GRAVITY GOT YOU DOWN?
By Beth Berkeley, Certified Rolfer®
~Don't resign yourself to going downhill with age just yet~
When you feel those all too familiar aches and pains, when you get out of bed in the morning and straighten up a little more slowly, do you tell yourself, “I’m just getting old”? Underlying this oft-repeated phrase is the erroneous belief that less energy, less mobility, aches, pains and a greater propensity for injury are a normal, downright unavoidable part of the aging process. Well I say, hogwash!! You may be tempted to defend such a belief by pointing to the mounting evidence amongst your peers. Well, such decay may be average, but it is certainly not normal.
In the 1940’s, Dr. Ida Rolf, a Columbia educated Bio-Chemist, made just such a distinction between what was average and what was normal in human structure. The uniqueness of her approach stemmed from her application of the laws of mechanical physics to the human body, while for the previous 250 years science had looked at the human body primarily in terms of chemistry. Soon, people who failed to find help elsewhere for their chronic conditions began to gravitate towards her work.
As Dr. Rolf lengthened and balanced bodies, she made an undeniable meta-physical observation. That is, a tendency for a balanced body to give rise to a better human being. This led her to become a pioneer in the field of human potential during the 1960’s. She called her work of normalizing human structure, Structural Integration, and later her students called it Rolfing®. Today, Dr. Rolf’s work has evolved into a professional community of over 1,500 Rolfers in 26 countries.
Thanks to my discovery of Rolfing nearly 10 years ago, at 40 years old I stand more than an inch taller than I did at the age of 20. Before that, like so many, I was looking for fitness in all the wrong places….at the gym, in long hours pedaling a bike. However, what I did find was myself tighter and tighter and eventually more and more frequently visiting my physician, chiropractor and physical therapist. As my complaints mounted and failed to respond to treatment. I began to hear the mantra from friends, family and professionals alike “you know, you are getting older”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Apparently, once one reaches the age of 30, any symptom that can’t be blamed on a known pathology, an injury or some aspect of an unhealthy lifestyle is lumped into the, “what we should accept as part of getting older category”.
My quest to find another answer finally led me to a Rolfer and to the physical reality of more energy, strength and agility in my body than I had previously experienced at any age. In hindsight, I understand that what I needed was not to find a cure for my maladies, but to find an altogether different relationship to my body.
So, if the common belief about what is a normal part of the aging process is off the mark, then what does Rolfing offer as a more plausible explanation? Simply put, gravity exerts its force evenly. It tends to drag down and compress unbalanced bodies and naturally uplift balanced bodies. What we see around us is not the inevitable decline of old age but poor postural habits and the accumulation of unresolved injuries and stress that have thrown the body structure out of balance. Through systematic hands-on manipulation of the body’s’ connective tissue, Rolfing re-shapes bodies, re-educates movement and releases unconscious patterns.
The gospel of Rolfing is this: when the body gets working in a way that allows the force of gravity to flow through it, then, spontaneously, the body heals itself. Or, simply put, where there is ease, there is no dis-ease.
Lets take a look at our heads as an example: Reminiscent of the old adage, Rolfing strives to give us “a good head on our shoulders”. The human head weighs approximately one-seventh of total body weight. So, on a person with a 150-pound build, that’s a head weighing over 20 pounds! A single car accident, a childhood fall ice-skating or umpteen hours at a computer monitor can leave the head cast too far forward. The body then adapts by recruiting the muscles of the upper back and shoulder blades as “pinch hitters”. These muscles act like the reins on a horse, constantly contracting to keep the head from falling further forward. Just imagine how much energy it takes to lug around this 20 pound weight for 16 or more hours a day.
Never mind that this is a recipe for eventual trouble in the neck. Shoulder blades can either stabilize the head or they can stabilize the shoulders and arms; they can’t do both. This is an all too common scenario: the shoulders and arms are unable to move freely making them more prone to injuries such as tendonitis, rotator cuff tears or carpal tunnel syndrome.
Rolfing can be very effective at relieving such injuries but at its’ heart it is more about restoring vitality by organizing the body in a way that uses the least amount of energy possible to breath, sit, stand and walk. To this end, the skilled hands of a Rolfer work to bring the center of the ear into alignment vertically above the center of the shoulder. Now imagine, with the head resting into its intended support what might be done with all that energy once used just to hold that 20 pounds!
For this Rolfer, both professionally and personally, Rolfing has shown itself to be the closest thing one might find to the fountain of youth.