Rolf Movement® Integration
Rolf Movement Integration addresses, in detail, the dimensions of Rolfing® Structural Integration (RSI) that are touched on more briefly in the standard ten series of work. These other dimensions are:
- Perceptual Dimensions of RSI—how we build an experience of our world and our body
- Coordinative Dimensions of RSI—how we regain plasticity to the learned automatic patterns of coordination–our motor patterns
- Expressive Dimensions of RSI—the ways we are able to bring forth what is inside us, to outward forms of expression, verbally and in gesture.
- Self Regulation Dimensions of RSI—the skills around coming into balance with our nervous system and emotions
- Meaning Dimensions of RSI—how we become conscious of and skillful with, the meaning making processes of consciousness that affect posture and movement.
Rolf Movement Integration was initially based on work that Dr. Rolf did with Amy Cochrane. Over the past fifty years, various creative individuals have played a key role in developing this work including: Judith Aston, Dorothy Nolte, Heather Starsong, Heather James, Gael Rosewood, Jane French, Annie Duggan, Jane Harrington, Vivian Jaye, and Hubert Godard.
Rolf Movement was influenced and shaped also by the work of FM Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Hatha Yoga. In the twenty first century, Rolf Movement continues to be informed by an explosion of research into motor control, perception, and brain mapping, to name a few examples of the science that informs what we know about movement.
Rolf Movement tradition and the way it is taught closely parallels the ten series of fascial mobilization that Dr. Rolf developed in the 1950’s and 60’s. There is a progressive series of themes and steps to bringing people into better harmony with gravity.
Gravity orientation is fundamental to the Rolfing and Rolf Movement process. Gravity orientation is fundamental to the Tonic Function Model of the work. Articles about this model can be found in the Resources in Movement web site: http://resourcesinmovement.com/articles-archive/
Kevin Frank is an Advanced Rolfing® Structural Integrator Rolf Movement® Practitioner and Rolf Movement Instructor for the Rolf Institute
Caryn McHose is an Advanced Rolfing® Structural Integrator Rolf Movement® Practitioner and teaches movement in courses for structural integrators and other movement teachers and therapists.