STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION - Key Persons
Dr Ida P Rolf, the founder of Structural Integration also known as Rolfing®, was interested in the nature and qualities of connective tissue. She studied the writings of A T Still, some of her work was based on those studies. From her own observations and experience she developed the ten series recipe as a teaching tool based on manipulating connective tissue. By following the recipe a practitioner can bring a clients body into a more harmonious relationship with gravity so gravity becomes a supportive force for the body, not something to fight against. Connective tissue has a characteristic that when stressed it becomes shorter, restricting its range of motion and taking the body out of balance. By releasing the restriction we can restore range of motion which helps to restore balance in the body. In my basic training the techniques we were taught to accomplish this used considerable force. The techniques were effective but at times resulted in a painful experience for the client.
Some seven years ago I began to learn a complimentary modality known as Visceral Manipulation. This is the work of French Osteopath Jean-Pierre Barral. In VM we learn to find and release restrictions using much gentler but equally effective methods to release the same restrictions. The main difference is that we learn to listen to the body and allow the body to tell us in which direction we should move the tissue in order for it to release. Generally this involves taking the tissue to a first barrier in a gentle stretch. It is at the first barrier that change can most easily occur when we follow the direction indicated by the body. Pressure used is minimal and we are sometimes accused of not doing anything!! During my most recent training in VM I learned the original Still technique.
The original Still technique uses the power of the first barrier to bring about change. In this method the tissue is not stretched to a first barrier but the tissue associated with the restriction is compressed, using bilateral pressure, to a first barrier. The tissue is held at that first barrier until a change is detected and its direction followed. When that movement ends the compressive force is released in the reverse direction to which it was applied. The tissue is then subjected to a quick circular movement ending the manipulation. I have found the technique to be effective in releasing soft tissue restrictions as well as restoring range of motion to joints. There is a ten second video showing A T Still demonstrating the technique on a mans shoulder joint. He compresses the ball of the humerus into its socket, makes a subtle movement with his hands then swings the mans arm in a wide circle. Lightning bone setter indeed.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a land not so far away there lived a gynaecologist named Dr Arnold Kegel. Dr Kegel noticed that as some of his patients aged they experienced increasing problems with incontinence. The problems were exacerbated if the patient was overweight, had given birth or had abdominal surgery. Dr Kegel also noticed that the condition was related to the strength of the pelvic floor. Women with a weakened or compromised pelvic floor had more of a problem. He deduced that if a woman exercised her pelvic floor to strengthen it, the problem of incontinence could be alleviated or eliminated. This observation led to subsequent study of the pelvic floor and how it related to a persons general health and wellbeing. A Google search of Dr Kegel will take you to a Wikipedia page with lots of information on the pelvic floor and the exercise Dr Kegel developed to strengthen the pelvic floor and which to this day bears his name. In this column I will give you an overview of the pelvic floor and why it is of such importance.
Among the many benefits of being a practitioner of bodywork are the opportunities to add more skills to our basic skill set and to experience their benefits. The most recent skill I have learned is cranial sacral therapy. Cranial sacral therapy was originally developed by an osteopath named William Sutherland in the first half of the last century. Through his observations and palpations he came to realize that the plates of the skull could and would move at the sutures where they join. From there he learned that all the bones of the skull were movable and responded to the breath. This was in direct contrast to the conventional wisdom of the time which was that the cranial bones became fused and immobile after birth. The work was taken up and popularized by the late Dr John Upledger in the latter part of the century. He noted that there was a force inside the cranium which caused the bones to move in a detectable rhythm. This rhythm he found could be detected and manipulated in all parts of the body if a person had a sufficiently sensitive touch.