From the moment of conception and forever after, man and woman have a never-ending  relationship with Gravity.  Rolfing integrates the human body into a structurally balanced  relationship within this mysterious force.  Rolfing transforms the body mass into a more  vertically appropriate structure.  This integrative process can relieve the stress and trauma  caused by the body’s imbalance within the earth’s encompassing gravitational field. 

The ideal relationship between the human body and the images and concepts of balance, 
alignment, mass, weight, and structure with the gravity field is the vertical line. 

Ida P. Rolf: "Man’s appreciation of the vertical evolves from his sense of the gravity    pull of the earth, and we assume that human beings are, as a species,  evolving toward vertically."

"Vertically – the way of evolution approved by Gravity."

Changes in evolution happen because of changes within the environment. Rolfing can
organize, modify, and integrate the internal and peripheral environment of the body. 

You must embrace the concept of Structural Integration (ROLFING) as it brings  Change to your body and to your life.  Gravity brings constant Change to your body.  Gravity does not first consult you to ask permission.  Gravity's energy is always there.  You must choose how you are going to deal with this constant and continuous influence.

There is no beginning; there is no end.  There is only change - there is only process.
It makes no difference to a body when you start, only that you start your Rolfing Process.

We are changing the way people experience themselves and the way they view  the world.  This work will change the way you  look,  feel,  more,  and think.  Structural Integration will expand your awareness and your life experience. 

A balanced body induces a high level of balanced physical and mental-emotional  behavior.  Gravity never changes, only people change.  The idea of change scares  the heck out of most people.  Change is inevitable, change is continuous, change is  dynamic, change is common, Change is Normal.  Our Rolfing process  invokes a  positive, constructive, organized, balanced, and integrated change into the human  structural system within a gravity relating structure. 

Change is going to occur whether you want it to or not, whether you plan for it or  not.  Change is the only reality which is a constant.  To not want to change is to be  insane.  Direct your change toward a constructive goal.  Structural Integration  (ROLFING) will bring a positive energy change into the formula of your existence.  Keeping your body organized, integrated, balanced - aligned - and uplifted, will  enhance your health, your movement, and your longevity. 

Rolfing is ontogenesis: "the evolution of an individual organism." and man, in process,  evolves upward into the vertical through the manipulation of, the release of, and the education  of the soft-tissues: the Connective Tissues or Myofascial Body. This Muscle-Fascia System is  a plastic medium. The "Protean" quality of plasticity enables the human body to be anatomically  ordered, thus lengthened and then centered along its vertical axis.  That is to say, that the body  has the quality, the opportunity of expanding into a plastic, elastic, resilient, Dynamic Movement  Unit in a continuing relationship between Gravity and structure.  The Myofascial System holds,  shapes, and positions the bones.  It holds, shapes, and positions the muscles, organs, fluids, the  vessels, and all the containers within the body-structure. It arranges and systematizes the internal  schematic- construction of the body.  Through in and throughout, from the deepest layers to the  periphery, the Myofascial System evolves & generates into the real structure of the body.  Therefore, the bones, muscles, and organs can be seen, therefore, as merely the spacers inside  this firmament: a predominant, copious, and abundant matrix-material.  The prevalence and the  enormity of this tissue can really be appreciated if we consider that the normal shape, form, and  contour of the body would be maintained by the myofascial connective tissues after all the other  tissues have been removed.

"Shape" is the morphogenic structure behind reality itself, and
it is "shape" which generates and determines all the laws of physics

The traditional allopathic view of diagnosis and prognosis deals with treating the symptoms  and does not ultimately deal with treating the cause. "Structure has to do with cause." If you change, modify, and transform the shape of the body into a more gravity appropriate  structure, you can effect and eliminate causal relationships.  Alleviating symptoms and pathology  is neither the focus nor the goal of Rolfing, balancing and aligning human structures in Gravity is.  Rolfing perceives the human body not as a group of parts, but instead as an aggregate of parts  existing as a total system of interdependent relationships residing within a single, complete and  whole, collective relationship. 
"Structure and Relationship" must be viewed within our morphological context as terms 
existing in duality, both reflecting and complementing one another.

Rolfing will facilitate organization of the body’s relationship with Gravity so that the  larger field of energy, called Gravity, will support, uplift, maintain, and sustain the much  smaller field of energy, which is man. The physical energy fields of man and gravity must  coalesce.  Rolfing will provide greater balance, agility, poise, grace, strength, speed,  efficiency, freedom, functional coordination, total movement ability,  thereby creating  total-structural-movement-capacity.

Conversely, trauma to any system creates imbalance.  Pain is an expression of imbalance.  Sickness and disease are bifold expressions of imbalance.  Rolfing blends, combines, unifies,  congeals, and then fuses the concepts of Gravity, energy, structure, alignment, balance, and  physical performance into the vertical, therefore, improving total body efficiency at every level.  As you approach perfect balance within a system, that system cannot support instability, and/or  stress, strain, pain, tension, disease, sickness, disorder, ……. diverse imbalance. 

Rolfing not only deals with the chronic problems of trauma both physical and body-emotional,  but, likewise, concentrates on the specific performance parameters of any sport from ballet to boxing,  and considers the physical efficiency of each and every athlete whether professional, serious amateur,  or novitiate.  The Gravity energy within you can generate the champion within you. 

Our  goal in the initial Ten Sessions is to provide for your body a  comfortable relationship with gravity and a new relationship with movement.  A body balanced in gravity will be directed toward health, healing, and vitality, and  away from sickness, disease, death, and decay. 

The Vertical Line.  The purpose of the first three sessions is to begin to organize the superficial  fasciae of the body.  Before we can effect and establish permanent change at the physical core,  we first must free the superficial fascial layers and organize the superficial planes of the fascial body.  Dr. Rolf referred to each of the Ten Sessions as an Hour.  Sessions one through three are the superficial Hours. 
Sessions four through six are the pelvic Hours. 
Sessions four through seven are the "core" Hours. 
Sessions one through seven are the lengthening and freeing Hours. 
Sessions eight and nine are the balancing Hours. 
Session ten is the last of the primary sessions and the first of the advanced sessions. 
The Ten Hour is also the session wherein we leave our focus of organizing the fascial planes and  concentrate on creating functional joints with horizontal movement.  The initial Ten Hour Process  will provide a client with a comfortable relationship with Gravity within the vertical line.  From the 9th Hour on, the focus of Structural Integration is directed toward balancing the body's  tissues and joints into a vertical and horizontal relationship to gravity resulting in appropriate  balanced movement through horizontal joints, through aligned tissue, through the vertical line. 
                              Gravity and Movement must become complimentary.  

A PREVIEW OF THE PRIMARY TEN-SESSION PROCESS:  The goal of every session is to horizontalize the pelvis and establish a functional  balance between vital capacity and having lumbars that lengthen with breath and  that lengthen in response with natural movement.  We want to balance the upper  shoulder girdle to the lower pelvic girdle.  The process and Recipe of our Ten  Session System is called The Rolf Method of Structural Integration, SI, and Rolfing.

The first three Hours are superficial sessions.  The 1st session is the Hour of Vital Capacity: 
Open the anterior thorax and increase chest expansion, vital capacity, and  physiological oxygenation. 
Free the shoulder girdle from the thorax to further increase vital capacity. 
Free the iliac crest and the lateral hip joint.  Lift the chest off of the hips. 
Free the upper leg from the lateral pelvis.  Bring the legs under the pelvis. 
Begin to lengthen the Back and neck.  The First Hour is an enrollment into 
the 2nd session, the 3rd session, and the complete Ten-Session Process.

The 2nd session is the Hour of the Feet and Legs: 
The second session is a continuation of the first session.  We will direct our  attention toward that part of the superficial body we did not focus upon in  the First Hour, the knees, lower legs, ankles and feet.  Having worked on  the front of the body in the First Hour, new we begin to organize the lower  half, the Back, and the spine.  We must create a foundation for the upper  half and the pelvis by establishing horizontal movement and support through  the pelvis, leg joints ankles, knees, hips, plus bring balance to the three arches  of the feet.  This will bring the legs under the upper half and support the pelvis.  We will lengthen the Back and neck to match the new length from below.   

The 3rd session is the Hour of the Quadratus Lumborum: 
The third hour brings to the body a new sense of its core and  an awareness  of a central line.  The First Hour open the chest, the Second Hour brought  the legs under the upper half.  Now the upper half is showing that torque  and drag are pulling the structure away from a central vertical line.  We begin to see spinal and segment rotations and resultant curvatures.  We will establish a lateral mid-line, front to back, in the thorax, and side  to side in the shoulder girdle.  We want to create a lateral mid-line from  ankle to ear.  During the 3rd Hour we also transcend from superficial to  deeper structures, from extrinsic to intrinsic layers, and into the core.

Hours 4,5,6,& 7, are "core" directed sessions. 
Hours four, five, and six are the Pelvic Sessions. 
The 4th sessions is the Hour of the leg Adductors: 
In the fourth session we work from the outside to the inside. 
We will work on the structures that pull the knees up and the pelvis down.   We focus on the medial adductors and the pelvic floor.  We will bring the  legs closer together functionally while lifting the pelvis and the upper half  centrally and vertically.  We will begin to balance the two ischial rami, and  center the sacrum.  As the legs move closer together medially, we must  lengthen the Back to match this new centered-medial core length. 

The 5th session is the Hour of the Psoas: 
We will will work on the Front of the Back.  We will deal with Ventral Drag. 
We will organize the rectus abdominis and free the bound-down tissue on the  frontal thorax, the costal arch, and the abdominal cavity.  Sometimes it will be  necessary to process the whole of the anterior chest and belly from clavicle to  pubis, from the lateral clavicles to the anterior wings of the iliac crests.  We will  bring balance to the psoas and the iliacus.  We will lengthen the anterior lumbars,  including the anterior longitudinal ligament.  We will provide freedom and length  for the psoas uniting the trunk, pelvis, and the upper legs.  The pelvis will come  up in the front and down in the back, which will lengthen the lumbars.  There will  be a horizontal line, front to back, from the pubis to the top of the 3rd coccygeus.  This pelvic bowl work will be an investment for the 6th Hour. 

The 6th session is the Hour of the Sacrum: 
We will work on the back of the body from calcaneus to occiput. 
We will attend to the deep pelvic rotators and the pelvic floor. 
We must bring balance to the structures inside the pelvis and to the legs  and spine outside, above and below the pelvis.  We must balance the sacrum/coccyx and lengthen the lumbars to the cervicals.

The 7th session is the Hour of the sphenoid: 
We must match the cervicals to the lengthening lumbars. 
The head and neck must be brought in a balanced state atop the spine  and to the shoulders/chest, moving freely, lengthening intrinsically without  drag from within or from below. 
We must balance the head to the neck and the neck to the rest of the spine. 
We will bring freedom and flow to the brain stem as it passes from the cranium  and through the first, second, and third cervical vertebrae thereby neurologically  stimulating and reviving the entire body and all of its systems.

Hours eight and nine are the "Balancing" sessions: 
The 8th and 9th Hours will either balance the pelvic girdle to the shoulder girdle  or sessions will balance the shoulder girdle to the pelvic girdle. 
These two interrelated sessions bring together all the changes established in  Hours  one through seven  We are practicing Structural Integration not just Structural Change. 
We must see, at this point, a choice of which girdle's processing will help to bring the  greater balance into the whole of the structure and  into to the other girdle  that we  shall work on in the 9th Hour. 
In these balancing Hours we  are dealing with Functional Integration as part of our 
Structural Integration Process 

Hour Ten is the Hour of Horizontal Joints: 
In session 10 we not only want to horizontalize the pelvis, we want to horizontalize  all the major joints.  We want horizontal and functional movement through soft  tissue and through the joints.  The tenth Hour is a completion of the ten-session  system and also a new beginning.  We have created a new level of structure,  balance, and most importantly, a new level of awareness.  It is, therefore, also  a beginning and a continuation.  Even though the primary process is completed,  your structure will continue to move into the vertical line for the following year  or so. until it is time for a short series of  Advanced Hours.   
Lift and balance will resolve time and compression. 
Your  body will always have a relationship with Gravity. 

Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D. "Up to this point in time, humans always developed and still  live within the Gravity pull of the earth. They must make peace with this energy field,  whatever it really is. To the extent that they fail to make peace and mistakenly carry on  a war, Gravity will win every time. The energy of this field can enhance or dissipate the  energy of the individual man." 
" You can not change the Energy Field, but YOU CAN CHANGE THE MAN ! "

"A paper by Andy Crow"
Copywrite© 1975 Andy Crow