Is Rolfing a banana or chocolate chip?

Is Rolfing a banana or chocolate chip?

Yesterday someone asked me to explain to them what rolfing was in five words. I said ok but first let me ask them a question. I asked them to imagine I have never had a banana and to explain to me what a banana tasted like in one word. Their answer to me was “sweet.” I nodded my head in approval and then I asked them if I ate a chocolate chip would this be a banana to me, as it was also sweet? What if i ate a more starchy banana that wasn’t sweet? Then I would not understand his explanation at all.

The point of this exercise is not to be difficult, and I understand how it can be perceived that way. The point is to begin to explain how the definition can be very helpful and also can take us very far from what the experience is. And for me, Rolfing is a way of learning to become aware of oneself in relation to their experience. I’ll try my best to explain this in easier descriptions below.

If someone has bad posture, their experience of their body is largely unaware. The awareness of bad posture may be there, likely only as a thought, image or a feeling and not necessarily awareness of the pattern of muscular tension throughout the whole body. One’s posture is informed from everything in their life until right now that has brought them and their body to this body place experience. Working to free the tension patterns holding their body as it is (aka posture) is a way of bringing more awareness to what is. As their body finds more freedom there is a sense of the pattern before I worked on them and the current pattern after I intervened. This is also informing themselves of the current lived experience of being in their body.

We may think we live in our bodies, but if we don’t truly know why we are in pain or in bad posture then this process of Rolfing can help us begin to understand the larger experience of what we are always living through. It also can give us more agency, comfort and ease in our daily lives.

Pain, discomfort and even thoughts take us away from our most truest self. The experience of being that essential essence of yourself has no words to describe it. And any shortened, or even elongated version of that explanation is still not “it”. This brings us closer though and hopefully this is helpful for you to begin to understand what Rolfing can be for you. 💕