Foundations of Structural Integration
Dr Ida P. Rolf, PhD
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The founder of Structural Integration, Ida Pauline Rolf (1896 - 1979), spent her life exploring the potential for healing within the human body.
Dr Rolf was driven to examine a wide range of healing approaches and body-mind disciplines, including osteopathy, chiropractic medicine, yoga, the Alexander Technique, and Alfred H.S. Korzybski’s study of consciousness. Her vigorous investigations eventually led to the development of her system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education, Structural Integration, commonly and affectionately called Rolfing. |
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Central to her approach of balancing the human body and enhancing somatic health is Dr Rolf's insight that our bodies must constantly engage with the earth's gravitational force. This pervasive force not only reinforces any bodily distortions caused by injury, trauma, or poor posture, but also promotes compensations throughout the wider structure. Over time, these imbalances will manifest as all manner of dysfunction and discomfort.
Ida Rolf's goal was to realign the body and allow for an upright posture that worked in harmony with gravity, not against it. She developed a process of structural re-balancing that focused on systematically manipulating the body's connective tissues, fascia, and re-educating poor postural and movement habits. By establishing a more dynamic relationship to gravity, her method promotes lasting improvements in alignment, ease of movement and on-going greater well-being. This is process is typically accomplished through what has become known as the 'Ten Series'. |
“Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as a constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over 40 may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem, so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored: they are off balance. They are at war with gravity.” |
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In 1971, Dr Rolf established the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration to provide training and promote continued research into Structural Integration. In the last two decades there has been the growth of multiple schools providing quality education in her enduring method of structural reorganisation. As this work spreads wider in the world, these schools are now certified by the International Association of Structural Integrators (IASI).
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Ida Rolf, 'Rolfing' a client
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